STATEMENT OF C. D. BEARDEN, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF MANPOWER INFORMATION SYSTEMS, BEFORE THE FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00357R000700120022-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 5, 2000
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: April 30, 1974
• Content Type: STATEMENT

ILLEGIB
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BUREAU OF OAE
. BEARDEN
DIRECTOR
,
,
STATEMENT OF G.
BEFORE THE FOREIGN OPERATIONS AND GOVERNMENT_I
SYSTEMS
,
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERA
April 30, 1974
MR. CHAIRMAN, I appreciate this opportunity to present the views
of the Civil Service Commission on H.R. 13303, a bill "To amend title 5,
United States Code, to provide that persons be_given access to records
concerning them which are maintained by Government agencies," and H.R.
13872, a bill "To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide for the
privacy of individual's records maintained by Federal agencies." Prev:.0-isly,
in commenting on similar bills such 'as H.R. 667, H.R. 1097, H.R. 1279, and
H.R. 12206, all bills"To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide that
persons be apprised of records concerning them which are maintained by
Government agencies," the Commission has strongly opposed enactment of legis-
lation of this nature because of the undue cost and administrative burdens
enactment would place on this agency's operations without, in our opinion,
valid cause. Although I realize that H.R. 13303 and H.R. 13872 Were intr'--
duced following your earlier hearings on these similar bills, anc' that they
contain a number of changes from the language contained in the earlier
bills, I must renew our objections to H.R. 13303 and H.R. 13872 iasofaras
the direct impact of these provisions upon the current personnel
management recordkeeping practices of Federal agencies.
The Commission has a deep concern with this proposed legislation since
this agency's specific mission, personnel management for the Government,
necessarily involves the collection, maintenance, and use of vast quan.titie
of personal records. In actuality, a major portion of the Commission's
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business is the task of personal recordkeeping. These records we are speaking
of pertain to prospective, present, and past Federal employees, and the
Commission's Jurisdiction and responsibility concerning these records
extends throughout the Executive branch at the Commission's direction and
under the Commission's control. These records do not pertain to members
the public at large, but rather are a necessary product of the employer-
employee relationship. In essence, these various personal records trace
individuals from their application for Federal employment through their
actual employment to and including separation and retirement from the
Federal service.
The primary sources of authority for the Commission's recordkeeping
practices are Executive orders issued by the President generally under
authority of section 3301 and 3302 of,title 5, United States Code. The
major Executive Orders (or Civil Service Commission Rules derived from
Executive Orders) delegating to the Commission authority and responsibility
for collecting and maintaining personal information related to Government
employment are as follows:
--Executive Order 10450 which. requires the Commission to investigate
applicants for Government employment for purposes of determining questions
of suitability and security;
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--Executive Order 10561 and Civil Service Rule 7.2 which delegate
to the Commission extensive responsibility and jurisdiction for the
maintenance, content, collection, transfer, and reporting of personal
information concerning individuals who make up the Federal workforce
(E.O. 10561 is the basis for the establishment of the Official Personnel
Folder--the personnel file that is maintained for every employee in the
Executive branch);
--Executive Order 10577 and Civil Service Rule 2.1 which delegate
to the Commission the responsibility to determine through competitive
examining procedures the relative capacity and fitness of applicants for
Federal employment;
--Executive Order No. 11222 which delegates to the Commission the
authority and responsibility for the Governmentwide system of reporting
outside employment and financial interests for purposes of avoiding
conflict-of-interest situations; and
--Section 8347 of title 5, United States Code which authorizes the Commssio,
to administer the Government retirement system. (The implementing regulation
authorized by the statute and requiring the maintenance of individual records
for this program is section 831.102 of title 5, Code of Federal Regulations.)
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At this point, allow us to stress that the Commission does not object
to the spirit of these bills. Rather, the Commission endorses the basic
tenets of the bills which would:
First, permit any person to inspect his own records and have copies
made at his expense;
Second, permit any person to supplement the information contained
in his record;
Third, permit the removal. of erroneous information of any kind, and
provide that agencies and persons to whom the erroneous material has been
previously transferred be notified of its removal;
Fourth, require the notification of the person if the record is disclosed
to any other agency or person not employed by the agency maintaining such
record;
Fifth, prohibit the disclosure of information of any kind in the record
to individuals in the agency other than those who need to examine the record
in the performance of their duties; and
Sixth, require the maintenance of a record of all persons inspecting
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Existing Commission regulations concerning employment records to a
great degree reflect these considerations. For example, the primary
repository of personal information about a Government employee is his
Official Personnel Folder. Under section 294.703 of the Commission's
regulations an employee has a right to review most of the information in
this folder. The Commission's regulations, however, also recognize that
with regard to personal information concerning the employer-employee
relationship the disclosure to the individual of certain types of informa-
tion is not appropriate. Accordingly, Commisison regulations do not permit-,
the disclosure to the individual of (1) medical information concerning a
mental or other condition of such a nature that a prudent physician would
hesitate to inform a person suffering from it of its exact nature and
.probable outcome (although this information will be disclosed to a licensed
physician designated in writing by the individual for that purpose);
(2) certain examining material such as actual competitive examinations
and rating schedules which if disclosed would compromise the integrity
of the competitive examining process; (3) reports of suitability or
security investigations which if disclosed would compromise the sources
of the information in the report (although the Commission will discl,se
to an individual such information from these reports as it determines
sufficient to enable him to respond to an interrogatory or other question
without revealing the source); and (4) in the discretion of the employing
agency, supervisory appraisals of an employee's potential (although
supervisory evaluations of employee past performance are disclosed to and
discussed with the individual).
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Our objection to H.R. 13303 and H.R. 13872 is that they contain no
provision (with the exception of the provision which protects the identity
of sources of information) which recognizes that some personal records
generated through the employer-employee relationship such as those we have
just mentioned must for sound administrative and policy reasons remain
confidential.
The Commission's regulations also contain provisions which control
who, other than the subject individual, shall have access to this personal
information. Section 294.703(c) of title 5, Code of Federal Regulations,
provides that Official Personnel Folders shall be disclosed only to those
officials of the Executive branch who have a need for the information in
the performance of their official duties. Section 294.702(a) strictly
limits what information concerning Government employees is publicly available,
for example, in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
That regulation states that an employee's name, grade, salary, present and
past position titles, and duty station are items of public information.
but restricts the availability of lists containing such information.
Paragraph (a)(1) of the proposed 5 U.S.C. 552a provides that an
individual's record cannot be disclosed to another agency except with
notification to the individual concerned. There are a number of programs
for which the Commission is responsible that require maintaining and releasing
to other agencies information about individuals. One of the largest of
these is the competitive examining system; other examples are the Federal
Automated Career System (FACS) and the Displaced Employee Program. Of
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great concern is the fact that paragraph (a)(1) appears to intend that
the individual be notified before each release of information, and that
he be told specifically where that information is going. Compliance with
this provision would be extremely costly and time consuming. For instance,
thus far in Fiscal Year 1974, the Commission has referred to agencies the
names of approximately 1,036,000 applicants for Government employment from
our registers and over 25,000 from FACS. In addition to the obvious expense
the proposed notification would entail, there would be substantial delay in
providing referrals to agencies and, thus, a substantial delay in filling
vacancies. We assume that applicants for Federal employment want us to
refer their names to employing agencies and that this unfortunate effect
of the bill was not intended. But the failure of these bills to account
for its peculiar impact on the Govenment as an employer - an impact which
falls upon no other employer in the United States - does produce this
odd result.
Besides information going from the Commission to other agencies, there
are instances where agencies need to provide, or the Commission needs to
obtain from them, information about an individual. For instance, an agency
may obtain information about a candidate which, in the agency's view,
demonstrates that the individual is unqualified for the position in question;
the agency must submit this information for the Commission's consideration
if it wants the individual removed .from the referral list. Paragraph (a)(1)
-would require notification to the individual before such a submission. This
would cause delays in staffing positions generally without providing any
benefit to the individual. In addition, the Commission requires each agency
?to'submit to it a copy of Standard Form 50 (Notification of Personnel Action)
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whenever it executes a personnel action involving an employee, e.g., promotion,
change of position or title, etc. We estimate that there are approximately
2-1/2 personnel actions per employee per year. Given the size of the Federal
workforce, 2.8 million employees, this means we receive approximately seven
million of these personal records each year. Presumably the notification
requirement is met with respect to these particular forms since the employee
also receives a copy, but there are other circumstances under which agencies are
required to submit information for which notification in each instance would be
impracticable or not feasible. This would be true, for example, of inquirE.es
into the possibility of political selection, nepotism, and other administ-,-A:ive
examinations.
With regard to the administration of the Government retirement program,
it is necessary that we furnish to the Treasury Department computer tapes
which have the annuitant's name, address, and net monthly annuity in order
to issue a check. Under paragraph (a)(1) it would appear that every time
this information is furnished to Treasury, the individual-would have to be
notified. We would view this requirement as imposing a totally unnecessary
cost on the Government.
Paragraph (a)(3) would require an agency to maintain a record of the
names and addresses of all persons to whom information contained in a record
is divulged and the purpose for the divulgence. We think, the require-
ment to maintain the specific names and addresses of all persons is simply
unrealistic. We have suggested in an attachment to this statement an amend-
ment to this paragraph that would provide that the maintenance of organizational
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destination and address of the recipient office together with the purpose for,
the disclosure should suffice. With regard to employment-related records,
which we have explained are transferred among agencies in great numbers,
records are presently maintained concerning the organizational designation
and address of the recipient office, and if paragraph (a)(3) could be
changed along the lines we have suggested, the revised requirement would
entail little additional cost with regard to our operations.
Paragraph (a)(4) requires an agency to permit an individual to
inspect his record and have copies made of it. We have previously
commented on our concern with regard to across the board access to
employment-related records, but we also wish to comment upon an additional
problem posed by this paragraph which we don't believe is addressed by any
other provision of the bill. It is'unclear from paragraph (a) (4) whether
an agency is required to permit an individual to examine a record which
contains personal information about him in its entirety, or whether access
may be limited to only those portions of the record which pertain directly
to him. If access to the entire record is contemplated, inspection by an
individual may in some instances necessarily lead to the disclosure of
information concerning a third party who is also a subject of the record.
For example, when the Commission receives a request from an agency for
candidates to fill a position, it provides a certificate of eligible individuals
in response to the request. This certificate lists eligible candidates by
name, social security number, and competitive examination score--it is,
in essense, a competitive ranking of individuals. While the Commission
presently discloses to any individual his own score and position on the
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certificate, it will not disclose the other names on the certificate nor
the scores of 'other competitors. It is unclear whether paragraph (a)(4)
would require that we allow the individual to inspect the entire certificate
or whether inspection could be limited by deleting the names, social
security numbers, and scores of other individuals To avoid a possible
result that would, in essence, permit an invasion of the privacy of a third
party in instances such as this, we have suggested in our attachment an
amendment to this paragraph which would make it clear that an individual is
entitled to see only that portion of a record which pertains to him.
Paragraphs (a)(5) and (a)(6) permit a person to supplement the
information contained in his record by addition of any document or writing
of reasonable length which he deems pertinent, and require an agency to
remove erroni immaterial, or irrelevant information of any kind and
notify all agencies and persons to whom the erroneous material has been
previously transferred of its removal. We certainly agree that an agency
should strive to insure that the records it keeps are accurate, but we must
object to these provisions as they are presently drawn.
Generally speaking, with regard to our manual systems, these provisions
would not cause serious administrative problems since we are presently
willing to accept almost anything an individual wants to include in his
file, particularly in a file relating to his qualifications. The effect on
our automated systems, however, would be unduly burdensome. Some of these
systems, such as our Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) are maintained solely
for purposes of statistical reporting and research. We will subsequently
~
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explain our opinion with regard to the application of these bills generally
to these statistical systems. Other existing and planned systems such as the
planned Federal Personnel Manpower Information System (FPMIS) are properly
considered administrative systems, or systems whose maintenance and use
directly affect individuals. With regard to our automated systems, we
limit the information supplied by an individual through the use of
specific forms we provide.
We plan to use this type of limitation in connection with all
automated systems we will be implementing o?ier the next years.
In these cases, we consider that the individual has or will have the oppor-
tunity to supply all information about his background necessary for the
purposes for which these systems are designed. A requirement to accept
even a reasonable amount of supplementary material of the individual's
choosing for inclusion in the automated systems would result in sharply
increased operating costs, and with respect to some of these systams we
are planning, could make the systems completely impractical.
In our attachment, we have provided language which we believe
presents a practical approach to this problem. In essence, we suggest
that when an individual wishes to supplement or dispute the completeness
or accuracy of his record, it would be sufficient for the agency to note
this fact in the record without necessarily including additional material
in that record. In this manner, any document or writing an individual
submits may be kept separate from the actual record system and retrieved
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whenever his record is considered. This would avoid the costs which would
necessarily be incurred by requiring that such information be maintained
in the automated system.
The bill as presently drafted makes no distinction between administrative
records, i.e., records whose maintenance and use directly affects individuals,
and records maintained for statistical or research purposes. As Mr. McFee
pointed out in his testimony on H.R. 12206 before this Subcommittee, "If an
agency can guarantee that a record it maintains about an individual will be
used only for statistical reporting and research, nothing will be gained
(and indeed a great deal of time and effort m,-y be lost)" if the various
provisions of subsection (a) are applicable to these records. We concur
entirely with this position and would support any amendment which would
Finally, we are concerned with the effect these bills may have upon
the Commission's suitability and security investigations program.
We interpret the proposed bills as not applicable to the Commission's
investigative files and records because of our interpretation of the
provisions of Executive Order 10450, Security Requirements for
Government Employment. Section 9 of that order deals with maintenance
of investigative files and records. In particular, Section 9(c) reads
in part as follows:
Such reports and other investigative material and information
shall be maintained in confidence, and no access shall be
given thereto except, with the consent of the investigative
agency concerned, to other departments and agencies conducting
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security programs under the authority granted by or in
accordance with the said act of August 26, 1950, as may be
required for the efficient conduct of Government business.
We construe the words "kept secret" in the proposed bills as being
used generically to mean the same as "in confidence" in Section 9(c) of
the Executive order. If this interpretation is not correct, then the
workload-implications discussed above would be increased greatly by the
addition of Itrge numbers of investigative files and records. These
include ten nsiJlion card records in the Security Investigations Index
File, 625,000 investigative file folders in the Investigative Files, and
an additional 2,000,000 earlier files of the same type maintained at the
Federal Records Center where they are available for use when needed.
In our attachment, we have suggested language which we believe _
would eliminate this doubt as to whether or not these investigatory files
are subject to the bills' provisions. We believe that all files and
records under the control of the Civil Service Commission are maintained
in a fair and reasonable manner. It is highly unlikely that most
individuals whose records are maintained by or at the direction of the
Commission are unaware that the records are being kept, and the Commission
is most careful in preventing any unwarranted disclosure to outside peroons
of information from the records it controls.
The application of the provisions of these bills to Government
ampluvnuant-related records would in our opinion severely disrupt the
persunnal mariagenwat processes of the Government and impose, in our view,
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unnecessary costs on these operations. We have roughly estimated that the
additional costs attributable to the application of these provisions to
Government employment-related records would be in'excess of thirteen million
dollars per year. These bills have the apparent intention of dealing
generally with records maintained by the Government on members of the
public whose affairs cause them to have to deal with the Government--such
as a person who seeks certification as a pilot, or a social security
beneficiary. Their effect on the Government as an employer seems to have
occurred haphazardly, and without apparent direction. Accordingly, in
our attachment we have provided language, in addition to that previously
discussed which would amend these bills with regard to all types of personal
records, that would except entirely from the bills records maintained for
purposes of Government employment. We prge that these bills be amended to
that effect.
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