Privacy Act of 1974; System of Records

In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (Privacy Act), the Department of Education (Department) publishes this notice of a modified system of records for the ``Customer Engagement Management System (CEMS)'' (18-11-11) to expand the CEMS system to cover records that the Department previously maintained in the Department's system of records entitled ``Common Services for Borrowers (CSB)'' (18-11-16) to carry out the responsibilities of the Department to receive, review, evaluate, process, and render decisions on the eligibility of individuals for relief under the borrower defense regulations and, where requests for borrower defense to repayment are successful, to determine the relief that is appropriate to borrowers under the circumstances as well as to initiate appropriate proceedings to require schools whose acts or omissions resulted in the successful defenses against repayment to pay the Department the amounts of the loans to which the defenses apply. This modification also renames the system of records, which was formerly entitled the ``Office of the Student Loan Ombudsman Records.'' The Department previously created the system of records entitled the ``Office of the Student Loan Ombudsman Records'' for a number of purposes related to the duties and responsibilities of the Ombudsman, including verifying the identities of individuals; recording complaints and comments; tracking individual cases through final resolution; reporting trends; analyzing the data to recommend improvements in the Student Financial Assistance Programs; and assisting in the resolution of disputes.