System name: Consumer Complaint Correspondence System, HHS/OS/OCA.
Security classification: None.
System location: 1009 Premier Bldg., 1725 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20201.
Categories of individuals covered by the system: Individual consumers.
Categories of records in the system: Correspondence concerning consumer complaints referred to OCA by Congressional offices or White House and other consumer complaint correspondence.
Authority for maintenance of the system: Executive Order 011583, February 24, 1981; Reorganization Plan 01 of 1953.
Purpose(s):
Resolution of individual citizen complaints through referral to other Federal agencies, non-Federal governments, voluntary groups and private business firms.
Routine uses of records maintained in the system, including categories of users and the purposes of such uses:
Resolution of individual citizen complaints through referral to other Federal agencies, non-Federal governments, voluntary groups and private business firms. Disclosure may be made to a
congressional office from the record of an individual in response to an inquiry from the congressional office made at the request of that individual. In the event of litigation the defendant is (a) the Department, any component of the Department, or any employee of the Department in his or her official capacity; (b) the United States where the Department determines that the claim, if
successful, is likely to directly affect the operations of the Department or any of its components; or (c) any Department employee in his or her individual capacity where the Justice Department has agreed to represent such employee, the Department may disclose such records as it deems desirable or necessary to the Department of Justice to enable that Department to present an effective defense provided such disclosure is compatible with the purpose for which the records were collected.
Records may be disclosed to student volunteers, individuals working under a personal services contract, and other individuals performing functions for the Department but technically not having the status of agency employees, if they need access to the records in order to perform their assigned agency functions.
Policies and practices for storing, retrieving, accessing, retaining, and disposing of records in the system:
Storage: Individual files in cabinets.
Retrievability: Correspondence referred to other Federal offices is not maintained. Correspondence referred to non-Federal parties is stored only by sequential file number. Correspondence referred from Congressional offices is retrievable by name of member of Congress and reference to a sequential file number.
Safeguards: Personnel screening during working hours and secured building after working hours.
Retention and disposal: Records are retained for not less than one or more than two years.
System manager(s) and address: Director, Office of Management and Consumer Complaints, 1009 Premier Bldg., 1725 Eye Street, NW, Washington, DC 20201.
Notification procedure: System manager. Address is same as above.
Record access procedures: Same as notification procedures. Requesters should also reasonably specify the record contents being sought. (These access procedures are in accordance with Department Regulations (45 CFR 5b.5(a)(2)) Federal Register, October 8, 1975, page 47410.)
Contesting record procedures: Contact the official at the address specified under notification procedures above, and reasonably identify the record and specify the information to be contested and corrective action sought with supporting justification. (These procedures are in accordance with
Department Regulations (45 CFR 5b.7) Federal Register, October 8, 1975, page 47411.)
Record source categories: Correspondence and telephone calls from individual consumers.
Systems exempted from certain provisions of the act: None.
