Late last month the Social Security Administration announced the opening of a new National Support Center (NSC), which the federal agency christened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Social Security lauded this announcement as a new step towards state-of-the art technology that will allow Social Security to work more efficiently, something the agency has lacked for decades. The question remains, how will this change how Social Security does business?
Most people who have had contact with Social Security employees, realize the agency is flooded with requests for services everyday and most employees do diligent work, but Social Security does need all the help it can get to respond to customers.
This new NSC, which was funded through $500 million worth of funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is expected to keep Social Security information private and safe. The NSC is energy efficient, with enhanced disaster recovery capabilities and is supposed to meet the agency’s growing information technology workloads. Social Security estimates that this facility will be able to meet the agency’s IT workloads for the next 20 years.
“The data housed in the NSC is critical to our day-to-day operations and essential to maintaining our computer systems and electronic services,” said Carolyn Colvin, acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration. “Social Security has always been known as a ‘can-do’ agency with world-class customer service; this new facility allows us to meet the growing demands of the millions of individuals who count on us each and every day.”
The information that the NSC will be in charge of protecting the privacy of includes demographic, wage and benefit information on almost every American. Whether or not this new facility will allow Social Security to do business more efficiently remains to be seen.
To learn more about the history of the NSC and what the purpose of this facility is click here.
