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Your General Rights Under the Privacy Act (PA)

Enacted in 1974, the PA, 5 U.S.C. 552a, provides US citizens or permanent resident aliens (PRAs) with a right of access to information concerning themselves that is maintained by any agency in the Executive Branch of the federal government. The Act also established controls over what personal information the federal government collects and how it uses or discloses that information.

What follows is a general discussion of your rights under the PA (The complete act and CIA regulations governing administration of the PA are available using the links here, and Code of Federal Regulations, Central Intelligence Agency, 32 CFR.). For your information, we also have provided a copy of our FOIA Annual Report that outlines our administration of the act. The Act guarantees three primary rights:

• The right to see records about yourself.
• The right to amend that record if it is inaccurate, irrelevant, untimely, or incomplete.
• The right to sue the federal government if it violates the statute, for example, allowing unauthorized individuals access to your records.


Source: Central Intelligence Agency


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