Department of Housing and Urban Development July 20, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The proposed information collection requirement described below has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Department is soliciting public comments on the subject proposal. When the terms of a Multifamily contract are breached or when a mortgagee meets conditions stated within the Multifamily contract for automatic assignment, the holder of the mortgage may file for insurance benefits. To receive these benefits, the mortgagee must prepare and submit to HUD certain information. This package is being combined with 2502-0415.

Pursuant to the provision of the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552a), the Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD developed the Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) system, which, heretofore, was known as the Upfront Income Verification (UIV) system used by the Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH). This system of records currently supports the administration of programs for families receiving housing assistance from HUD by Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) that administer HUD's public housing and Section 8 tenant-based rental assistance programs. EIV contains income data of Public Housing and Section 8 program participants. EIV also enables PHAs to verify participant-reported income and identifies households that may have under reported their household's annual income. Eventually, EIV will be made available to administrators (owners and management agents) of the Office of Housing's (Housing) rental assistance programs. HUD developed the UIV system to reduce subsidy payment errors as a result of tenant under reporting of income to ensure that limited federal resources serve as many eligible families as possible. EIV will facilitate more timely and accurate verification of tenant-reported income at the time of mandatory annual and interim reexamination of household income. EIV contains personal identifying information from HUD's Public and Indian Housing Information Center (PIC), such as Head of Households and household members name, date of birth and Social Security Number, unit address, PHA program information, and household income details as reported by the participant to the program administrator. These personal identifying data are extracted from PIC and imported into EIV. The system also contains household member(s) income details as reported by state and federal agencies. HUD obtains income details through computer matching programs. System Security Measures: The integrity and availability of data in EIV is important. Much of the data needs to be protected from unanticipated or unintentional modification. HUD restricts the use of this information to HUD approved officials and PHAs; thus, the data is protected accordingly. Eventually, this restriction will be extended to owners and management agents. Vulnerabilities and corresponding security measures include: (1) Only persons with PIC User Ids and passwords may access EIV; (2) Access to EIV is controlled using EIV's security module. This module controls a user's access to particular modules based on the user's role and security access level; (3) User IDs are utilized to identify access to sensitive data by users; (4) Data corruption/destructionPHA users do not have write access to databases. HUD user's write access is limited to user administration by authorized personnel. This will eliminate the risk of data destruction or corruption. Data Quality: PHAs enter management, building, unit, and family information into PIC. Family information includes the families' names, social security numbers (SSNs), and dates of birth. When a PHA submits family data to PIC, the EIV system will validate each household member's identity. If a household member's identity cannot be verified, EIV will (1) flag the household member record; (2) provide an error message to the PHA, informing the PHA to verify the household member's SSN, name, and/or date of birth; and (3) request the PHA to submit a corrected record (HUD Form 50058) into PIC. EIV will remove the unverified household member record from computer matching request files. This household member identity verification feature was established to help HUD maintain data quality and integrity and to support one of its strategic objectives to prevent fraud and abuse. This identity verification feature will (1) help confirm that those families entitled to benefits receive benefits, (2) assist in limiting the duplication of benefits, and (3) help prevent the false application for benefits, thereby ensuring data quality. In addition, EIV will receive income data from State Wage Information Collection Agencies (SWICAs), federal agencies, and one or more private vendors. This will allow PHAs and, eventually, owners and management agents to verify the income of newly admitted applicants and tenants at the time of mandatory annual and/or interim reexaminations.