Comment from Anonymous

In a response to the Bureau's notice Docket ID CFPB-2026-0016, I submit the following comment. Specifically important section of the SORN to me as a CFPB employee and CFPB Union member is the Routine Use 18, at 91 FR 29466. The vagueness of the policy causes grave concerns that the policy would be weaponized against current and former employees in retaliation for protected-speech under Federal labor-management statutes and the First Amendment. Furthermore, the policy would conflict with Federal anti-discrimination laws against public disclosure of medical documentation. Routine Use 18 appears to be novel in how much discretion it would give the agency to release employee records. The policy would serve as a model for other government entities to disclosure private information under the guise of a public interest. Personally, disclosure of my private personnel file should never be considered routine in nature without my consent and is improper the Privacy Act exception. As a person with a disability, I never intended for my most sensitive data to be widely exposed to the world. There are private medical documentation that carry a stigma in our society and can seriously damage the reputation of employees or their family members, if exposed. Routine Use 18 is unnecessary in light of FOIA. If there is truly a public interest in disclosure of employees’ private personnel files, news media or other interested parties can simply file a FOIA request for the information. In that situation, FOIA exemption 6 protects from disclosure information about individuals in “personnel and medical files and similar files” when the disclosure of such information “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Routine Use 18 also fails to provide the protections that would be due to employees under FOIA Exemption 6. Under well-established caselaw, courts weigh the competing interests of a significant privacy interest that would be infringed by disclosure and a public interest that weighs in favor of disclosure. Routine Use 18 obliquely references FOIA Exemption 6 without explicitly incorporating the statutory language or the balancing test courts have used for decades. The balancing test often involves factors such as the employee’s seniority level. Routine Use 18 relies on generic, broad public interest rationales that do not appear to exist in most FOIA caselaw. For example, it invokes a supposed public interest when “disclosure is necessary to preserve confidence in the integrity of the Bureau, or when disclosure is necessary to demonstrate the accountability of individuals covered by this system.” Courts, however, have held that “release of personal information must directly reveal information about how the government functions in order to serve the FOIA public interest.” The CFPB has not explained why it needs the authority to proactively disclose protected employee information to the news media, rather than respond to a FOIA request under well-established procedures.