| Taken Question Office of the Spokesman Washington, DC March 24, 2008 QUESTION TAKEN AT THE MARCH 24, 2008 DAILY PRESS BRIEFING Unauthorized Access to Passport Records (Taken Questions)Q. How does the Department use contractors in processing U.S. Passports?
A. Contract staff have assisted with processing passport applications for many years. Direct-hire U.S. government employees have the sole responsibility for adjudicating passport applications to determine if applicants are U.S. citizens and qualify for passport issuance. Contractors support government employees by answering customer service enquiries, printing and mailing issued passports, and entering data. Q: On Friday, the Spokesman said the Office of Passport Services had about 1,800 State Department employees and about 2,600 contractor employees as March 2008. How does this ratio compare historically? A: Contract employees have been an important part of the Passport Services workforce for many years. Since 2001, contractors have comprised about 40%-45% of the workforce at passport agencies and centers. There was an upturn in the ratio of contract to government staff in 2007 due mainly to the opening of the contract passport personalization facility in Arkansas in April 2007. Approximately 800 of the 2,635 contractors work in the National Passport Information Center. These employees assist customers with current applications and do not have access to the Passport Information Electronic Retrieval System (PIERS). Q: How many contractors are there in all Passport Offices in the United States? A: 2,635. Q. How does the list of documents in the Federal Register notice (73 Fed. Reg. 1660, January 9, 2008), which are maintained in the Department’s archive of passport records, relate to documents accessible through the electronic passport record (i.e., PIERS)? A. The list of documents which appear in the Federal register reflects the universe of documents that could be maintained in the passport system of records. The Passport Information Electronic Retrieval System, or PIERS, with access to only a small subset of those documents, typically contains only the applicant’s passport application form (including photograph). In complex circumstances, for instance if there are grounds to suspect possible fraud, if a person born overseas claims citizenship by virtue of having an American citizen parent, or in certain passport applications from minors, we may need additional evidence to review the applications, and we keep this information in the passport file with the applications, accessible by PIERS. Q: Under what circumstances would miscellaneous materials such as medical, financial, arrest records such information be included? A: The vast majority of our passport files contain only the passport application form. In more complicated cases, such as those involving a derivative citizenship determination, law enforcement issues, or possible fraud, we may keep originals or copies of other documents in the file. This represents only a very small percentage of our files. Q. The Comment and Review Period for the Statement of Records Notice has ended. Is the proposal in the Statement now in place? What is the status of those proposals? A: The routine uses described in the Statement of Records Notice went into effect on February 25, 2008, after the 40-day period for review and comment (by the public, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congress) ended. The Department did not receive any formal comments on the Statement of Records Notice. Q: How do agencies identified as routine users (DHS, etc.) access passport records? A: Third parties are allowed access to PIERS based upon agreements with those agencies as to how they will use this data and protect it within the Privacy Act. Q: According to the Federal Register you plan to expand access to passport records to Interpol and certain foreign governments? Why would you do this? A: The United States government has an interest in sharing data on lost and stolen passports with foreign governments for the purpose of combating efforts by terrorists or others to obtain and use false identity and travel documents. For example, we have data sharing arrangements with Interpol, and with foreign governments that participate in the Regional Movement Alert System, which allows for automated checking of lost, stolen or otherwise invalid passport records. We do not provide the foreign governments a copy of our data or with access to PIERS. During travel, a U.S. passport number is checked against our list of invalid travel documents to ensure the traveler is not using an invalid document. Foreign governments query our data and we confirm whether the document has been reported lost or stolen or is otherwise invalid. 2008/219 |
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