PHMSA Portal System (PPS)

The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), an Operating Administration (OA) within the DOT, is responsible for protecting people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials essential to the daily lives of Americans. To do this, PHMSA establishes national policy, sets and enforces standards, educates, and conducts research to prevent pipeline or hazardous material incidents. To meet these goals, PHMSA must maintain effective communication in order to prepare the public and first responders and reduce the impact if an incident does occur. The PHMSA Portal System (PPS) helps PHMSA accomplishes this by automating the sharing of information while protecting privacy by implementing strict safeguards that protect against unauthorized access to and unintentional loss of information. PPS is used to manage access to various PHMSA systems and requires information about authorized users and creates a record of their permissions and access history to provide appropriate levels of access. 

This Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) was conducted because PPS collects Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from members of the public (e.g., State Partners and Pipeline Operators that PHMSA regulates) to provide them with access to PHMSA IT system through the PPS.