Census Bureau's Title 13, U.S.C. Confidentiality Pledge Revision 30 day Federal Register Notice

PRA Cybersecurity Emergency Clearance 30-day FRN 12-6-16.docx

Census Bureau's Title 13, U.S.C. Confidentiality Pledge Revision

Census Bureau's Title 13, U.S.C. Confidentiality Pledge Revision 30 day Federal Register Notice

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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE


Confidentiality Pledge Revision Notice


AGENCY: Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau


ACTION: Notice of Revision of the Confidentiality Pledge under Title 13 United States Code, Section 9.


SUMMARY: Under 44 U.S.C. 3506(e) and 13 U.S.C. Section 9, the U.S. Census Bureau is announcing revisions to the confidentiality pledge it provides to its respondents under Title 13, United States Code, Section 9. These revisions are required by the passage and implementation of provisions of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (H.R. 2029, Division N, Title II, Subtitle B, Sec. 223), which permit and require the Secretary of Homeland Security to provide Federal civilian agencies’ information technology systems with cybersecurity protection for their Internet traffic. More details on this announcement are presented in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below.


DATES: These revisions become effective upon publication of this notice in the Federal Register. In a separate companion Federal Register notice, the U.S. Census Bureau is seeking public comment on these confidentiality pledge revisions.


ADDRESSES: Questions about this notice should be addressed to Jennifer Jessup, Departmental Paperwork Clearance Officer, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 14th and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet at jjessup@doc.gov)


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information should be directed to Robin J. Bachman, Policy Coordination Office, Census Bureau, HQ-8H028, Washington, DC 20233; 301-763-6440 (or via email at pco.policy.office@census.gov). Due to delays in the receipt of regular mail related to security screening, respondents are encouraged to use electronic communications.


SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Federal statistics provide key information that the Nation uses to measure its performance and make informed choices about budgets, employment, health, investments, taxes, and a host of other significant topics. The overwhelming majority of Federal surveys are conducted on a voluntary basis. Respondents, ranging from businesses to households to institutions, may choose whether or not to provide the requested information. Many of the most valuable Federal statistics come from surveys that ask for highly sensitive information such as proprietary business data from companies or particularly personal information or practices from individuals. Strong and trusted confidentiality and exclusively statistical use pledges under Title 13, U.S.C. and similar statistical confidentiality pledges are effective and necessary in honoring the trust that businesses, individuals, and institutions, by their responses, place in statistical agencies.


Under the authority of Title 13, U.S.C. and similar statistical confidentiality protection statutes, many Federal statistical agencies make statutory pledges that the information respondents provide will be seen only by statistical agency personnel or their sworn agents, and will be used only for statistical purposes. Title 13, U.S.C. and similar statutes protect the confidentiality of information that agencies collect solely for statistical purposes and under a pledge of confidentiality. These acts protect such statistical information from administrative, law enforcement, taxation, regulatory, or any other non-statistical use and immunize the information submitted to statistical agencies from legal process. Moreover, many of these statutes carry criminal penalties of a Class E felony (fines up to $250,000, or up to five years in prison, or both) for conviction of a knowing and willful unauthorized disclosure of covered information.


As part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2016 signed on December 17, 2015, the Congress included the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (H.R. 2029, Division N, Title II, Subtitle B, Sec. 223). This Act, among other provisions, permits and requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to provide Federal civilian agencies’ information technology systems with cybersecurity protection for their Internet traffic. The technology currently used to provide this protection against cyber malware is known as Einstein 3A; it electronically searches Internet traffic in and out of Federal civilian agencies in real time for malware signatures.


When such a signature is found, the Internet packets that contain the malware signature are shunted aside for further inspection by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel. Since it is possible that such packets entering or leaving a statistical agency’s information technology system may contain a small portion of confidential statistical data, statistical agencies can no longer promise their respondents that their responses will be seen only by statistical agency personnel or their sworn agents. However, they can promise, in accordance with provisions of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, that such monitoring can be used only to protect information and information systems from cybersecurity risks, thereby, in effect, providing stronger protection to the integrity of the respondents’ submissions.


Consequently, with the passage of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, the Federal statistical community has an opportunity to welcome the further protection of its confidential data offered by DHS’ Einstein 3A cybersecurity protection program. The DHS cybersecurity program’s objective is to protect Federal civilian information systems from malicious malware attacks. The Federal statistical system’s objective is to ensure that the DHS Secretary performs those essential duties in a manner that honors the Government’s statutory promises to the public to protect their confidential data. Given that the Department of Homeland Security is not a Federal statistical agency, both DHS and the Federal statistical system have been successfully engaged in finding a way to balance both objectives and achieve these mutually reinforcing objectives.


Accordingly, DHS and Federal statistical agencies, in cooperation with their parent departments, have developed a Memorandum of Agreement for the installation of Einstein 3A cybersecurity protection technology to monitor their Internet traffic and have incorporated an associated Addendum on Highly Sensitive Agency Information that provides additional protection and enhanced security handling of confidential statistical data.


However, many current Title 13, U.S.C. and similar statistical confidentiality pledges promise that respondents’ data will be seen only by statistical agency personnel or their sworn agents. Since it is possible that DHS personnel could see some portion of those confidential data in the course of examining the suspicious Internet packets identified by Einstein 3A sensors, statistical agencies need to revise their confidentiality pledges to reflect this process change. Therefore, the U.S. Census Bureau is providing this notice to alert the public to the confidentiality pledge revisions in an efficient and coordinated fashion.


The following is the revised statistical confidentiality pledge for the Census Bureau’s data collections:


The U.S. Census Bureau is required by law to protect your information. The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release your responses in a way that could identify you. Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit your data.


The following listing includes Census Bureau information collections which are confidential under 13 U.S.C. Section 9, as well as information collections that the Census Bureau conducts on behalf of other agencies which are confidential under 13 U.S.C. Section 9 and for which the confidentiality pledges will also be revised.


OMB Number

Title of Information Collection

0607-0008

Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories, and Orders Survey

0607-0013

Annual Retail Trade Report

0607-0049

Current Population Survey (CPS) Basic Demographics

0607-0104

Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MARTS)

0607-0110

Survey of Housing Starts, Sales, and Completions

0607-0117

U.S. Census-Age Search

0607-0151

The Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) & Boundary Validation Program (BVP)

0607-0153

Construction Progress Reporting Surveys

0607-0175

Quarterly Survey of Plant Capacity Utilization

0607-0179

Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS)

0607-0189

Business and Professional Classification Report

0607-0190

Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey

0607-0195

Annual Wholesale Trade Survey (AWTS)

0607-0354

Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey

0607-0368

Special Census Program

0607-0422

Service Annual Survey

0607-0432

Quarterly Financial Report (QFR)

0607-0444

2014 - 2016 Company Organization Survey

0607-0449

Annual Survey of Manufactures

0607-0464

October School Enrollment Supplement to the Current Population Survey

0607-0466

Current Population Survey, Voting and Registration Supplement

0607-0561

Manufacturers' Unfilled Orders Survey

0607-0610

Current Population Survey June Fertility Supplement

0607-0717

Monthly Retail Trade Survey

0607-0725

Generic Clearance for Questionnaire Pretesting Research

0607-0757

2017 New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey

0607-0782

Annual Capital Expenditures Survey

0607-0795

Generic Clearance for Geographic Partnership Programs

0607-0809

Generic Clearance for MAF and TIGER Update Activities

0607-0810

The American Community Survey

0607-0907

Quarterly Services Survey

0607-0909

Information and Communication Technology Survey

0607-0912

Business R&D and Innovation Survey

0607-0921

2017 Economic Census - Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) - Advance Questionnaire

0607-0932

2017 Economic Census -- Commodity Flow Survey

0607-0936

American Community Survey Methods Panel Tests

0607-0963

2015 Management and Organizational Practices Survey

0607-0969

Federal Statistical System Public Opinion Survey

0607-0971

Generic Clearance for 2020 Census Tests to Research the Use of Automation in Field Data Collection Activities

0607-0977

2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Panel

0607-0978

Generic Clearance for Internet Nonprobability Panel Pretesting

0607-0983

Comparing Health Insurance Measurement Error (CHIME)

0607-0986

Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs

0607-0987

The School District Review Program (SDRP)

0607-0988

The Redistricting Data Program

0607-0989

2016 Census Test

0607-0990

National Survey of Children's Health

0607-0991

2017 Economic Census Industry Classification Report

0607-0992

Address Canvassing Testing

0607-XXXX

2017 Census Test - currently submitted for clearance

0607-0760

Economic Census Round 3 Focus Group Discussion - currently submitted for clearance

0607-XXXX

Collection of State Administrative Records Data - currently submitted for clearance

0607-XXXX

2020 Census Local Update of Census Addresses Operation (LUCA) - currently submitted for clearance

2528-0017

2015 American Housing Survey

1220-0175

American Time Use Survey (ATUS)

1220-0050

Consumer Expenditure Quarterly and Diary Surveys (CEQ/CED)

1220-0100

Current Population Survey (CPS) - Basic Labor Force

1121-0317

Identify Theft Supplement to the NCVS

1121-0111

National Crime Victimization Survey 2015-2018

3145-0141

National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG)

1018-0088

National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation

1121-0260

2015 Police Public Contact Supplement

1121-0184

2017 School Crime Supplement to the NCVS

1121-0302

Supplemental Victimization Survey

2528-0013

Survey of Market Absorption (SOMA)

2528-0276

Rental Housing Finance Survey (RHFS)

1905-0169

Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey (MECSA)

2528-0029

Manufactured Housing Survey (MHS)

0935-0110

Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)

1220-0187

ATUS-Eating and Health Supplement

0536-0043

Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey

1220-0153

Contingent Worker Supplement to the Current Population Survey - (Currently in Federal Register Notice Stage - has not been fully approved)

1220-0102

Veterans Supplement to the Current Population Survey

0970-0416

Child Support Supplement to the Current Population Survey

3064-0167

National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households

1220-0102

Volunteers Supplement

1220-0104

Displaced Workers Supplement

3135-0136

Survey of Public Participation in the Arts

0660-0221

Computer and Internet Use



Dated:


Sheleen Dumas,

Office of the Chief Information Officer.


(FR Doc. 14-XXXX; Filed XX-XX-14; 8:45 a.m.)

BILLING CODE: 3510-07-P.

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File Typeapplication/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
AuthorRobin J Bachman (CENSUS/PCO FED)
File Modified0000-00-00
File Created2021-01-23

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