Opinion ID: 718314
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying this Test

Text: 25 The final question is whether the ATP was in fact maintaining a system of records with respect to Henke. As we have suggested above, the fact that the ATP's purpose in requesting the name of a technical contact was essentially administrative and was not necessary to the conduct of any of the ATP's core programmatic purposes weighs strongly against allowing a few isolated incidents of retrieval to transform the group of records contained in its paper files and computer databases into a system of [317 U.S.App.D.C. 414] records about Henke. 14 The ATP gives grants to businesses, not to individuals, and does not maintain its computer database in order to retrieve information on individuals. 26 Henke has not seriously disputed the ATP's assertion that an applicant's prospects for receiving a grant will not turn on who it names as a technical contact, nor does she dispute the ATP's claim that the technical contact designated by the company applying for an ATP grant need not be responsible for directing any part of the project. As the ATP argues, [t]he company could choose anyone--any scientist, technician, patent expert, grants expert, an outside consultant who may have assisted in preparing the proposal.... The ATP program takes no notice, one way or the other, of any individual characteristics of the 'contact' person chosen. Appellant's Reply Brief at 8. 15 Indeed, in 1990, the first year of the ATP competitions, the ATP did not ask applicants for a business or technical contact, but instead asked them only to designate the person to be contacted on matters involving this application. Stogsdill Decl. p 29, reprinted in App. 35. 27 Henke does argue that in her experience, technical contacts are likely to be scientists, and thus reviews which focus on the quality of a company's staff are likely to be about the technical contacts. See Henke Aff. at 3, reprinted in App. 123. Even if this assertion is true, the record indicates conclusively that the ATP's purpose in requesting the name of a technical contact is essentially administrative and is not even necessary for the conduct of the ATP's operations. Put another way, the ATP program's substantive interests would not be affected (though it might run a bit less efficiently) if it only requested a phone number or fax number as a contact point rather than the name of a contact person. Consequently, we find that in the absence of any evidence that the names of contact persons are used regularly or even frequently to obtain information about those persons, the ATP does not maintain a system of records keyed to individuals listed in the contact person fields of its databases. 16