[Federal Register Volume 74, Number 142 (Monday, July 27, 2009)]
[Notices]
[Pages 37087-37090]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E9-17791]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration


Privacy Act of 1974; System of Records Notice

AGENCY: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 
Department of Transportation (DOT).

ACTION: Notice to establish a system of records.

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SUMMARY: NHTSA intends to establish a system of records under the 
Privacy Act of 1974 as part of its Consumer Assistance to Recycle and 
Save program (CARS program), which implements the Consumer Assistance 
to Recycle and Save Act of 2009 (CARS Act). The system of records will 
contain personally identifiable information (PII) about individual car 
purchasers/lessees and may contain PII about a limited number of sole 
proprietor automobile salvage auctions and disposal facilities 
participating in the CARS Program, which is a temporary program 
covering eligible automobile purchases/leases occurring between July 1, 
2009 and November 1, 2009. The system of records is more thoroughly 
detailed below and in the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) that NHTSA 
will include in the docket for the CARS final rule at http://www.regulations.gov, being published in the Federal Register on or 
about July 24, 2009 and on the DOT Privacy Web site at http://www.dot.gov/privacy.

DATES: Effective July 24, 2009. The CARS Act requires the Secretary of 
Transportation, acting through NHTSA, to issue final regulations within 
30 days after enactment (i.e., by July 24, 2009), ``notwithstanding'' 
the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act 
(5 U.S.C. 553). NHTSA established a Web site to convey information 
about the program and a hotline to answer questions about the program. 
On July 2, 2009, NHTSA published a document in the Federal Register (74 
FR 31812) providing additional useful information, in advance of 
issuance of its final rule. NHTSA could not finalize its System of 
Records Notice (SORN) prior to completion of the CARS final rule, so 
this SORN is being published today, concurrent with the final rule. Due 
to the extremely short time afforded by the CARS Act to develop and 
complete the CARS rulemaking and implement this 4-month program, NHTSA 
was precluded from publishing its rule for notice and comment. It found 
for good cause that providing notice and comment on the final rule 
would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest. For the 
same reason, NHTSA must begin operating the CARS program system of 
records on or about July 24, 2009, prior to completion of a 30-day 
public notice and comment period under this SORN. NHTSA nonetheless 
seeks and will accept public comment on this SORN for a 30-day period. 
Because our ability to consider comments received may be limited, we 
encourage the earliest possible submission of comments. If feasible, we 
may publish an amended SORN in light of any comments received.

ADDRESSES: Send comments to Dee Smith, NHTSA Privacy Officer, NHTSA 
Office of the CIO, NPO-420, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New 
Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20590 or [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For privacy issues please contact: Dee 
Smith, NHTSA Privacy Officer, NHTSA Office of the CIO, NPO-420, U.S. 
Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, 
DC 20590 or [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

[[Page 37088]]

I. CARS Program

    On June 24, 2009, the President signed into law the Consumer 
Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009 (the CARS Act) (Pub. L. 111-
32). The Act establishes, within DOT's National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration (NHTSA), a temporary program under which an owner of a 
motor vehicle meeting statutorily specified criteria may trade in the 
vehicle and receive a monetary credit from the dealer toward the 
purchase or lease of a new motor vehicle meeting statutorily specified 
criteria (the CARS Program or Program).
    The Program covers qualifying transactions that occur between July 
1, 2009 and November 1, 2009. If all of the conditions of eligibility 
are met and the dealer provides NHTSA with sufficient documentation 
relating to the transaction, NHTSA will make an electronic payment to 
the dealer equal to the amount of the credit extended by the dealer to 
the consumer, not exceeding the statutorily authorized amount. The 
dealer must agree to transfer the trade-in vehicle to a salvage auction 
or disposal facility that will crush or shred it so that it will never 
be returned to the road, although parts of the vehicle other than the 
engine block may be sold prior to disposal.
    Under the Program, NHTSA must collect a variety of information from 
individuals and entities about qualifying transactions. Vehicle 
manufacturers must provide data about vehicles and authorized dealers. 
Dealers must provide information about their business operations and 
individual financial transactions. Salvage auctions and disposal 
facilities may be required to provide comparable data about their 
business operations and information confirming the sale or destruction 
of trade-in vehicles. This information is required to ensure compliance 
with the terms of the CARS Act--specifically, to verify that purchasing 
consumers, new and trade-in vehicles, dealers, salvage auctions and 
disposal facilities are eligible to participate in the Program; to 
identify, prevent and penalize fraud; and to confirm appropriate 
disposal of the trade-in vehicles. Participating car buyers also will 
be asked to complete a survey about the Program for use in reporting to 
Congress on the efficacy of the Program, as mandated by the CARS 
statute. Surveys will be voluntary and anonymous. Additionally, under 
the Act, NHTSA is required to coordinate with the U.S. Department of 
Justice (DOJ) to ensure that the National Motor Vehicle Title 
Information System (NMVTIS) (which is administrated by the American 
Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA)) is updated 
appropriately to reflect the disposal of vehicles traded in under the 
CARS Program.

II. CARS Database System

    In order to support the CARS program, NHTSA will utilize one or 
more secure databases (i.e., the CARS Database System) to collect, 
process and store information about eligible transactions and about car 
purchasers/lessees, dealers, salvage auctions and disposal facilities 
participating in the CARS program. This information will include 
Personally Identifiable Information (PII), including financial 
transaction information of individual car purchasers/lessees, and may 
include PII about a limited number of salvage auctions and disposal 
facilities participating in the program, which in some States may be 
operated by individuals (sole proprietors).

III. The Privacy Act

    The Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a) governs the means by which the 
United States Government collects, maintains, and uses PII in a system 
of records. A ``system of records'' is a group of any records under the 
control of a Federal agency from which information about individuals is 
retrieved by name or other personal identifier.
    The Privacy Act requires each agency to publish in the Federal 
Register a notice (SORN) identifying and describing each system of 
records the agency maintains, including the purposes for which the 
agency uses PII in the system, the routine uses for which the agency 
discloses such information outside the agency, and how individuals 
record subject can exercise their rights under the Privacy Act (e.g., 
to determine if the system contains information about them).

IV. Privacy Impact Assessment

    NHTSA is publishing a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) to coincide 
with this SORN.
    In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 552a(r), a report on the establishment 
of this new system of records has been sent to Congress and to the 
Office of Management and Budget.
SYSTEM NUMBER:
DOT/NHTSA 464

SYSTEM NAME:
    CARS Database System.

SECURITY CLASSIFICATION:
    Sensitive, unclassified.

SYSTEM LOCATION:
    Servers: The Servers hosting the CARS Database System are housed in 
a contractor-owned facility at Oracle On Demand in Austin, Texas.
    Portals: This system is accessed via portals located at:
     Registered, participating new car dealers via the Internet 
at http://www.cars.gov.
     NHTSA Headquarters, located at 1200 New Jersey Avenue, and 
in various of NHTSA's regional offices and at other off-site locations 
used in connection with CARS Program.
     The off-site facilities of NHTSA and DOT Contractors.
    Authorized users at NHTSA Headquarters access their records in the 
CARS Database System via the DOT Intranet. Authorized users at the 
NHTSA portal locations and at the contractor portal locations access 
their records in the CARS Database System via the Internet at http://www.cars.gov.
    Some system software is maintained by Oracle On Demand in Austin, 
Texas. The CARS Database System interfaces with participating new car 
dealers, and with other DOT systems used to pay the dealers, through 
that system software, as well as other software maintained by the 
Federal Aviation Administration's Enterprise Services Center (ESC) at 
the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, Oklahoma City, OK.
    Any hard-copy files containing CARS-related records will be 
maintained at the pertinent NHTSA, DOT or Contractor portal locations.

CATEGORIES OF INDIVIDUALS COVERED BY THE SYSTEM:
    The system covers the following individuals:
     Individual buyers/lessees of new cars participating in the 
CARS program.
     Sole proprietors of salvage auctions and automobile 
disposal facilities participating in the CARS program.

CATEGORIES OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM:
     Records about individual car buyers/lessees participating 
in the CARS Program consist of transaction records containing the 
following PII data elements: name and address of the purchaser/lessee; 
the purchaser/lessee's State driver's license number or other State 
identification number; the State driver's license number or other State 
identification number of the co-purchaser/lessee (if any), as listed in 
the title; and the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) of the trade-in 
vehicle and the VIN of the new vehicle. Depending on the State and 
content of the sales contract, PII also may be found on the following 
documents required to

[[Page 37089]]

be scanned by dealers and entered into the system: Document of title of 
trade-in vehicle (or, in certain States, documentation of paper-less 
title), proof of insurance for trade-in vehicle (cards or letter from 
insurer), trade-in registration, sales summary sheet, and salvage 
certificate.
     Records about any sole proprietors of salvage auctions and 
disposal facilities participating in the CARS Program consist of 
business operation records that may include the following PII elements: 
Name, home address, telephone number and e-mail address, to the extent 
that such individuals operate their businesses out of their homes.

AUTHORITY FOR MAINTENANCE OF THE SYSTEM:
    Public Law 111-32, 123 Stat. 1859.

PURPOSE(S):
    The purpose for collecting records in the CARS Database System is 
to implement the CARS Program and ensure compliance with the terms of 
the CARS Act. Specifically:
     NHTSA personnel and contractors use the information that 
each car dealer enters into the CARS database to verify that 
purchasing/leasing consumers, new and trade-in vehicles, dealers, 
salvage auctions and disposal facilities are eligible to participate in 
the Program.
     NHTSA personnel and contractors use information entered 
into the system to determine if individual transactions satisfy CARS 
program requirements.
     NHTSA personnel and contractors use the system to send 
information about eligible transaction to a DOT financial management 
system to process vouchers and cause dealers to be paid by DOT/NHTSA 
for eligible transactions.
     Both to establish eligibility and for audit purposes, 
NHTSA compares dealer-entered information in the CARS Database System 
to purchaser/lessee and transactional information already within the 
system.
     NHTSA personnel and contractors and the DOT Inspector 
General may use information about individual transactions, purchasers/
lessees, dealers, salvage auctions and disposal facilities 
participating in the CARS Program to prevent, identify and investigate 
program violations and fraud.
     NHTSA personnel and contractors will use survey data 
provided by purchasers/lessees to report to Congress on the efficacy of 
the Program.

ROUTINE USES OF RECORDS MAINTAINED IN THE SYSTEM, INCLUDING CATEGORIES 
OF USERS AND THE PURPOSES OF SUCH USES:
    The CARS Database System shares PII about individual purchasers/
leasees and their new and trade-in vehicles, and about any sole 
proprietors of salvage auctions and automobile disposal facilities, as 
follows:
     NHTSA personnel and contractors will use VINs from the 
system to update DOJ's NMVTIS database, as required by the CARS Act.
     NHTSA personnel and contractors, as well as the DOT 
Inspector General, may provide to the U.S. Department of Justice 
information about certain transactions, including PII about individual 
purchasers/lessees and any sole proprietors of salvage auctions and 
disposal facilities participating in the CARS Program, for purposes of 
investigating and prosecuting criminal violations, including fraud.
     NHTSA personnel and contractors will provide to States 
lists of VINs of trade-in vehicles for which they issued car titles, 
for purposes of cancelling the car titles.
     Salvage auctions and disposal facilities receive the VIN 
and voucher transaction code for each trade-in car sent to them for 
sale or destruction. They include the VIN and code on a certificate 
that they return to DOT/NHTSA.

    Other possible routine uses of the information, applicable to all 
DOT systems, are published in the Federal Register at 65 FR 19476 
(April 11, 2000), under ``Prefatory Statement of General Routine Uses'' 
(available at http://www.dot.gov/privacy/privacyactnotices/).

DISCLOSURE TO CONSUMER REPORTING AGENCIES:
    None.

POLICIES AND PRACTICES FOR STORING, RETRIEVING, ACCESSING, RETAINING, 
AND DISPOSING OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM:
STORAGE:
    Records are stored in databases, on magnetic tape, on magnetic disk 
and in secure file folders at DOT, NHTSA and contractor portal 
locations, as required. The databases are on servers; the data is 
typically stored on a Storage Area Network (SAN) and backed-up on tape 
stored in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Kansas and Austin, 
Texas. Magnetic tape and disk records are maintained at the central 
maintenance site in Oklahoma City, at the disaster recovery site in 
Kansas City, and at the remote hosting site in Austin. Storage of file 
folders is at the geographic location of the pertinent portal location.

RETRIEVABILITY:
    Records related to individual purchasing/leasing consumers 
participating in the CARS program are retrieved by State identification 
number (ID). This will be either a State driver's license and/or 
another form of State ID (i.e., driver's permit or standard ID).
    Records related to any sole proprietors of automobile disposal 
facilities are retrieved through the use of a unique number given to 
the proprietors through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The 
EPA number will be listed on the http://www.cars.gov Web site for 
disposal facilities that are authorized to receive CARS vehicles.

SAFEGUARDS:
    Access to records in the CARS Database system will be limited to 
NHTSA personnel and contractors through password security, encryption, 
firewalls, and secured operating system, except for bank account 
information and a limited amount of eligible transaction information 
which will be encrypted and sent securely to DOT's financial management 
system for purposes of effecting payments to participating dealers for 
eligible transactions.
    Registered dealers entering data into the system will be able to 
access only records relating to transactions initiated by the same 
dealer--and not records relating to other transactions entered into the 
system.
    Any hard copies of CARS-related records containing PII at DOT, 
NHTSA and contractor portal locations will be kept in file folders 
locked in secure file cabinets during non-duty hours.

RETENTION AND DISPOSAL:
    Under the CARS Final Rule, records created under the CARS program 
will be kept for 5 years. Records that are needed longer, such as to 
resolve claims and audit exceptions and prosecute fraud, will be 
retained until such matters are resolved.
    The records may be moved at a future date to one or more different 
locations in response to the operational needs of DOT, NHTSA, the CARS 
Program or DOT/NHTSA contractors

SYSTEM MANAGER AND ADDRESS:
    The CARS Database System Manager (NPO-400), Office of the Chief 
Information Officer, NHTSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 
20590.

NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE:
    Individuals or business entities wishing to know if their records 
appear in this system should direct their

[[Page 37090]]

requests to the System Manager identified above.

RECORD ACCESS PROCEDURE:
    Individuals seeking access to information about them in this system 
should follow the same procedure as indicated under ``Notification 
Procedure.''

CONTESTING RECORDS PROCEDURE:
    Individuals seeking to contest the content of information about 
them in this system should follow the same procedure as indicated under 
``Notification Procedure.''

RECORD SOURCE CATEGORIES:
    Transaction information pertaining to individual purchasers/lessees 
is obtained by car dealers, on behalf of NHTSA, directly from the 
individuals, from source documents the individuals provide (some of 
which are scanned into the database by the dealer), and/or directly 
from their new and trade-in cars. Dealers scan and/or enter the 
information into the CARS database and manually compare the information 
to the source documents or systems to verify its accuracy. NHTSA 
personnel and contractors then review the records to ensure accuracy 
prior to assessing the eligibility of individual transactions.
    Business operations information about any sole proprietor salvage 
auctions and disposal facilities is obtained directly from the 
proprietors.

EXEMPTIONS CLAIMED FOR THIS SYSTEM:
    None.

    Dated: July 21, 2009.
Habib Azarsina,
Departmental Privacy Officer.
[FR Doc. E9-17791 Filed 7-24-09; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-9X-P