Social Security Administration
Section 515 Information Quality Act

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued government-wide guidelines under section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001.

The OMB section 515 guidelines:

• Are intended to ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information disseminated by Federal agencies
• Direct each Federal agency to issue its own information quality guidelines
• Require each agency to establish procedures that allow people to seek correction of information disseminated by the agency on or after October 1, 2002, that is subject to section 515 and which does not comply with the agency or OMB guidelines.

These guidelines conform to the guidance, scope of applicability, and intent of the guidelines issued by the OMB.

Information that is NOT subject to the Information Quality Guidelines includes:

Benefit Information

• personal information received as a result of agency adjudicative decisions, such as notices
• program publications that explain benefit programs and how to apply for benefits, such as pamphlets
• information about individual Social Security records

If the information you want to correct falls into any of the categories listed above, or in any way involves the status of your benefits, please call us at 1-800-772-1213 or contact us.

Other Excluded Information

• procedural and policy manuals, and other information pertaining to basic Agency operations
• management information that is produced primarily for internal use
• research reports clearly identified as not representing SSA positions, whether prepared by SSA staff or grantees whose research we funded.

Information that IS subject to the Information Quality Guidelines includes:

• statistical or actuarial information prepared for public dissemination
• reports, studies and summaries prepared to inform the public about the impact of Social Security programs or for use in formulating broad program policy.