Privacy Act Appeal

On February 3, 2020, the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) granted in part and denied in all other respects a Privacy Act appeal filed by Mr. William Bair (Appellant) concerning a Privacy Act request he made to the Department of Energy's (DOE) Chief Privacy Officer (CPO). Appellant's request sought copies of various records concerning his employment with a DOE contractor from 1994 to 1995. CPO provided Appellant with records responsive to his request, but redacted third-party information from some of the records. On appeal, Appellant alleged that he was already privy to the information contained in the records and therefore that CPO should have provided the records to him without redactions. Upon review of the records in question, OHA concluded that most of the third-party information redacted by CPO from the records provided to Appellant was comingled with Appellant's information for administrative convenience and was not about the Appellant. Therefore, OHA concluded that CPO had properly redacted most of the third-party information. However, CPO redacted a family medical history from one of Appellant's medical records which provided information that a medical practitioner may have used in evaluating Appellant. Since the medical history was about Appellant, and could not be withheld under any of the enumerated exemptions from disclosure under the Privacy Act, OHA concluded that CPO had improperly redacted the medical history. For these reasons, OHA granted Appellant's appeal in part.  OHA Case No. PAA-20-0001.