Mail includes not only items sent through the U.S. Postal service but also through commercial letter or parcel delivery services. Image: Evgenia Parajanian/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe OPM has acted to improve privacy in in its communications with federal employees and retirees regarding their benefits, such as by not including Social Security numbers in anything sent through the mail unless if it is deemed completely necessary.
A Federal Register notice also carries out other provisions of a law designed to reduce fraudulent uses of Social Security numbers, including partially redacting numbers when they are used and prohibiting the complete or partial display through the window of any package or envelope.
In addition to adding those restrictions to existing privacy policies, OPM also made explicit that a definition of a covered document: “a record of some information that can be used as an authority or for reference, further analyses, or study. This includes all records OPM maintains and uses to identify, track, and correspond with agencies, federal employees, contractors, and annuitants, among others.”
The term “mail” includes not only items sent through the U.S. Postal service but also through commercial letter or parcel delivery services, it adds.
OPM said the rule “formalizes in regulation OPM’s current practice of safeguarding SSNs in mailed documents and will support efforts to protect individual privacy,” adding that it further “applies encryption technology and other security controls, such as password protection, to minimize the risk of unauthorized disclosure of SSNs.”
“OPM program offices are also required to conduct proper assessments to minimize the use of SSNs and the impact to individual privacy as a result of their inclusion in any document,” it says.
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