DHS Use of Social Media for Communications and Outreach

DHS utilizes social media for communications, public affairs, and outreach purposes and has an official presence on many of the major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. To ensure DHS' use of social media for communications/outreach/dialogue with the public adheres to privacy requirements, DHS developed two Department-wide privacy impact assessments (PIAs): a PIA for Department use of social networking interactions and applications; and a PIA for Department use of unidirectional social media. If an initiative meets the PIA requirements, it is added to the Appendix of the appropriate PIA through the Social Media Privacy Threshold Analysis process. As noted in the PIAs, these initiatives are subject to Privacy Compliance Reviews (PCRs).

The DHS Privacy Office conducted this PCR to: 1) determine whether selected DHS social media uses listed in the DHS-wide social media PIA appendices continue to meet the requirements as described in the PIAs; and 2) to determine if the appendices of the DHS-wide social media PIAs reflect an accurate accounting of DHS users.    March 28, 2012