Federal Data Banks and Constitutional Rights

Sources of Information

Table 9 summarizes the survey responses regarding the sources of information stored in Federal data banks. Only 469 (or 86 percent) of the 544 data bank responses analyzed 90 provide information on sources. Of these 469 data banks for which information about sources is available, by far the largest number (71 percent) rely on existing records for data. In other words, many of these data banks themselves derive their contents from other data banks. This is especially true in the case of computerized files, most of which ultimately rely on manual dossiers for data. Some of these "existing records" are rather mysterious. For example, the Naval Investigative Service provides the rather unhelpful response that much of its information comes from "investigative reports," without elucidating the ultimate sources of the reports themselves.

Almost as frequently, the responses cite the subjects themselves as a source of information. Of the 469 data bank responses providing source information, 64 percent state that subjects provide at least some of the data. Some agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service, the Decennial Census and Selective Service, compel individuals on pain of criminal penalties to provide information. In others, such as the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention's CODAP system, the price of federally funded drug abuse treatment is the patient's disclosure of a great deal of highly personal, and in some cases potentially damaging, information.

Relatively fewer (41 percent) of the data bank responses providing source information state that these systems collect data from third parties. Security clearance and background check files are typical of such systems. Other data banks, such as the National Science Foundation's National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel collect information exclusively from third parties, in that case, from various professional societies.

It is perhaps not surprising that one-quarter of the data bank responses providing information state that they collect data from all available sources: subjects, existing records and third parties. Conclusion

The subcommittee's study of 858 data banks on individuals maintained by 54 Federal agencies developed a massive amount of information about Federal data banks which can only be summarized here. The detailed responses submitted by the agencies themselves contain by far the most important results of the subcommittee's survey. These responses reveal the agencies' own understanding or lack of understanding both of their own data systems as well as of the rights of individuals whose records are contained in these systems. Far more than the facts and numbers presented in this summary, these more subtle factors determine the real nature and extent of the impact these Federal data banks have on the constitutional rights of individual citizens.

90 See footnote 81 above.

TABULAR SUMMARIES

TABLE 1.-NUMBER OF DATA BANKS, COMPUTERIZATION AND NUMBER OF RECORDS