[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 208 (Monday, October 30, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 50167-50169]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-23466]


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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposals, Submissions, 
and Approvals

AGENCY: National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and 
Engineering Statistics.

ACTION: Submission to OMB and Request for Comments.

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SUMMARY: The National Science Foundation (NSF) has submitted the 
following information collection requirements to OMB for review and 
clearance under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

DATES: Written comments on this notice must be received by [] to be 
assured consideration. Comments received after that date will be 
considered to the extent practicable.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:  Comments should be addressed to: 
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of OMB, Attention: Desk 
Officer for National Science Foundation, 725 17th Street NW., Room 
10235, Washington, DC 20503, and to Suzanne H. Plimpton, Reports 
Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation, 2415 Eisenhower Avenue, 
Alexandria, VA 22314; telephone (703) 292-7556; or send email to 
[email protected]. Copies of the submission(s) may be obtained by 
calling 703-292-7556. Individuals who use a telecommunications device 
for the deaf (TDD) may call the Federal Information Relay Service 
(FIRS) at 1-800-877-8339, which is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a 
week, 365 days a year (including Federal holidays).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Comments are invited on: (a) The proposed 
confidentiality pledge's fit for use by the National Center for Science 
and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), and (b) ways to enhance the 
quality, utility, and clarity of the pledge.
    Title: National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics 
Confidentiality Pledge.
    OMB Approval Number: 3145-0245.
    Summary of Collection: Federal statistics provide key information 
that the Nation uses to measure its performance and make informed

[[Page 50168]]

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 
Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act 
(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 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. 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 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 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.
    On February 2, 2017, in a pair of Federal Register notices (82 FR 
9599 and 82 FR 9597), the public was notified of the change to the 
confidentiality pledges to be used by NCSES. No comments were received 
in response to those notices.
    Table 1 contains a listing of the current numbers and information 
collection titles for those NCSES programs whose confidentiality 
pledges will change to reflect the statutory implementation of DHS' 
Einstein monitoring for cybersecurity protection purposes. For the 
Information Collection Requests (ICRs) listed in the table below, NCSES 
statistical confidentiality pledges will be modified to include one of 
two sentences, based on whether the collection agent is another federal 
agency (e.g., the U.S. Census Bureau) or a private-sector contractor. 
For collections by another federal agency, the following sentence will 
be added to the confidentiality pledge: ``Per the Federal Cybersecurity 
Enhancement Act of 2015, your data are protected from cybersecurity 
risks through screening of the systems that transmit your data.'' For 
collections by private-sector contractors, whose systems are not 
covered by Einstein, the following sentence will be added to the 
confidentiality pledge: ``Per the Federal Cybersecurity Enhancement Act 
of 2015, your data are protected from cybersecurity risks through 
screening of the federal information systems that transmit your data.''
    Table 1 indicates which pledge (federal vs. private) the ICR will 
use.

  Table 1--Current PRA OMB Numbers, Expiration Dates, and Information Collection Titles Included in This Notice
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                                        Expiration       Information collection
           OMB control no.                 date                  title                     Pledge version
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3145-0101...........................      08/31/2018  Survey of Science and        Private.
                                                       Engineering Research
                                                       Facilities (Facilities).
3145-0019...........................      05/31/2018  Survey of Earned Doctorates  Private.
3145-0020...........................      08/31/2018  Survey of Doctorate          Private.
                                                       Recipients.
3145-0100...........................      09/30/2019  Higher Education R&D Survey  Private.
3145-0141 *.........................      05/31/2018  National Survey of College   Federal.
                                                       Graduates.
3145-0174...........................      07/31/2019  Generic Clearance of Survey  Private.
                                                       Improvement Projects.
3145-0235...........................      06/30/2017  Early Career Doctorates      Private.
                                                       Survey.
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* 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.



[[Page 50169]]

    Dated: October 24, 2017.
Suzanne H. Plimpton,
Reports Clearance Officer, National Science Foundation.
[FR Doc. 2017-23466 Filed 10-27-17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7555-01-P