Information Quality

Background | Scope | Information Quality Standards | Administrative Complaint Mechanism

Scope

Guidelines outlined here apply to information disseminated to the public in any medium including textual, graphic, narrative, numerical or audiovisual forms. However, these guidelines do NOT apply to information disseminated in the following contexts:

• Between government employees or agency contractors or grantees
• Intra- or inter-agency use or sharing of government information
• Correspondence with individual persons, press releases, archival records, public filings, subpoenas or adjudicative processes
• Responses to requests for agency records under the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act or other similar laws

These guidelines do not override other compelling interests such as privacy, trade secrets, intellectual property and other confidentiality protections. Nothing in these guidelines affects any otherwise available judicial review of agency action. The guidelines do not apply to opinions where the agency's presentation makes it clear that the material is an opinion or the agency's views rather than fact.

These guidelines apply to Secret Service or Department-sponsored distribution of information (where the agency directs a third party to distribute information, or the agency has the authority to review and approve the information before release).

Finally, these guidelines apply to information posted on the Internet by the Secret Service. (The guidelines do not, however, apply to hyperlinks to information that others disseminate.)