what's the law on privacy act ?

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Dear Socratear,
In many cases of child support (update or establishment) where the state Child Support enforcement office, they will send letters to employers to harvest salary, cost of medical insurance and other informations. What does the law say about these letters and if the employer must answer. Often these "notices" are really only notices and no one is really required to answer any informations but some requires the employer to enforce an order.

What does the law says on these fishing expeditions from services?
Many employers fill them and send them back to avoid trouble but are they really compeled to reply and provice information.

in the "National Medical Support Notice" for example, the employer is compeled to enforce an order but are they compeled to provide private informations?

[socrateaser]

I don't answer bare legal questions without facts concerning a case. Your questions seem unusually adversarial. If you have something you wish to dispute, please tell me what it is.

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CSE office is sending a ""National Medical Support Notice" to my employer and with it has added a request for information sheet requesting the amount of my income, the cost of insurance and such, ...

I think that the "National Medical Support Notice" is legal to ask my employer to put my kid under my medical plan (he already is under it) but that they are also fishing for information they are not entitled to which is where I am seeking confirmation before I write an official letter to my employer telling them not to answer the request for information sheet

[socrateaser]

>CSE office is sending a ""National Medical Support Notice" to
>my employer and with it has added a request for information
>sheet requesting the amount of my income, the cost of
>insurance and such, ...
>
>I think that the "National Medical Support Notice" is legal to
>ask my employer to put my kid under my medical plan (he
>already is under it) but that they are also fishing for
>information they are not entitled to which is where I am
>seeking confirmation before I write an official letter to my
>employer telling them not to answer the request for
>information sheet

OK, that makes more sense, thanks.

Civil privacy laws can generally be abrogated by state/federal statute or rule, except where a person is being discriminated against on the basis of race or national origin/ethnicity, or where a fundamental right is involved (travel, voting, contraception, abortion, marriage, privacy, education of children, families living together).

In practice, this means that the government can ask for info related to your salary or health insurance, as necessary to the enforcement of child support laws, because the welfare of children is considered compelling -- which is the legal requirement for overcoming an individual's privacy rights.

This doesn't mean that the state can demand management reviews or medical service provider records of actual healthcare diagnoses/prognoses/course of care. But, it does mean that the state can find out how much you earn and whether you are obtaining reasonable healthcare for your child as required by a court order.

I wish it weren't so, but it is. There is a constitutional argument that the state may not be tailoring its investigations narrowly enough to pass constitutional muster. But, it would be very difficult to get a court to agree, unless the intrusion by the state into your privacy were objectively outrageous (such as were the state to demand a complete disclosure of all of your medical records, for no particular reason).

So, reluctantly, I suggest that you just let it go and move on, because you're just gonna frustrate yourself over something you can do nothing about.

However, if you discover that the state is in fact demanding your management reviews or medical record, then let me know, because at that point, I think you may have a case, for which the state may be liable for damages.