§ 402.140 The FOIA Exemption 6: Clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

We may withhold records about individuals if disclosure would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of their personal privacy.

(a) Balancing test. When we decide whether to release records that contain personal or private information about someone else, we weigh the foreseeable harm of invading a person's privacy against the public interest in disclosure. When we determine whether disclosure would be in the public interest, we will consider whether disclosure of the requested information would shed light on how a Government agency performs its statutory duties.

(b) Agency employees. To protect the safety of agency employees, we will not disclose information when the information sought is contact information and/or duty stations of one or more Federal employees if the disclosure would place employee(s) at risk of injury or other harm.

(c) Examples. We generally withhold the personally identifiable information of individuals if we do not have the consent (consistent with § 401.100 of this chapter) of the number holder, including but not limited to the number holder's home address, age, Social Security number, claims file, and other personal information. If the information requested concerns agency employees, we will determine disclosure on a case-by-case basis. For example, our redaction of management officials' information may be treated differently depending on how the balancing test applies in a given circumstance.