Under Section 501(n) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 290aa), data collected under Section 505 (42 U.S.C. 290aa-4) by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) may be used only for the purpose for which they were collected. Under this authority, data supplied to SAMHSA under the auspices of the Data Coordinating Center for the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP-DCC) were supplied by the data sources only for the purpose of public health surveillance and associated statistical analysis of trends, groups, or categories of cases, not for investigations of specific individuals or organizations.
LIMITATION ON THE
USE OF CERTAIN INFORMATION— No information, if an establishment or person
supplying the information or described in it is identifiable, obtained in the
course of activities undertaken or supported under section 505 may be used for
any purpose other than the purpose for which it was supplied unless such
establishment or person has consented … to its use for such other purpose. Such
information may not be published or released in other form if the person who
supplied the information or who is described in it is identifiable unless such
person has consented … to its publication or release in other
form.
Furthermore, Title V of the E-Government Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-347)
applies similar restrictions to data collected for statistical purposes. In
Section 512, it states:
(a) USE OF STATISTICAL DATA OR INFORMATION.—Data or information acquired by an agency under a pledge of confidentiality and for exclusively statistical purposes shall be used by officers, employees, or agents of the agency exclusively for statistical purposes.
(b) DISCLOSURE OF STATISTICAL DATA OR INFORMATION.
(1) Data or information acquired by an agency under a pledge of confidentiality for exclusively statistical purposes shall not be disclosed by an agency in identifiable form, for any use other than an exclusively statistical purpose, except with the informed consent of the respondent.
Whoever … having sworn to
observe the limitation imposed by Section 512, … and, knowing that … disclosure
… is prohibited …, willfully discloses the information in any manner to a person
or agency not entitled to receive it, shall be guilty of a class E felony and
imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or fined not more than $250,000, or
both.
Person identifiers – Any effort to determine the identity of any
person or to use the information for any purpose other than for public health,
analysis, and aggregate statistical reporting would violate the SAMHSA statute
(above) and the conditions of this data use agreement. Furthermore, under the
statute, no identifiable information may be published or released if a person or
establishment who supplied the information has not consented to its release.
SAMHSA does not collect direct personal identifiers. It may be possible in rare
instances, through complex analysis and with outside information, to ascertain
from the data sets the identity of particular persons. Considerable harm could
ensue if this were done. By virtue of this agreement, the undersigned agrees
that such attempts will not be made and that in any event such information would
never be released or published.
I will not use nor
permit others to use CSAP-DCC data in any way except for public health
surveillance and associated aggregate statistical reporting;
I will not
release nor permit others to release any information that identifies persons,
directly or indirectly;
I will not
attempt to use nor permit others to use the CSAP-DCC data sets to learn the
identity of any person included in any set;
I will not contact nor
permit others to contact establishments or persons in the data sets to question,
verify, or discuss data in the CSAP-DCC database;
I will make no
statement nor permit others to make statements indicating or suggesting that
interpretations drawn are those of data suppliers or SAMHSA;
I will not
release in any public forum any data or estimates from CSAP-DCC that have not
received prior approval for release by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services and SAMHSA;
I will acknowledge in all reports based on these data that the source of the data is the “Data Coordinating Center, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.”
Choosing "I agree" on the button shown below indicates that I have carefully read and understand the above statements and my agreement to comply with the above-stated requirements. I sign this agreement with the knowledge that deliberately making a false statement in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the Federal Government violates 18 U.S.C. 1001 and is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 or up to 5 years in prison.