Department of Homeland Security February 1, 2011 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, the Department of Homeland Security is giving notice that it proposes to establish a new Department of Homeland Security system of records titled, ``Department of Homeland Security Office of Operations Coordination and Planning 004 Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative System of Records.'' The Office of Operations Coordination and Planning (OPS) National Operations Center (NOC), has launched and leads the Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness (Initiative) to assist the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components involved in fulfilling OPS statutory responsibility to provide situational awareness. The NOC and participating components may share this de-identified information with international partners and the private sector where necessary and appropriate for coordination. While this Initiative is not designed to actively collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII), OPS is publishing this System of Records Notice (SORN) because the Initiative may collect PII for certain narrowly tailored categories. For example, in the event of an in extremis situation involving potential life and death, OPS will share certain PII with the responding authority in order for them to take the necessary actions to save a life, such as name and location of a person calling for help buried under rubble, or hiding in a hotel room when the hotel is under attack by terrorists. In the event PII comes into the Department's possession under circumstances other than those itemized herein, the NOC will redact all PII prior to further dissemination of any collected information. This collection is currently covered under DHS/OPS-003 but in order to provide more transparency, DHS is issuing a specific SORN for this activity. This newly established system will be included in the Department of Homeland Security's inventory of record systems.