[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 238 (Monday, December 12, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 89429-89431]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-29750]
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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
National Agricultural Statistics Service
Confidentiality Pledge Revision Notice
AGENCY: National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA.
ACTION: Notice of Revision of Confidentiality Pledge under the Title V
of the E-Government Act, Confidential Information Protection and
Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (CIPSEA) and Title 7, Chapter 55,
Section 2276 (Confidentiality of Information).
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SUMMARY: Under 44 U.S.C. 3506(e), and 44 U.S.C. 3501, the National
Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is announcing a revision to the
confidentiality pledge it provides to its respondents under CIPSEA and
Title 7, Chapter 55, Section 2276. The revision is 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: This revision becomes effective upon publication of this notice
in the Federal Register. In a parallel Federal Register notice, NASS is
seeking public comment on this confidentiality pledge revision.
ADDRESSES: Questions about this notice may be submitted by any of the
following methods:
Email: [email protected]. Include the title
``Confidentiality Pledge Revision Notice'' in the subject line of the
message.
Efax: (855) 838-6382.
Mail or Hand Delivery/Courier: David Hancock, NASS
Clearance Officer, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Room 5336 South
Building, 1400 Independence Avenue SW., Washington, DC 20250-2024.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: R. Renee Picanso, Associate
Administrator, National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, (202) 720-4333, or email [email protected].
Because of delays in the receipt of regular mail related to security
screening, respondents are encouraged to use phone or electronic
communications.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under CIPSEA; Title 7, Chapter 55, Section
2276; and similar statistical confidentiality protection statutes, many
federal statistical agencies, including NASS, 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. CIPSEA and Title 7, Chapter 55, Section
2276 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, the Internet packets that contain
the malware signature are shunted aside for further inspection by
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel. Because it is possible
that such packets entering or leaving a statistical agency's
information technology system may contain 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
[[Page 89430]]
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 agencies have been engaged in
finding a way to balance both objectives and achieve these mutually
reinforcing objectives.
Accordingly, DHS and federal statistical agencies (including NASS),
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, CIPSEA; Title 7,
Chapter 55, Section 2276; 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 the
Einstein 3A technology, statistical agencies need to revise their
confidentiality pledges to reflect this process change.
Therefore, NASS is providing this notice to alert the public to
this confidentiality pledge revision in an efficient and coordinated
fashion. Below is the revised confidentiality pledge as it will appear
on NASS survey questionnaires, as well as the revision to NASS's
confidentiality Web page. A list of the NASS OMB numbers and
information collection titles that will be affected by this revision is
also included below.
The revised confidentiality pledge to appear on NASS questionnaires
is below:
The information you provide will be used for statistical
purposes only. Your responses will be kept confidential and any
person who willfully discloses ANY identifiable information about
you or your operation is subject to a jail term, a fine, or both.
This survey is conducted in accordance with the Confidential
Information Protection provisions of Title V, Subtitle A, Public Law
107-347 and other applicable Federal laws. For more information on
how we protect your information please visit: https://www.nass.usda.gov/About_NASS/Confidentiality_Pledge/index.php.
For voluntary surveys the statement, ``Response to this survey is
voluntary.'' Will follow this pledge. For mandatory surveys the
statement, ``Response to this survey is mandatory.'' will follow.
The NASS confidentiality pledge Web page (https://www.nass.usda.gov/About_NASS/Confidentiality_Pledge/index.php) will be
revised to include a fifth item explaining that DHS will monitor the
transmission of data for cybersecurity threats. Item 5 is below:
5. Data are protected from cybersecurity threats
Per the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are
further protected by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
through cybersecurity monitoring of the systems that transmit your
data. DHS will be monitoring these systems to look for viruses,
malware and other threats. In the event of a cybersecurity incident,
and pursuant to any required legal process, information from these
sources may be used to help identify and mitigate the incident.
Affected information collections:
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Information collection
OMB No. Expiration date title
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0535-0001................... 04/30/2019 Cold Storage.
0535-0002................... 10/31/2018 Field Crops Production.
0535-0003................... 07/31/2019 Agricultural Prices.
0535-0004................... 01/31/2019 Egg, Chicken, and
Turkey Surveys.
0535-0005................... 11/30/2017 Livestock Slaughter.
0535-0007................... 01/31/2019 Stocks Reports.
0535-0020................... 07/31/2018 Milk and Milk Products.
0535-0037................... 08/31/2019 Vegetable Surveys.
0535-0039................... 10/31/2019 Fruit, Nuts, and
Specialty Crops.
0535-0088................... 07/31/2018 Field Crops Objective
Yield.
0535-0093................... 11/30/2018 Floriculture Survey.
0535-0109................... 03/31/2018 Agricultural Labor.
0535-0140................... 01/31/2019 List Sampling Frame
Survey.
0535-0150................... 06/30/2017 Aquaculture.
0535-0153................... 12/31/2018 Honey Survey.
0535-0212................... 11/30/2018 Mink Survey.
0535-0213................... 06/30/2017 Agricultural Surveys
Program.
0535-0218................... 07/31/2018 Agricultural Resource
Management and
Chemical Use Surveys
(ARMS).
0535-0220................... 03/31/2017 Cotton Ginnings.
0535-0226................... 10/31/2019 Census of Agriculture.
0535-0243................... 08/31/2018 Census of Agriculture
Content Test.
0535-0244................... 11/30/2019 Nursery Production
Survey and Nursery and
Floriculture Chemical
Use Survey.
0535-0245................... 09/30/2017 CEAP--NRI Conservation
Tillage and Nutrient
Management Survey.
0535-0248................... 04/30/2019 Generic Clearance of
Survey Improvement
Projects.
0535-0249................... 12/31/2017 Organic Production
Survey.
0535-0251................... 05/30/2019 Residue and Biomass
Field Survey.
0535-0254................... 07/31/2017 Current Agricultural
Industrial Reports
(CAIR).
0535-0255................... 04/30/2018 Colony Loss.
0535-0256................... 06/30/2018 Feral Swine Survey.
0535-0257................... 610/31/2018 Organic Certifier
Census.
0535-0258................... 611/30/2018 Cost of Pollination
Survey.
0535-0259................... 603/31/2019 Local Foods Survey.
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[[Page 89431]]
Signed at Washington, DC, November 30, 2016.
Hubert Hamer,
Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2016-29750 Filed 12-9-16; 8:45 am]
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