Effective Date: March 4, 2005
(70 F.R. 10456)
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION NOTICE OF SYSTEM OF RECORDS REQUIRED BY THE PRIVACY ACT OF 1974
System number: 60-0094
System name:
Recovery of Overpayments, Accounting and Reporting /Debt Management System (ROAR/DMS) SSA/OTSO
Security classification:
None.
System location:
Social Security Administration
Office of Telecommunications and Systems Operations
Program Service Centers (Contact the system manager(s) for PSC address information).
Social Security Administration
Office of Central Operations
Categories of individuals covered by the system:
Social Security beneficiaries, former beneficiaries, and representative payees who may have received excess benefits; persons holding conserved (accumulated) funds received on behalf of a Social Security beneficiary; and persons who received Social Security payments in error or on behalf of a beneficiary and are suspected to have misused those payments.
Categories of records in the system: Identifying characteristics of each program debt or instance of misused or conserved funds (e.g., name, Social Security number (SSN) and address of the individual(s) involved, recovery efforts made and the date of each action, and planned future actions).
Authority for maintenance of the system:
Section 204(a) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. § 404(a)).
Purpose(s):
The ROAR/DMS system of records controls the recovery and collection activity of:
Retirement, Survivors and Disability Insurance (RSDI), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Health Insurance (HI) program debt when refund is requested or adjustment is proposed;
SSI, and HI program debt recovered from RSDI accounts;
misused funds cases;
conserved funds cases;
Civil Monetary Penalty cases; and
program debts created by fraudulent acts.
The ROAR/DMS system of records
encompasses SSA’s automated system for recording,
classifying, and summarizing information on SSA’s program debt collection responsibilities. The users of this system are employees of the Social Security field
offices, as well as selected personnel of SSA's 8
Routine uses of records maintained in the system, including categories of users and the purposes of such uses:
Disclosure may be made for routine uses as indicated below. However, disclosure of any information constituting “returns or return information” within the scope of the Internal Revenue Code will not be disclosed unless disclosure is authorized by that statute.
1. To a congressional office in response to an inquiry from that office made at the request of the subject of a record.
2. To the Office of the President for the purpose of responding to an individual pursuant to an inquiry received from that individual or a third party on his/her behalf.
3. To third party contacts such as private collection agencies and credit reporting agencies under contract with SSA and other agencies, including the Veterans Administration, the Armed Forces, the Department of the Treasury, and State motor vehicle agencies, for the purpose of their assisting SSA in recovering program debt.
4. Information may be disclosed to contractors and other Federal agencies, as necessary, for the purpose of assisting SSA in the efficient administration of its programs. We contemplate disclosing information under this routine use only in situations in which SSA may enter a contractual or similar agreement with a third party to assist in accomplishing an agency function relating to this system of records.
5. Non-tax return information which is not restricted from disclosure by Federal law may be disclosed to the General Services Administration (GSA) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for the purpose of conducting records management studies with respect to their duties and responsibilities under 44 U.S.C. 2904 and 2906, as amended by NARA Act of 1984.
6. To the Department of Justice (DOJ), a court or other tribunal, or another party before such tribunal when:
SSA, or any component thereof; or
any SSA employee in his/her official capacity; or
any SSA employee in his/her individual capacity where DOJ (or SSA where it is authorized to do so) has agreed to represent the employee; or
the United States or any agency thereof where SSA determines that the litigation is likely to affect the operations of SSA or any of its components, is a party to litigation or has an interest in such litigation, and SSA determines that the use of such records by DOJ, the court or other tribunal is relevant and necessary to the litigation, provided, however, that in each case, SSA determines that such disclosure is compatible with the purpose for which the records were collected.
Wage and other information which are subject to the disclosure provisions of the IRC (26 U.S.C. 6103) will not be disclosed under this routine use unless disclosure is expressly permitted by the IRC.
7. To student volunteers and other workers, who technically do not have the status of Federal employees, when they are performing work for SSA as authorized by law, and they need access to personally identifiable information in SSA records in order to perform their assigned Agency functions.
8. To employers to assist SSA in the collection of debts owed by former beneficiaries and representative payees of Social Security payments who received an overpayment and owe a delinquent debt to the SSA. Disclosure under this routine use is authorized under the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-134) and implemented through administrative wage garnishment provisions of this Act (31 U.S.C. § 3720D).
9. We may disclose information to appropriate Federal, State, and local agencies, entities, and persons when (1) we suspect or confirm that the security or confidentiality of information in this system of records has been compromised; (2) we determine that as a result of the suspected or confirmed compromise there is a risk of harm to economic or property interests, identity theft or fraud, or harm to the security or integrity of this system or other systems or programs of SSA that rely upon the compromised information; and (3) we determine that disclosing the information to such agencies, entities, and persons is necessary to assist in our efforts to respond to the suspected or confirmed compromise and prevent, minimize, or remedy such harm. SSA will use this routine use to respond only to those incidents involving an unintentional release of its records.
Disclosure to Consumer Reporting Agencies:
Disclosure pursuant to 5 U.S.C. section 552a(b)(12) may be made to consumer reporting agencies as defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. section 1681a(f)) or the Federal Claims Collection Act of 1966 as amended (31 U.S.C. section 3701, et seq.) or the Social Security Domestic Employment Reform Act of 1994, Pub.L. No. 103-387, 42 U.S.C. section 404(f). The purpose of this disclosure is to aid in the collection of outstanding program debts owed to the Federal government, typically, to provide an incentive for debtors to repay delinquent Federal government program debts by making these part of their credit records. Disclosure of records is limited to the individual’s name, address, SSN, and other information necessary to establish the individual’s identity; the amount, status, and history of the claim and the agency or program under which the claim arose. The disclosure will be made only after the procedural requirements of 31 U.S.C. section 3711(e) have been followed.
Policies and practices for storing, retrieving, accessing, retaining and disposing of records in the system:
Storage:
Records are, or have been, maintained in magnetic cartridges, microfiche and paper form.
Retrievability:
Records are retrieved by SSN.
Safeguards:
System security
for automated records has been established in accordance with the Systems
Security Handbook. This includes
maintaining automated records in a secured building, the
Retention and disposal:
Magnetic cartridges are updated daily and retained for 75 days. The magnetic cartridges produced in the last operation of the month are retained in security storage for a period of 75 days, after which the tapes are erased and returned to stock. The microfiche records are normally updated monthly, retained for 3 years after the month they are produced, and then destroyed by application of heat.
System manager(s) and address:
Director
Office of Retirement and Survivors Insurance System
Division of Title II Payments and Accounting
Social Security Administration
is the system manager for ROAR.
Director
Office of Financial Policy and Systems Design
Social Security Administration
is the system manager for DMS.
Notification procedure:
An individual can determine if this system contains a record about him/her by contacting the most convenient Social Security field office and providing his/her name, SSN or other information that may be in the system of records that will identify him/her. An individual requesting notification of records in person should provide the same information, as well as provide an identity document, preferably with a photograph, such as a driver’s license or some other means of identification, such as a voter registration card, credit card, etc. If an individual does not have any identification documents sufficient to establish his/her identity, the individual must certify in writing that he/she is the person claimed to be and that he/she understands that the knowing and willful request for, or acquisition of, a record pertaining to another individual under false pretenses is a criminal offense.
If notification is requested by telephone, an individual must verify his/her identity by providing identifying information that parallels the record to which notification is being requested. If it is determined that the identifying information provided by telephone is insufficient, the individual will be required to submit a request in writing or in person. If an individual is requesting information by telephone on behalf of another individual, the subject individual must be connected with SSA and the requesting individual in the same phone call. SSA will establish the subject individual’s identity (his/her name, SSN, address, date of birth and place of birth along with one other piece of information such as mother’s maiden name) and ask for his/her consent in providing information to the requesting individual.
If a request for notification is submitted by mail, an individual must include a notarized statement to SSA to verify his/her identity or must certify in the request that he/she is the person claimed to be and that he/she understands that the knowing and willful request for, or acquisition of, a record pertaining to another individual under false pretenses is a criminal offense. These procedures are in accordance with SSA Regulations (20 CFR § 401.40).
Record access procedures:
Same as notification procedures. Also, requesters should reasonably specify the record contents they are seeking. An individual may also have access to certain program debt management data via Internet queries when he or she is authorized by SSA to conduct business transactions electronically using a personal identification number (PIN) and password. Using a PIN and password individuals may obtain information such as the reason for the program debt, the amount owed on the debt, how much has been withheld from the last check to cover the debt, and the same information about their next check. These procedures are in accordance with SSA Regulations (20 CFR § 401.40(c)).
Contesting record procedures:
Same as notification procedures. Requesters should also reasonably identify the record, specify the information they are contesting and state the corrective action sought, and the reasons for the correction, with supporting justification showing how the record is untimely, incomplete, inaccurate or irrelevant. These procedures are in accordance with SSA Regulations (20 CFR § 401.65(a)).
Record source categories:
The information for the computer files is received directly from beneficiaries, from Social Security field offices, and as the result of earnings enforcement operations. The paper listings are updated as a result of the computer operations.
Systems exempted from certain provisions of the Privacy Act:
None.