Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 Restricts Access to Death Master File

The Death Master File (DMF) is a computer database file made available by the United States Social Security Administration (SSA). The DMF, which includes more than 86 million records created from SSA payment records, contains the social security number, name, date of birth, and date of death of each decedent for which the SSA has a record. The SSA does not have a death record for all persons. Rather the file contains information about persons who had social security numbers and whose deaths were reported to the SSA from 1962 to the present or persons who died before 1962, but whose social security accounts were still active in 1962.

Provisions in the recent Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 (the “Act”), H.J. Res. 59, will restrict access to a decedent’s DMF records for a three-year period following the date of death. Only those persons certified by the Secretary of Commerce to have a legitimate business or fraud prevention purpose and that have proper safeguard procedures in place will be granted access to a decedent’s DMF record during the three-year period following death. Penalties up to $250,000 per person per year can be imposed by the new law for improper disclosure or misuse of the information. It has been estimated that this new restriction will save $786 million over the next 10 years, including $517 million in increased revenues attributable to preventing payment of fraudulently claimed tax refunds.