The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. ยง 552a,
establishes a code of fair information practices that governs the
collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable
information about individuals that is maintained in systems of
records by federal agencies. A system of records is a group of
records under the control of an agency from which information is
retrieved by the name of the individual or by some identifier assigned
to the individual. The Privacy Act requires that agencies give
the public notice of their systems of records by publication in
the Federal Register. Click here to see a list
of DOJ systems of records and their Federal Register citations. The
Privacy Act prohibits the disclosure of information from a system
of records absent the written consent of the subject individual,
unless the disclosure is pursuant to one of twelve statutory exceptions.
The Act also provides individuals with a means by which to seek
access to and amendment of their records, and sets forth various
agency record-keeping requirements. |