[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 194 (Tuesday, October 12, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56726-56728]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-22094]


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OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET


Proposed Designation of Databases for Treasury's Working System 
Under the Do Not Pay Initiative

AGENCY: Office of Management and Budget.

ACTION: Notice of Proposed Designation.

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SUMMARY: The Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) provides 
that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may designate additional 
databases for inclusion in Treasury's Working System under the Do Not 
Pay (DNP) Initiative. PIIA further requires OMB to provide public 
notice and an opportunity for comment prior to designating additional 
databases. In fulfillment of this requirement, OMB is publishing this 
Notice of Proposed Designation to designate the National Association of 
Public Health Statistics and Information Systems (NAPHSIS) Electronic 
Verification of Vital Events (EVVE) Facts of Death (FOD) System. This 
notice has a 30-day comment period.

DATES: Please submit comments on or before November 12, 2021. At the 
conclusion of the 30-day comment period, if OMB decides to finalize the 
designation, OMB will publish a notice in the Federal Register to 
officially designate the database.

[[Page 56727]]

    Please note that all public comments received are subject to the 
Freedom of Information Act and will be posted in their entirety, 
including any personal and/or business confidential information 
provided. Do not include any information you would not like to be made 
publicly available.

ADDRESSES: Comments may be sent by mail or electronic mail (email).
    The Office of Management and Budget, Attn: OFFM, 725 17th Street 
NW, Washington, DC 20503. [email protected].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Regina Kearney at (202) 395-3993.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: PIIA recodifies the DNP Initiative that was 
already under way across the Federal Government.\1\ The DNP Initiative 
includes multiple resources that are designed to help Federal agencies, 
the judicial and legislative branches of the Federal Government, and 
certain State agencies review payment and award eligibility for 
purposes of identifying and preventing improper payments. As part of 
the DNP Initiative, OMB designated Treasury to host the Working System, 
which is the primary system through which DNP customers can verify 
payment and award eligibility.
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    \1\ The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement 
Act of 2012, Public Law 112-248, first codified the DNP Initiative.
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    Pursuant to PIIA,\2\ OMB has the authority to designate additional 
databases for inclusion in the DNP Initiative.\3\ Appendix C to OMB 
Circular No. A-123, Management's Responsibility for Enterprise Risk 
Management and Internal Control,\4\ provides guidance related to PIIA 
and states that OMB ``may designate other databases that substantially 
assist'' in preventing improper payments.\5\
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    \2\ 31 U.S.C. 3351-58.
    \3\ 31 U.S.C. 3354(b)(1)(B). OMB designated the Department of 
the Treasury to host Treasury's Working System, which helps Federal 
agencies verify that their payments are proper. Treasury's Working 
System is part of the broader DNP Initiative.
    \4\ OMB Memorandum M-21-19, ``Transmittal of Appendix C to OMB 
Circular A-123, Requirements for Payment Integrity Improvement'' 
(March 5, 2021).
    \5\ Id. at 31.
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Treasury Working System Privacy, Security, and Legal Implications

    All Treasury Working System users and administrators are required 
to sign rules of behavior stipulating their responsibilities to 
minimize risks and support DNP's mission to ``conduct a thorough review 
of databases and help verify eligibility and prevent [improper and 
unknown payments] prior to the release of Federal funds.'' Treasury has 
also dedicated resources to establish a privacy program based on 
applicable requirements, the Fair Information Practice Principles 
(FIPPs), and industry best practices. Treasury's privacy program 
supports various internal controls in collaboration with Treasury 
leadership and legal counsel. Projects are vetted through a data usage 
governance process to ensure compliance with privacy requirements in 
law and policy and manage risk associated with the use of specific data 
to reduce improper payments for Treasury's customers and Government 
agencies.
    Risk mitigation measures for Treasury's Working System include 
maintaining a current and compliant Security Accreditation and 
Authorization (SA&A) package, in accordance with Federal Information 
Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements. Additionally, to reduce 
the likelihood of unauthorized access, login to Treasury's Working 
System requires public key infrastructure (PKI) or personal identity 
verification (PIV) credentials.

Considerations for Designating NAPHSIS EVVE FOD

    OMB proposes to designate NAPHSIS EVVE FOD for inclusion in 
Treasury's Working System. As the most comprehensive private provider 
of state vital records and a partner of state vital records offices, 
NAPHSIS can provide information to researchers, organizations, and 
government organizations to facilitate the verification of birth and 
death records.
    Treasury's Working System would benefit from more comprehensive 
verification of death records from state agencies. Currently, 
Treasury's Working System provides verification of death records to its 
customers using several databases, but is limited in its ability to 
verify the existence of a death certificate reported by a state. 
Designation of EVVE FOD as a database in Treasury's Working System 
would improve and streamline access for Working System customers to 
verify death certificates. Currently, customers must access state vital 
records from each state office. Access to EVVE will centralize access 
to many states' offices through a single portal.
    Use of EVVE FOD within Treasury's Working System would also allow 
for its users to access state death records that are available in the 
Social Security Administration's Full Death Master File (DMF), which 
would otherwise be restricted from use for many programs by statute.\6\ 
The DMF includes state death records and other information. Agencies 
are not prohibited from obtaining death information directly from state 
vital records offices or through commercial portals like EVVE.\7\ Death 
data from state vital records offices are the authoritative source for 
death information. Including EVVE FOD will also allow the Treasury 
Working System to examine the quality of existing and potential data 
sources that provide death data by using an authoritative source.
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    \6\ 42 U.S.C. 405(r).
    \7\ Id.
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    OMB has considered Treasury's recommendation and assessment of the 
suitability of EVVE FOD Data for designation of inclusion within 
Treasury's Working System. OMB proposes to designate EVVE FOD Data for 
inclusion in Treasury's Working System. Treasury's suitability 
assessment, which evaluates the suitability of EVVE FOD Data, is 
attached. Treasury's assessment considers factors identified in OMB 
Circular A-123 Appendix C section (IV)(E) established by OMB M-18-20, 
which has been superseded by OMB M-21-19. Appendix C requires that 
``OMB-established procedures and criteria will be followed to determine 
whether database are designated into the Treasury Working System or 
included in the Initiative outside of the Treasury Working System.'' As 
OMB prepares guidance on those procedures and criteria, OMB will still 
apply pre-existing guidance and criteria from M-18-20, because M-18-
20's guidance and criteria is derived from similar statutory provisions 
in IPERIA, the predecessor to PIIA.
    Accordingly, for this request, OMB is considering the same factors 
as listed in M-18-20. These factors are: (1) Statutory or other 
limitations on the use and sharing of specific data; (2) privacy 
restrictions and risks associated with specific data; (3) likelihood 
that the data will strengthen program integrity across programs and 
agencies; (4) benefits of streamlining access to the data through the 
central DNP Initiative; (5) costs associated with expanding or 
centralizing access, including modifications needed to system 
interfaces or other capabilities in order to make data accessible; and 
(6) other policy and stakeholder considerations, as appropriate:
    1. Statutory or other limitations on the use and sharing of 
specific data: There are no statutory or other limitations that would 
prevent including the EVVE FOD database within Treasury's Working

[[Page 56728]]

System for the purposes of verifying payment, award eligibility, and 
analytical projects.
    2. Privacy restrictions and risks associated with specific data: 
Treasury assessed privacy restrictions and risks in discussions with 
NAPHSIS. When Treasury initiates matching with EVVE, DNP will only 
receive matching results on data provided to DNP (i.e., data on 
individuals already existing within the working system). Treasury will 
receive matched data from NAPHSIS with the deceased individual's Social 
Security Number, name, date of birth and date of death information. 
EVVE data is taken directly from State Vital Statistics Databases and 
is not owned by NAPHSIS. Data is gathered through an Application 
Programming Interface (API) and is not altered prior to displaying 
results to the user at the agency. Policies, practices and procedures 
relating to the monitoring, auditing, or evaluation of the accuracy of 
personally identifiable information are determined by the State that 
owns the record. EVVE FOD currently has agreements in place with each 
State to address data correction. Treasury evaluated EVVE FOD in 
various areas, including a data quality assessment at the attribute 
level, and at the level of the source as a whole. Per-data element 
measures include quantifications of accuracy, coverage, and conformity. 
Whole-source measures include assessments of the freshness, 
completeness, and uniqueness of all records. These six assessments 
factors, some of which are multi-part, reduce to six quantitative 
scores, and these six scores are combined into an overall data source 
quality benchmark. The quality assessment was performed on a snapshot 
of the data source compared to payment data from August 2020 to 
February 2021.
    EVVE FOD contains information only on deceased individuals. 
Deceased individuals are not afforded Privacy Act protections. 
Therefore, the data gathered from state vital records offices and the 
information on individuals are not covered by the Privacy Act.
    Treasury has also not identified any additional Privacy Act 
restrictions or risks for DNP to make this commercial database 
available in Treasury's Working System. Treasury's use of the EVVE FOD 
matching results does not include information on survivors of the 
deceased individual and no other involved parties will have any 
information disclosed. Treasury will also receive only limited 
information about the deceased, namely, the Social Security Number, 
name, date of birth and date of death information. Treasury already 
receives similar information in verifying death data when using other 
databases within the DNP Initiative. Upon reviewing the privacy 
restrictions and risks of EVVE FOD, Treasury has determined that the 
limited information disclosed and the controls supporting this database 
are sufficient to address any privacy concerns.
    3. Likelihood that the data will strengthen program integrity 
across programs and agencies: Designating EVVE FOD would strengthen 
program integrity. Including EVVE FOD would allow Treasury's Working 
System to provide access to state records that are not currently 
included in the Social Security Administration's Limited Access Death 
Master File (LADMF). Since a significant number of improper payments 
are made to deceased individuals each year, providing the Working 
System's customers access to these additional records could help them 
identify additional potentially improper payments. Additionally, EVVE 
FOD provides an independent source of death data which will reduce the 
amount of time for agencies to decide on a payment to a deceased 
individual. EVVE FOD data can also be used for data quality evaluations 
and to assist with data standardization to ensure accuracy of records. 
Each of these benefits will help assure citizens that Treasury and the 
Government are acting as good-faith stewards of taxpayer dollars. The 
results of a Treasury analysis of EVVE FOD were applied to the payments 
currently being screened against other DNP death databases and found 
that, after applying assumptions to account for false positives, EVVE 
FOD is estimated to save the government roughly $489.9 million over a 
ten-year period.
    4. Benefits of streamlining access to the data through the central 
DNP Initiative: It would be beneficial to streamline access to EVVE FOD 
through its inclusion in Treasury's Working System. Some of DNP's 
customers are agencies that issue payments to beneficiaries. Including 
EVVE FOD in Treasury's Working System will allow for faster and more 
accurate execution of such payments. Benefit-paying agencies, and other 
payment-issuing DNP customers, would be able to check EVVE FOD along 
with the other databases in Treasury's Working System. This will enable 
agencies to make more informed payment decisions and payment 
verifications, which will increase efficiency and strengthen internal 
controls.
    5. Costs associated with expanding or centralizing access, 
including modifications needed to system interfaces or other 
capabilities in order to make data accessible: There will be some 
additional costs associated with expanding or centralizing access to 
EVVE FOD. Currently, EVVE FOD costs $8,750 per month for an annual cost 
of $105,000. Adjusting for inflation it is estimated that over a ten-
year period, EVVE will cost the Government $1.15 million. However, 
Treasury has performed a trial assessment with respect to EVVE FOD, 
which compared nearly 10 million death and payment records with EVVE 
FOD in order to determine which payments would result in matches. 
Agency-specific business rules identified in Treasury's current 
processes were then applied to reduce false positives. The results of 
this assessment were applied to the payments currently being screened 
against other DNP death databases and found that, after applying 
assumptions to account for false positives, EVVE FOD is estimated to 
save the government roughly $489.9 million over a ten-year period. 
Accounting for the purchase of death certificates from State Vital 
Statistics Databases, this amounts to a potential ROI of over 42,613%.
    6. Other policy and stakeholder considerations: No additional 
stakeholder considerations were identified.
    We invite public comments on the proposed designation of the 
database described in this notice.

Deidre A. Harrison,
Acting Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management.
[FR Doc. 2021-22094 Filed 10-8-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3110-01-P