Privacy and Disclosure of Official Records and Information; Availability of Information and Records to the Public

The Social Security Administration (SSA) was formerly an operating division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Under that organizational structure, SSA followed the HHS regulations on privacy (45 CFR part 5b) as supplemented by regulations specific to SSA included in 20 CFR part 401, ``Disclosure of Official Records and Information'' and the HHS regulations on freedom of information (45 CFR part 5) as supplemented by specific rules on availability of information to the public (20 CFR part 422, subpart E). However, SSA became an independent agency on March 31, 1995. Accordingly, we are promulgating our own regulations on privacy and on availability of information by duplicating much of the HHS regulations on privacy and on freedom of information and merging them with our regulations on disclosure and availability of information. No substantive changes are intended. This will result in a revised part 401 in 20 CFR and a new part 402 in 20 CFR which will include our rules implementing the Privacy Act and our rules on disclosure. These new rules will be independent of HHS regulations, and will enable us to remove our availability regulations from 20 CFR part 422, subpart E.