on December 31, 1948. This provided for the release of information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice only upon written certification by a central official that the information requested was of major importance in an investigation of an act of espionage or sabotage inimical to the national security.

On November 3, 1967, section 401.3(i) (4) of regulation No. 1 was amended (32 F.R. 15545) to permit disclosure to the U.S. Secret Service, in addition to the FBI, upon written certification by the requesting agency that the information is necessary to discharge its statutory responsibility for protecting national security.

Prior to the addition of section 401.3 (i) (4), information was provided in matters involving national security only under the ad hoc authority of the Commissioner of Social Security.

PROTECTION AND RECOURSE AFFORDED INDIVIDUALS AGAINST DISCLOSURE

Legal protection is provided by section 1106 (a) of the Social Security Act, amended (42 U.S.C. 1306(a)) and Social Security Administration regulation No. 1, as amended (20 C.F.R. 401.1 et seq.). Section 1106 (a) provides that no disclosure of any information received by or from the Secretary or any officer or employee of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in the course of discharging the duties of the Secretary under the Social Security Act shall be made except as the Secretary may by regulations prescribe.

An individual convicted of an unauthorized disclosure under section 1106, is subject to punishment by a fine not exceeding $1,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 1 year, or both.

It may also be possible in some circumstances for an individual to have personal legal recourse against the Social Security Administration or one of its employees, who without authority releases confidential information about the individual which is injurious to him. Such individual might, in some circumstances, bring a suit against the employee in his private capacity under State tort law or against the Federal Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act for damages caused by the negligent or wrongful act of the employee. Further, in instances where an improper disclosure has been threatened or where it has occurred and will continue, an individual could sue or enjoin the disclosure, or continued disclosure, of the protected information.

Mr. CORNISH. You mean you try to protect your data by the source of date of birth, social security number, and full name? To be perfectly candid, I can't think of a single form that I have filled out in the last 5 years that has not requested the same information. Virtually every form I have filled out has date of birth, social security number, and full name. Simply for somebody having possession of a record like that to have that information readily available to give you, do you see any problems at all? Do you think this is adequate protection?

Mr. SHEPHERD. We are kind of in the middle between the need to efficiently serve the people, which is our basic function, and the need to protect the privacy and confidentiality of our records.

In taking 4, 5, or 6 million claims a year and processing 18 million postentitlement earnings and posting 343 million earnings items, when you are talking about this kind of operation, then we must set up systems and operations so that the district office personnel can get the information readily and efficiently.

Now if we put too many restrictions on obtaining it, then we would have to get too much information from people, or so much information that it would be difficult to respond to our mission. There are different ways to get information and we need to keep that clear. As far as an individual himself getting information, for example, it is very difficult for a system or an organization to protect against deliberate fraud on the part of a knowledgeable person. It is against the law to fraudulently sign somebody else's name and give somebody else's information in order to get information on him.

And I can't think of many reasons for people doing that because the kind of information you get is limited to a particular use and for a particular purpose.

So requiring additional safeguards is a matter of finding the balance between efficient service and proper protection.

Mr. PATT. This information is limited. This is not a complete record we give out based on these three criteria.

Mr. CORNISH. What do you require to give out the complete record? Mr. PATT. We don't give that out.

Mr. SCHUCK. I believe we give summary earnings information. Ordinarily I guess we just give quarters of coverage.

Mr. SHEPHERD. An individual can see his file but not by any simplified means by which the system would automatically furnish it. The individual can, during his working life, get information from his earnings record, through prescribed procedures or by going into a district office.

Now if a person came in and demanded to see the claims file, he would be allowed to see it. But he would have to come in personally and he would have to furnish more information to satisfy the district office interviewed that he was in fact the person he represented himself to be. Give a reason for wanting information.

Mr. CORNISH. That would be very rare. Do you have to produce identification to make certain that his identity is legitimate or does he just answer a series of questions which could be found on any number of forms floating around the country?

Mr. SHEPHERD. If you are talking about getting the information for his own information, he fills in the form we talked about, signs it, and sends it.

In filing a claim for benefits, there is a great deal of information, personal information, about himself which he must furnish and then must certify before we start payment. He has to furnish his birth certificate and this kind of thing, if you are talking about a claim for benefits under the program; if you are talking about a report of some event, then he has to furnish identifying information plus the event that occurred, and satisfy the Administration in this way that he is the entitled person. We would then enter the data about the event as in a change of address, for example.

Now if he is appealing the adverse decision, then

Mr. CORNISH. Well, now, I am not really talking about a claim for adverse decision. I think you know what I am talking about, obtaining information on individuals that they are not entitled to find out— that is, from other individuals representing themselves.

Mr. PATT. For example, race and age, or something to this effect. Mr. CORNISH. Any number of things. In fact, it might be very useful, Mr. Chairman, to have some blank copies of some of these forms to determine what information is in these files. And how personal it is. Do you think that would be possible?

Mr. SHEPHERD. We would be glad to furnish you any information you might desire, but I want to understand exactly what you are after. There is one set of forms, for example-we are back to these requests for information from your earnings record-and there are forms that you fill out giving personal information, and then sign it and send it in to the Administration.

22-375-73-8

Now you get back just certain specified information. The earnings that have been reported for the last 3 years, plus summary data for previous years and if you requested it, the number of quarters of coverage you have earned. That is one type of access to our file. That is available to any citizen. That can be obtained improperly only through deliberate fraud.

Mr. CORNISH. If it is appropriate, Mr. Chairman, to furnish the forms that might be found in a typical Social Security Administration file.

[The forms were furnished and are in the subcommittee's files.]

Mr. SHEPHERD. We have the earnings file to clarify. We maintain a file on every individual from the time he begins to work and gets a number until he files for benefits or dies and someone files on his records. Then we have another type of file that begins with entitlement that we maintain for the life of the account. And that contains the application, all the documents that were submitted in support of the application and various things that happen after initial entitlement. That is a separate file.

That file is maintained in the payment center folder. We also have relating to that a magnetic tape record that contains the basic information on that individual, because we don't process post-entitlement actions, many of them, against the folder but directly against the magnetic tape records.

Mr. CORNISH. Mr. Shepherd, I am sure that you are aware that there are rigid laws protecting information contained in the files of the Bureau of the Census on individuals?

Mr. SHEPHERD. Yes, sir.

Mr. CORNISH. As a matter of fact, even the FBI is not permitted to examine any individual files of an individual in the Bureau of the Census. There have been instances where courts have tried to subpena such records and once they have been advised of the laws they have withdrawn that court order. I take it that no similar protection exists for the information contained in Social Security?

Mr. SHEPHERD. Oh, yes. That protection does exist, sir. A court cannot subpena social security records. Nor can an individual be required to disclose them. The SSA employee cannot be required to disclose information even in criminal cases.

Mr. CORNISH. How about the FBI? Can they examine a Social Security Administration file in the interest of safeguarding "the national security"?

Mr. SHEPHERD. The exact nature of that particular situation I am not certain of.

Mr. SCHUCK. They can't examine any file. There has to be the written request. They have to justify the national security part of it. Mr. CORNISH. What do you do? Somebody sits there and they say you can't examine this file but I will tell you what it says.

Mr. SHEPHERD. No, sir. The Commissioner of Social Security has delegated to him the authority to rule on these requests, if the requesting agency-for example, the FBI-certifies that they need the information for espionage or national security reasons. Then he would make the decision as to disclosure. He is the one to rule on this.

Mr. SCHUCK. The request also has to come from the central official at the FBI. It cannot come from an agent. They will not honor requests from agents.

Mr. STANTON. How many requests do you get a year? Do you have any idea?

Mr. SHEPHERD. I might also add that we disclose data for several reasons. For humane reasons, for instance.

Mr. CORNISH. I understand that. I am not concerned with those. I read the whole thing very carefully. I think they are probably justified. Mr. SCHUCK. I can't provide the number on the FBI or the Secret Service. I did get a list of how many requests we serviced last year. Mr. STANTON. How many?

Mr. SCHUCK. Well, the ones noted there were 302,000 requests.
Mr. SHEPHERD. Many of these were for the welfare agencies.

Mr. CORNISH. Do you have those broken down by who requested them? Mr. Schuck, I wonder if that list might be submitted for the record.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Without objection that list will be submitted.

[The information follows:]

Disclosure Breakdown by Agency-Fiscal Year 1972

Mr. MOORHEAD. Does the subdivision include a subheading for the FBI?

Mr. SCHUCK. I assume the reason it is not on here for the FBI is that the number of requests were so small.

Mr. SHEPHERD. We can furnish that if you would like.

Mr. SCHUCK. We can furnish the exact number on a breakdown of who requested, by what agency, and so forth. We would be glad to furnish this.

We have one for the IRS.

Mr. STANTON. How about IRS?

Mr. SCHUCK. They are a very big user. We are required by law to provide this. Technically that is not a disclosure since they process the earnings information before we do.

Mr. SHEPHERD. We get the earnings information from them in fact.

Mr. SCHUCK. Well, they asked 105,000 times in fiscal year 1972. Mr. STANTON. Thank you.

Mr. CORNISH. Is that all?

Mr. SCHUCK. They didn't get the whole individual's record. They just got the last posting, the latest posting to the record.

Mr. CORNISH. Are all these individuals notified that their records have been requested by somebody?

Mr. SCHUCK. No, they are not.

Mr. MOORHEAD. I have to leave at noon and we have some more witnesses going.

We are off the record.

[Discussion off the record.]

Mr. MOORHEAD. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Shepherd, and your associates. We appreciate this testimony. It is pretty complicated talking about computers, but we struggle through it.

The subcommittee would now like to hear from Mr. Sidney Weinstein, Assistant Commissioner for Agency Assistance, Planning, and Policy, Automated Data and Telecommunications Service of the General Services Administration.

Mr. Weinstein, would you and your associates rise so I can administer the oath?

Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are going to give before the subcommittee will be the truth and the whole truth so help you God? [Witnesses sworn en masse.]

STATEMENT OF SIDNEY WEINSTEIN, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER FOR AGENCY ASSISTANCE, PLANNING, AND POLICY, AUTOMATED DATA AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; ACCOMPANIED BY MICHAEL MUNTNER, DIRECTOR, ADVANCED PLANNING AND RESEARCH DIVISION; AND ALLIE B. LATIMER, ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL

Mr. MOORHEAD. Mr. Weinstein, you may proceed. Will you introduce your associates to the subcommittee?

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Sidney Weinstein and I am Assistant Commissioner for Agency Assistance, Planning, and Policy in the Automated Data and Telecommunications Service of the General Services Administration. I am accompanied by Ms. Allie Latimer, Assistant General Counsel for the Automated Data and Telecommunications Service, and Dr. Michael Muntner, Director of the Advanced Planning and Research Division of my office.

We are pleased to have this opportunity to appear before your subcommittee on behalf of Hon. Arthur F. Sampson, Administrator of General Services. My appearance is at the request of Chairman Moorhead to the Administrator to discuss the responsibilities and functions of the General Services Administration with respect to the development, planning, and coordination of Federal information systems and, in particular, with specific attention to the work of the Automated Data and Telecommunications Service, ADTS.

At the outset I would like to explain that the Automated Data and Telecommunications Service is new within GSA. ADTS was established on July 15, 1972, in recognition of the growing interdependence between computers and communications. We recognized that these technologies were converging and that in order to effectively discharge our responsibilities it would be essential to combine both activities into one organizational element. Prior to the establishment of ADTS, GSA's responsibilities in communications and automatic data processing, ADP, were in separate organizational elements within GSÅ.