[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 20, Volume 2]
[Revised as of April 1, 2004]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 20CFR402.100]

[Page 32]
 
                      TITLE 20--EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS
 
               CHAPTER III--SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
 
PART 402_AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION AND RECORDS TO THE PUBLIC--Table 
of Contents
 
Sec. 402.100  Exemption six: Clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

    (a) Documents affected. We may withhold records about individuals if 
disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of their 
personal privacy.
    (b) Balancing test. In deciding whether to release records to you 
that contain personal or private information about someone else, we 
weigh the foreseeable harm of invading a person's privacy against the 
public interest in disclosure. In determining whether disclosure would 
be in the public interest, we will consider whether disclosure of the 
requested information would shed light on how a Government agency 
performs its statutory duties. However, in our evaluation of requests 
for records we attempt to guard against the release of information that 
might involve a violation of personal privacy because of a requester 
being able to ``read between the lines'' or piece together items that 
would constitute information that normally would be exempt from 
mandatory disclosure under Exemption Six.
    (c) Examples. Some of the information that we frequently withhold 
under Exemption Six is: Home addresses, ages, and minority group status 
of our employees or former employees; social security numbers; medical 
information about individuals who have filed a claim for disability 
benefits; names and addresses of individual beneficiaries of our 
programs, or benefits such individuals receive; earnings records, claim 
files, and other personal information SSA maintains.

[62 FR 4154, Jan. 29, 1997, as amended at 63 FR 35132, June 29, 1998]