Management Advisory Report: Proper Disposal of Sensitive Documents at the Social Security Administration's Headquarters (Limited Distribution) (A-15-04-24103)

The objective of our review was to present to Agency management areas of concern with regard to the Social Security Administration's (SSA) policies and procedures for the proper disposal of sensitive documents.

SSA's procedures dictate that individual records containing privacy-related information must be destroyed by shredding, burning, or pulping. Individual offices or components may accomplish this by designating separate burn bags or shredding individual documents.

During a separate audit, we identified concerns regarding employees disposing of sensitive information that was not shredded. The unshredded documents contained Social Security numbers and other identifying information, such as names, addresses, earnings, and date of birth.

We made several recommendations to improve SSA's policies and procedures regarding disposal of sensitive documents. SSA agreed with our recommendations.

This report contains restricted information for official use. Distribution is limited to authorized officials.