Army Privacy Program

The Department of the Army is amending the Army Privacy Program Regulation. Specifically, Army is reinstating exemptions that were mistakenly deleted when the Army's Privacy Program Regulation was last revised. These rules provide policies and procedures for the Army's implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended. This direct final rule makes changes to the Department of the Army's Privacy Program rules. These changes will allow the Department to exempt records from certain portions of the Privacy Act. This will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of DoD's program by preserving the exempt status of the records when the purposes underlying the exemption are valid and necessary to protect the contents of the records. This rule is being published as a direct final rule as the Department of Defense does not expect to receive any adverse comments, and so a proposed rule is unnecessary. The revisions to these rules are part of DoD's retrospective plan under Executive Order 13563 completed in August 2011. DoD's full plan can be accessed at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/other/ 2011-regulatory-action-plans/ departmentofdefenseregulatoryreformplanaugust2011a.pdf.