[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 9597-9599]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-02460]


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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION


Emergency Clearance; Public Information Collection Requirements 
Submitted to the Office of Management and Budget; Confidentiality 
Pledge Revision Notice

AGENCY: National Science Foundation.

ACTION: Emergency Clearance: Submission for OMB Review; Notice of 
Revision of Confidentiality Pledges under the Confidential Information

[[Page 9598]]

Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 (CIPSEA).

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SUMMARY: Under 44 U.S.C. 3506(e), and 44 U.S.C. 3501, the National 
Science Foundation (NSF) is announcing a revision to the 
confidentiality pledge it provides to its respondents under CIPSEA, the 
NSF Act of 1950, as amended, and the Privacy Act of 1974. These 
revisions are 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 for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 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 separate Federal Register notice, NSF is 
seeking public comment on this confidentiality pledge revision.
    For Additional Information or Comments: Contact Suzanne H. 
Plimpton, Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation, 4201 
Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1265, Arlington, Virginia 22230; telephone 
(703) 292-7556; or send email to [email protected]. Individuals who use 
a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal 
Information Relay Service (FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339 between 8:00 a.m. 
and 8:00 p.m., Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Federal statistics provide key information 
that the Nation uses to measure its performance and make informed 
choices about budgets, employment, health, investments, taxes, and a 
host of other significant topics. The overwhelming majority of Federal 
surveys are conducted on a voluntary basis. Respondents, ranging from 
businesses to households to institutions, may choose whether to provide 
the requested information. Many of the most valuable Federal statistics 
come from surveys that ask for highly sensitive information such as 
proprietary business data from companies or particularly personal 
information or practices from individuals. Strong and trusted 
confidentiality and exclusively statistical use pledges under the 
CIPSEA and similar statistical confidentiality pledges are effective 
and necessary in honoring the trust that businesses, individuals, and 
institutions, by their responses, place in statistical agencies.
    Under the CIPSEA and similar statistical confidentiality protection 
statutes, many Federal statistical agencies 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. The CIPSEA and similar statutes protect the 
confidentiality of information that agencies collect solely for 
statistical purposes and under a pledge of confidentiality. These Acts 
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 many 
legal processes. Moreover, statutes like the CIPSEA 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 enacted the Federal 
Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015 (H.R. 2029, Division N, Title II, 
Subtitle B, Sec. 223). This Act, among other provisions, requires the 
Secretary of Homeland Security to provide Federal civilian agencies' 
information technology systems with cybersecurity protection for their 
Internet traffic. The DHS cybersecurity 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 DHS is not a Federal 
statistical agency, both DHS and the Federal statistical system have 
been successfully engaged in finding a way to balance both objectives 
and achieve these mutually reinforcing objectives.
    As required by passage of the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act 
of 2015, the Federal statistical community will implement DHS' 
cybersecurity protection program, called Einstein.
    The technology currently used to provide this protection against 
cyber malware 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 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 security and 
integrity of the respondents' submissions.
    Accordingly, DHS and Federal statistical agencies have developed a 
Memorandum of Agreement for the installation of Einstein cybersecurity 
protection technology to monitor their Internet traffic.
    NSF is providing this notice to alert the public in an efficient 
and coordinated fashion that it is revising its confidentiality pledge. 
Below is a listing of the current numbers and information collection 
titles for those NSF programs whose confidentiality pledges will change 
to reflect the statutory implementation of DHS' Einstein monitoring for 
cybersecurity protection purposes.
    Therefore, the National Science Foundation is providing this notice 
to alert the public to these confidentiality pledge revisions in an 
efficient and coordinated fashion. Table 1 below contains a listing of 
NSF's current PRA OMB numbers and information collection titles and 
their associated revised confidentiality pledges for the Information 
Collections whose confidentiality pledges will change to reflect the 
statutory implementations of DHS' Einstein 3A monitoring for 
cybersecurity protection purposes. For the Information Collections 
listed in the table below, NSF statistical confidentiality pledges will 
be modified to include the following sentence, ``Per the Federal 
Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from 
cybersecurity risks through screening of the systems that transmit your 
data.''

[[Page 9599]]



   Table 1--Current PRA OMB Numbers, Expiration Dates, and Information
                Collection Titles Included in This Notice
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                                                        Information
        OMB Control No.          Expiration date      collection title
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3145-0101.....................         08/31/2018  Survey of Science and
                                                    Engineering Research
                                                    Facilities.
3145-0019 *...................         05/31/2018  Survey of Earned
                                                    Doctorates.
3145-0020.....................         08/31/2018  Survey of Doctorate
                                                    Recipients.
3145-0100 *...................         09/30/2019  Higher Education R&D
                                                    Survey.
3145-0141 **..................         05/31/2018  National Survey of
                                                    College Graduates.
3145-0174 *...................         07/31/2019  Generic Clearance of
                                                    Survey Improvement
                                                    Projects . . .
3145-0235.....................         06/30/2017  Early Career
                                                    Doctorates Survey.
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* Indicates information collections that are expected to be in the field
  during the period covered by the 6-month emergency clearance.
** This information collection was also named in a Federal Register
  Notice from the U.S. Census Bureau (81 FR 94321), since that agency
  collects data on NSF's behalf.


    Dated: February 2, 2017.
Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2017-02460 Filed 2-6-17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7555-01-P