OMB releases privacy guidelines for federal agencies.The Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), formerly the Bureau of the Budget, is an agency of the federal government that evaluates, formulates, and coordinates management procedures and program objectives within and among departments and agencies of the Executive Branch. (OMB OMB abbr. Office of Management and Budget Noun 1. OMB - the executive agency that advises the President on the federal budget Office of Management and Budget ) released a guidance document designed to implement the privacy provisions of the E-Government (Electronic-GOVERNMENT) A generic term for Web-based services from agencies of local, state and federal governments. Such Web sites provide a wide variety of services to the public and have been extremely helpful in reducing internal paperwork. Act of 2002. The guidance directs federal agencies to conduct reviews of how information about individuals is handled when agencies use information technology (IT) to collect new information or when agencies develop or but new IT systems to handle collections of personally identifiable information In information security and privacy, personally identifiable information or personally identifying information (PII) is any piece of information which can potentially be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person. . Agencies are also required to describe how they manage information that individuals provide electronically in order to assure the American public that their personal information is protected. The guidelines guidelines, n.pl a set of standards, criteria, or specifications to be used or followed in the performance of certain tasks. apply to information that identifies individuals, including name, address, telephone number, Social Security number, and e-mail address See Internet address. e-mail address - electronic mail address . Agencies will be required to conduct new privacy impact assessments (PIAs) before developing IT systems that contain identifiable information or before collecting identifiable information electronically. PIAs must be updated when changes in the way an agency handles personally identifiable information create new privacy risks. Affected agencies also will be required to report on their e-privacy-related activities every year. Agencies recently finished plans to make their Web site privacy policies "machine readable Data in a form that can be read by the computer, which includes disks, tapes and punch cards. Printed fonts that can be scanned and recognized by the computer are also machine readable. ," meaning that they automatically provide notification when the site does not cover a visitor's privacy preferences. Via their Web sites, agencies will be required to tell visitors * when it is voluntary to submit information * how to grant consent for agency use of voluntarily submitted personal data * what their rights under the Privacy Act and other such laws are Agency Web sites also will be required to disclose * the nature of information collected * the purpose and use of such information * whether and to whom such information will be shared * the privacy safeguards applied to the information collected |
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