81 FR 94321 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Request for Comments; Revision of the Confidentiality Pledge Under Title 13 United States Code, Section 9

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 247 (December 23, 2016)

Under 44 U.S.C. 3506(e) and 13 U.S.C. Section 9, the U.S. Census Bureau is seeking comments on revisions to the confidentiality pledge it provides to its respondents under Title 13, United States Code, Section 9. These revisions are required by the passage and implementation of provisions of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (H.R. 2029, Division N, Title II, Subtitle B, Sec. 223), which permit and require the Secretary of Homeland Security to provide Federal civilian agencies' information technology systems with cybersecurity protection for their Internet traffic. More details on this announcement are presented in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section below.

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 247 (Friday, December 23, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 94321-94324]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-30959]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Agency Information Collection Activities; Request for Comments; 
Revision of the Confidentiality Pledge Under Title 13 United States 
Code, Section 9

AGENCY: Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: Under 44 U.S.C. 3506(e) and 13 U.S.C. Section 9, the U.S. 
Census Bureau is seeking comments on revisions to the confidentiality 
pledge it provides to its respondents under Title 13, United States 
Code, Section 9. These revisions are required by the passage and 
implementation of provisions of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement 
Act of 2015 (H.R. 2029, Division N, Title II, Subtitle B, Sec. 223), 
which permit and require the Secretary of Homeland Security to provide 
Federal civilian agencies' information technology systems with 
cybersecurity protection for their Internet traffic. More details on 
this announcement are presented in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION 
section below.

DATES: To ensure consideration, written comments must be submitted on 
or before February 21, 2017.

ADDRESSES: Direct all written comments to Jennifer Jessup, Departmental 
Paperwork Clearance Officer, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 14th 
and Constitution Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet 
at [email protected]).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information 
should be directed to Robin J. Bachman, Policy Coordination Office, 
Census Bureau, HQ-8H028, Washington, DC 20233; 301-763-6440 (or via 
email at [email protected]). Due to delays in the receipt of 
regular mail related to security screening, respondents are encouraged 
to use electronic communications.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Abstract

    Federal statistics provide key information that the Nation uses to 
measure its performance and make informed choices about budgets, 
employment, health, investments, taxes, and a host of other significant 
topics. The overwhelming majority of Federal surveys are conducted on a 
voluntary basis. Respondents, ranging from businesses to households to 
institutions, may choose whether or not to provide the requested 
information. Many of the

[[Page 94322]]

most valuable Federal statistics come from surveys that ask for highly 
sensitive information such as proprietary business data from companies 
or particularly personal information or practices from individuals. 
Strong and trusted confidentiality and exclusively statistical use 
pledges under Title 13, U.S.C. and similar statistical confidentiality 
pledges are effective and necessary in honoring the trust that 
businesses, individuals, and institutions, by their responses, place in 
statistical agencies.
    Under the authority of Title 13, U.S.C. and similar statistical 
confidentiality protection statutes, many Federal statistical agencies 
make statutory pledges that the information respondents provide will be 
seen only by statistical agency personnel or their sworn agents, and 
will be used only for statistical purposes. Title 13, U.S.C. and 
similar statutes protect the confidentiality of information that 
agencies collect solely for statistical purposes and under a pledge of 
confidentiality. These acts protect such statistical information from 
administrative, law enforcement, taxation, regulatory, or any other 
non-statistical use and immunize the information submitted to 
statistical agencies from legal process. Moreover, many of these 
statutes carry criminal penalties of a Class E felony (fines up to 
$250,000, or up to five years in prison, or both) for conviction of a 
knowing and willful unauthorized disclosure of covered information.
    As part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2016 
signed on December 17, 2015, the Congress included the Federal 
Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (H.R. 2029, Division N, Title II, 
Subtitle B, Sec. 223). This Act, among other provisions, permits and 
requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to provide Federal civilian 
agencies' information technology systems with cybersecurity protection 
for their Internet traffic. The technology currently used to provide 
this protection against cyber malware is known as Einstein 3A; it 
electronically searches Internet traffic in and out of Federal civilian 
agencies in real time for malware signatures.
    When such a signature is found, Department of Homeland Security 
(DHS) personnel shunt the Internet packets that contain the malware 
signature aside for further inspection. Since it is possible that such 
packets entering or leaving a statistical agency's information 
technology system may contain a small portion of confidential 
statistical data, statistical agencies can no longer promise their 
respondents that their responses will be seen only by statistical 
agency personnel or their sworn agents. However, they can promise, in 
accordance with provisions of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act 
of 2015, that such monitoring can be used only to protect information 
and information systems from cybersecurity risks, thereby, in effect, 
providing stronger protection to the integrity of the respondents' 
submissions.
    Consequently, with the passage of the Federal Cybersecurity 
Enhancement Act of 2015, the Federal statistical community has an 
opportunity to welcome the further protection of its confidential data 
offered by DHS' Einstein 3A cybersecurity protection program. The DHS 
cybersecurity program's objective is to protect Federal civilian 
information systems from malicious malware attacks. The Federal 
statistical system's objective is to ensure that the DHS Secretary 
performs those essential duties in a manner that honors the 
Government's statutory promises to the public to protect their 
confidential data. Given that the Department of Homeland Security is 
not a Federal statistical agency, both DHS and the Federal statistical 
system have been successfully engaged in finding a way to balance both 
objectives and achieve these mutually reinforcing objectives.
    Accordingly, DHS and Federal statistical agencies, in cooperation 
with their parent departments, have developed a Memorandum of Agreement 
for the installation of Einstein 3A cybersecurity protection technology 
to monitor their Internet traffic and have incorporated an associated 
Addendum on Highly Sensitive Agency Information that provides 
additional protection and enhanced security handling of confidential 
statistical data. However, many current Title 13, U.S.C. and similar 
statistical confidentiality pledges promise that respondents' data will 
be seen only by statistical agency personnel or their sworn agents. 
Since it is possible that DHS personnel could see some portion of those 
confidential data in the course of examining the suspicious Internet 
packets identified by Einstein 3A sensors, statistical agencies need to 
revise their confidentiality pledges to reflect this process change.
    Therefore, the U.S. Census Bureau is providing this notice to alert 
the public to the confidentiality pledge revisions in an efficient and 
coordinated fashion and to request public comments on the revisions. 
The following section contains the revised confidentiality pledge and a 
listing of the U.S. Census Bureau's current PRA OMB numbers and 
information collection titles for the Information Collections whose 
confidentiality pledges will change to reflect the statutory 
implementation of DHS' Einstein 3A monitoring for cybersecurity 
protection purposes.

II. Method of Collection

    The following is the revised statistical confidentiality pledge for 
the Census Bureau's data collections:
    The U.S. Census Bureau is required by law to protect your 
information. The Census Bureau is not permitted to publicly release 
your responses in a way that could identify you. Per the Federal 
Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from 
cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit your 
data.
    The following listing includes Census Bureau information 
collections which are confidential under 13 U.S.C. Section 9, as well 
as information collections that the Census Bureau conducts on behalf of 
other agencies which are confidential under 13 U.S.C. Section 9 and for 
which the confidentiality pledge will also be revised.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
           OMB No.                  Title of information collection
------------------------------------------------------------------------
0607-0008....................  Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories,
                                and Orders Survey.
0607-0013....................  Annual Retail Trade Report.
0607-0049....................  Current Population Survey (CPS) Basic
                                Demographics.
0607-0104....................  Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey
                                (MARTS).
0607-0110....................  Survey of Housing Starts, Sales, and
                                Completions.
0607-0117....................  U.S. Census-Age Search.
0607-0151....................  The Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS)
                                & Boundary Validation Program (BVP).
0607-0153....................  Construction Progress Reporting Surveys.
0607-0175....................  Quarterly Survey of Plant Capacity
                                Utilization.
0607-0179....................  Housing Vacancy Survey (HVS).

[[Page 94323]]

 
0607-0189....................  Business and Professional Classification
                                Report.
0607-0190....................  Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey.
0607-0195....................  Annual Wholesale Trade Survey (AWTS).
0607-0354....................  Annual Social and Economic Supplement to
                                the Current Population Survey.
0607-0368....................  Special Census Program.
0607-0422....................  Service Annual Survey.
0607-0432....................  Quarterly Financial Report (QFR).
0607-0444....................  2014-2016 Company Organization Survey.
0607-0449....................  Annual Survey of Manufactures.
0607-0464....................  October School Enrollment Supplement to
                                the Current Population Survey.
0607-0466....................  Current Population Survey, Voting and
                                Registration Supplement.
0607-0561....................  Manufacturers' Unfilled Orders Survey.
0607-0610....................  Current Population Survey June Fertility
                                Supplement.
0607-0717....................  Monthly Retail Trade Survey.
0607-0725....................  Generic Clearance for Questionnaire
                                Pretesting Research.
0607-0757....................  2017 New York City Housing and Vacancy
                                Survey.
0607-0782....................  Annual Capital Expenditures Survey.
0607-0795....................  Generic Clearance for Geographic
                                Partnership Programs.
0607-0809....................  Generic Clearance for MAF and TIGER
                                Update Activities.
0607-0810....................  The American Community Survey.
0607-0907....................  Quarterly Services Survey.
0607-0909....................  Information and Communication Technology
                                Survey.
0607-0912....................  Business R&D and Innovation Survey.
0607-0921....................  2017 Economic Census--Commodity Flow
                                Survey (CFS)--Advance Questionnaire.
0607-0932....................  2017 Economic Census--Commodity Flow
                                Survey.
0607-0936....................  American Community Survey Methods Panel
                                Tests.
0607-0963....................  2015 Management and Organizational
                                Practices Survey.
0607-0969....................  Federal Statistical System Public Opinion
                                Survey.
0607-0971....................  Generic Clearance for 2020 Census Tests
                                to Research the Use of Automation in
                                Field Data Collection Activities.
0607-0977....................  2014 Survey of Income and Program
                                Participation (SIPP) Panel.
0607-0978....................  Generic Clearance for Internet
                                Nonprobability Panel Pretesting.
0607-0983....................  Comparing Health Insurance Measurement
                                Error (CHIME).
0607-0986....................  Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs.
0607-0987....................  The School District Review Program
                                (SDRP).
0607-0988....................  The Redistricting Data Program.
0607-0989....................  2016 Census Test.
0607-0990....................  National Survey of Children's Health.
0607-0991....................  2017 Economic Census Industry
                                Classification Report.
0607-0992....................  Address Canvassing Testing.
0607-XXXX....................  2017 Census Test--currently submitted for
                                clearance.
0607-0760....................  Economic Census Round 3 Focus Group
                                Discussion--currently submitted for
                                clearance.
0607-XXXX....................  Collection of State Administrative
                                Records Data--currently submitted for
                                clearance.
0607-XXXX....................  2020 Census Local Update of Census
                                Addresses Operation (LUCA)--currently
                                submitted for clearance.
2528-0017....................  2015 American Housing Survey.
1220-0175....................  American Time Use Survey (ATUS).
1220-0050....................  Consumer Expenditure Quarterly and Diary
                                Surveys (CEQ/CED).
1220-0100....................  Current Population Survey (CPS)--Basic
                                Labor Force.
1121-0317....................  Identify Theft Supplement to the NCVS.
1121-0111....................  National Crime Victimization Survey 2015-
                                2018.
3145-0141....................  National Survey of College Graduates
                                (NSCG).
1018-0088....................  National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and
                                Wildlife-Associated Recreation.
1121-0260....................  2015 Police Public Contact Supplement.
1121-0184....................  2017 School Crime Supplement to the NCVS.
1121-0302....................  Supplemental Victimization Survey.
2528-0013....................  Survey of Market Absorption (SOMA).
2528-0276....................  Rental Housing Finance Survey (RHFS).
1905-0169....................  Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey
                                (MECSA).
2528-0029....................  Manufactured Housing Survey (MHS).
0935-0110....................  Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
1220-0187....................  ATUS-Eating and Health Supplement.
0536-0043....................  Food Security Supplement to the Current
                                Population Survey.
1220-0153....................  Contingent Worker Supplement to the
                                Current Population Survey--(Currently in
                                Federal Register Notice Stage--has not
                                been fully approved).
1220-0102....................  Veterans Supplement to the Current
                                Population Survey.
0970-0416....................  Child Support Supplement to the Current
                                Population Survey.
3064-0167....................  National Survey of Unbanked and
                                Underbanked Households.
1220-0102....................  Volunteers Supplement.
1220-0104....................  Displaced Workers Supplement.
3135-0136....................  Survey of Public Participation in the
                                Arts.
0660-0221....................  Computer and Internet Use.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


[[Page 94324]]

III. Data

    OMB Control Number: 0607-0993.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Affected Public: All survey respondents to Census Bureau data 
collections.
    Legal Authority: 44 U.S.C. 3506(e) and 13 U.S.C. Section 9.

IV. Request for Comments

    Comments are invited on the necessity and efficacy of the Census 
Bureau's revised confidentiality pledge above. Comments submitted in 
response to this notice will become a matter of public record.

Sheleen Dumas,
PRA Departmental Lead, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2016-30959 Filed 12-22-16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P