Privacy Act of 1974

Privacy Act of 1974, U.S. legislation that restricts the dissemination of personal information about an individual by federal agencies and requires that when such information is collected, the individual to whom it pertains be informed of the ways in which it could be used.

The Privacy Act was passed in the wake of the abuse of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records by the administration of Pres. Richard Nixon. Although the act includes checks on the transfer of personal information between agencies, it also provides for 12 exceptions, including one that permits law-enforcement agencies to obtain records without a subpoena and another that allows federal agencies to share any information for routine uses after publishing in the Federal Register a statement of their intent to release such information.