Under the Federal Privacy Act, a system of records is a group of records under agency control from which information is retrieved by the name of the individual or by some identifier assigned to the individual.

Under the Federal Privacy Act, a system of records is a group of records under agency control from which information is retrieved by the name of the individual or by some identifier assigned to the individual.

• A. The name of the individual or by some identifier assigned to the individual
• B. The social security number only
• C. The last known address only
• D. The department name only

Answer: (A)

Retrievability by the individual's name or by an assigned identifier is what defines a system of records. The key idea is that the dataset qualifies as a system of records when you can locate and retrieve information about a person using either their name or some identifier that the agency has assigned to that person. This could be a variety of identifiers, not just a social security number. Because the definition allows any identifier specifically assigned to the individual, a collection could be retrieved by an employee ID, case number, or other unique ID, in addition to the person's name. The other options don’t fit because they describe specific attributes or identifiers that aren’t inherently used as the retrieval key. A social security number is a common example of an identifier, but it isn’t required to be the only one. Last known address or department name describe data fields rather than the retrieval mechanism used to access the records.

Retrievability by the individual's name or by an assigned identifier is what defines a system of records. The key idea is that the dataset qualifies as a system of records when you can locate and retrieve information about a person using either their name or some identifier that the agency has assigned to that person. This could be a variety of identifiers, not just a social security number. Because the definition allows any identifier specifically assigned to the individual, a collection could be retrieved by an employee ID, case number, or other unique ID, in addition to the person's name.

The other options don’t fit because they describe specific attributes or identifiers that aren’t inherently used as the retrieval key. A social security number is a common example of an identifier, but it isn’t required to be the only one. Last known address or department name describe data fields rather than the retrieval mechanism used to access the records.