Privacy: Alternatives Exist for Enhancing Protection of Personally Identifiable Information (United States Government Accountability Office, May 2008).
personally identifiable information (p. 1): The Privacy Act of 1974 serves as the major mechanism for controlling the collection, use, and disclosure of personally identifiable information within the federal government. The act provides safeguards for information in a system of records (any grouping of records containing personal information retrieved by individual identifier) maintained by a federal agency. The act also allows citizens to learn how their personal information is collected, maintained, used, and disseminated by the federal government.
(†1570)
personally identifiable information (p. 1): For purposes of this report, the terms personal information and personally identifiable information are used interchangeably to refer to any information about an individual maintained by an agency, including (1) any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as name, Social Security number, date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, or biometric records; and (2) any other information that is linked or linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial, and employment information.
(†1571)
personally identifiable information (p. 2): The provisions of the Privacy Act are largely based on a set of principles for protecting the privacy and security of personal information, known as the Fair Information Practices, which were first proposed in 1973 by a U.S. government advisory committee. These principles, now widely accepted, include:
· collection limitation,
· data quality,
· purpose specification,
· use limitation,
· security safeguards,
· openness,
· individual participation, and
· accountability. (†1572)
