The Federal Reserve Board has requested public comment on a proposed change to Regulation S (Right to Financial Privacy), which sets the rates and conditions under which a government agency must reimburse a financial institution for costs incurred in producing customer financial records under the Right to Financial Privacy Act. 

The proposed revisions update Regulation S in two ways. First, the personnel fees that may be charged for searching and processing document requests are increased substantially. Second, the proposed amendments encourage electronic document productions by not allowing a $0.25 per page fee to be charged for printing electronically stored information. The proposal also includes an automated mechanism for periodically updating the labor rates found in the regulation.

Background

The Right to Financial Privacy Act (12 U.S.C. 3401 et seq.) establishes the procedures that law enforcement officers and officials at other government agencies must follow in order to obtain customer information from financial institutions. The Act allows authorized financial institutions to claim reimbursement from the government for the costs of searching for and producing the records sought. Section 1115 of the statute (12 U.S.C. 3415) requires the Federal Reserve Board to set the rates for this reimbursement and the conditions under which the reimbursement is made. The Fed sets these rates and conditions in its Regulation S.

In the twelve years since the last revision, financial institutions’ salary and benefit increases has caused the fees authorized for reproducing records to become outdated. In addition, it has become more and more common for agencies to seek and institutions to provide information in electronic format.

Reflecting these changes, the agency has proposed amending and updating its Regulation S to provide a reimbursement scheme that more accurately reflects the costs of producing electronically stored information in digital formats.

The proposal includes a system for automatically adjusting these fees to reflect future increases in financial institutions’ labor costs.

Proposed Rates

The proposed change would set photocopy fees at $0.25 per page; paper copies of microfiche, $0.25 per frame; and duplicate microfiche, $0.50 per microfiche. The fee for electronic production of information would be $5.00 per request.

The proposed fees for searching and processing financial institution records would be set at $22.00 per hour for clerical and technical employees’ time and $30.00 per hour for computer support specialists. The fee for managers’ or supervisors’ time would also be set at $30.00 per hour.

The institution could not claim photocopying or microfiche charges unless the data requested was available only on paper or microfiche and had not been stored in electronic format, or where the government authority making the request has specifically asked for printed copies of electronically stored records.