Navy Steps Up Protection of Sailor Information

MILLINGTON, Tenn. (NNS) -- To comply with a Nov. 23 Department of Defense directive aimed at protecting Sailors' personal information, Navy Personnel Command (NPC) will change the method for posting official messages containing partial social security numbers (SSN) on its public website.

"All messages to be reviewed were pulled from the Web in December (2010), and NAVADMINS from 2009 and 2010 were scrubbed of personally identifiable information (PII)," said NPC Webmaster Don Koehler. "We reposted the recent ones to the 'NPC Messages Page' after the partial SSNs were removed."

According to Koehler, messages from 2008 and earlier that contain PII are not being reposted. These include selection and promotion messages dating back to 2000 that contain partial SSNs and had been available online for many years. Visitors to the public website, www.npc.navy.mil, attempting to open these messages will receive the following response:

"The message you have requested has been removed due to a Nov. 23 OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) directive prohibiting the posting of the last four digits of a person's social security number on public facing websites (OSD 13798-10)."

"This change is a safeguard directed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in directive 13798-10," said Koehler. "Specifically the OSD ordered that '(Social Security Numbers) shall not be posted, in whole or in part, on any public-facing and/or open government website in any form.'"

Beginning in 2011, selection and promotion messages will be posted without partial SSNs. Given that there is the potential for service members with the same name to be up for the same selection or promotion board, Sailors may go to BUPERS Online to check their personal selection or promotion status.

Access the "NPC Messages Page" at http://www.npc.navy.mil/ReferenceLibrary/Messages.

To access pre-2009 messages that have been removed for PII, or for other questions about this change, call the NPC Customer Service Center at 1-866-U-ASK-NPC (866-827-5672).

For more news from Navy Personnel Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/npc/.