Notice2025-20338
Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Requested; Revision of a Previously Approved Collection; Title-National Tracing Center (NTC) Trace Request/Solicitud de Rastreo del Centro Nacional de Rastreo (NTC) (ATF Form 3312.1/3312.1(S))
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
November 20, 2025
Issuing agencies
Justice Department
Abstract
The Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), will be submitting the following information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 222 (Thursday, November 20, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 222 (Thursday, November 20, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 52442-52444]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-20338]
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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
[OMB 1140-0043]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection
eComments Requested; Revision of a Previously Approved Collection;
Title--National Tracing Center (NTC) Trace Request/Solicitud de Rastreo
del Centro Nacional de Rastreo (NTC) (ATF Form 3312.1/3312.1(S))
AGENCY: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives;
Department of Justice.
ACTION: 30-Day notice.
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SUMMARY: The Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), will be submitting the following
information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995.
DATES: Comments are encouraged and will be accepted for 30 days until
December 22, 2025.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: If you have comments, especially on
the estimated public burden or associated response time, suggestions,
or need a copy of the proposed information collection instrument with
instructions or additional information, please contact: Carrie
Robertson, National Tracing Center Division, either by mail at 244
Needy Road, Suite 1500, Martinsburg, WV 25405, by email at
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#7c1f1d0e0e1519520e131e190e080f13123c1d081a521b130a"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="d7b4b6a5a5beb2f9a5b8b5b2a5a3a4b8b997b6a3b1f9b0b8a1">[email protected]</span></a>, or by telephone at 304-260-1695.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The proposed information collection was
previously published in the Federal Register, volume 90, page 37565, on
Tuesday, August 5, 2025, allowing a 60-day comment period. We encourage
written comments and suggestions from the public and affected agencies
concerning the proposed information collection. Your comments should
address one or more of the following four points:
--Evaluate whether the proposed information collection is necessary to
properly perform ATF's functions, including whether the information
will have practical utility;
--Evaluate the agency's estimate of the proposed information
collection's burden for accuracy, including validity of the methodology
and assumptions used;
--Evaluate whether, and if so, how, the quality, utility, and clarity
of the collected information can be enhanced; and
--Minimize the information collection's burden on those who are to
respond, including using appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical,
or other technological collection techniques or other forms of
information technology, e.g., permitting people to submit electronic
responses.
Written comments and recommendations for this information
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of
this notice on the following website <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>.
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search
function and entering either the title of the information collection or
the OMB Control Number 1140-0043. This information collection request
may be viewed at <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov">www.reginfo.gov</a>. Follow the instructions to view
Department of Justice, information collections currently under review
by OMB.
DOJ seeks PRA authorization for this information collection for
three years. OMB authorization for an ICR cannot be for more than three
years without renewal. DOJ notes that information collection
requirements submitted to OMB for existing ICRs receive a month-to-
month extension while they undergo review.
Overview of This Information Collection
1. Type of information collection: Revision of a previously
approved collection.
2. Title of the form/collection: National Tracing Center (NTC)
Trace Request/Solicitud de Rastreo del Centro Nacional de Rastreo
(NTC).
3. Agency form number, if any, and the applicable component of the
Department of Justice sponsoring the collection: ATF Form 3312.1/3312.1
(S)).
Component: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives;
U.S. Department of Justice.
[[Page 52443]]
4. Affected public who will be asked or required to respond, as
well as a brief abstract:
Affected public: state, local, and tribal governments. The trace
requests are voluntary or as required by the state (not ATF); however,
if the respondent wants the trace to be conducted, they must provide
the requested information to obtain/retain that benefit.
Abstract: law enforcement agencies (LEAs) at all levels submit
requests to ATF to trace guns used in crimes. So that ATF may swiftly
and accurately provide responsive information on these crime guns, ATF
requests LEAs to submit certain information on Form 3312.1 that will
aid ATF in tracing the firearm. ATF reports the resulting information
only to the requesting LEA and does not create a registry of firearms
in the process.
Information Collection (IC) OMB 1140-0043 is being revised to
include an increase in respondents from 1,153 annually to 17,000 since
the last renewal period, a difference of 15,847 per year. This is due
to more law enforcement agencies submitting more trace requests each
year. The adjustments therefore also include an increase in the total
number of trace requests from 24,490 during the last renewal to 640,000
now. Consequently, the total burden hours have also increased from
2,449 to 64,000, resulting in a difference since the last renewal of
61,551 total annual hours.
5. Obligation to respond: the obligation to respond is required to
obtain/retain a benefit.
6. Total estimated number of respondents: 17,000 respondents.
7. Estimated time per respondent: 6 minutes.
8. Frequency: 30 requests per LEA.
9. Total estimated annual time burden: 51,000 hours.
10. Total estimated annual other costs burden: $0.
Public Comment Summaries and ATF Responses
ATF received two sets of comments during the 60-day public comment
period for this ICR. Both sets of comments were from industry trade
organizations, one of which represents retailers in the farm store
industry, which includes federally licensed firearms dealers, and the
other of which represents the firearms industry and recreational
shooting and hunting. ATF acknowledges and appreciates the comments and
collaborative suggestions submitted by both organizations.
One set of comments expressed support for ATF's mission to enhance
public safety through efficient firearms tracing. While they applauded
ATF's efforts to keep pace with the increased numbers of firearms trace
requests over the past ten years (as reflected in the 60-day notice),
they also noted that the continuing increase in trace requests over
time and in the future presents an increasing burden for dealers, and
strains staffing resources and elevates costs. To this end, the
organization outlined two suggestions oriented toward streamlining and
making more efficient the process for dealer responses to trace
requests.
The commenting organization suggested that ATF should request each
licensee to identify a primary point of contact responsible for
receiving and coordinating responses to all trace requests. Entities
holding multiple licenses could designate a centralized compliance
office as the POC, provided they can coordinate timely access to
required acquisition and disposition records for each licensee. ATF
would then direct trace requests to this designated POC, and licensees
could notify NTC in writing if they need to change the POC. The
commenting organization's experience has been that trace requests often
go to different locations, and a primary POC would strengthen
compliance, improve response times, and reduce the chance of dealers
missing requests.
ATF agrees with the commenter that the number of trace requests has
steadily increased over time and is expected to continue rising. As the
data in the 60-day notice cited by the commenter illustrated, over the
past ten fiscal years, the number of incoming trace requests has grown
by nearly 70%.
The NTC Division provides an internal dealer profile module that
permits multiple licensees associated with the same business entity to
link with each other and to designate a centralized tracing POC, where
applicable. Licensees can also use the dealer profile to document
primary and alternate POCs and their contact information (name,
preferred contact method, email, fax, phone, contact hours, after-hours
contact, etc).
The commenter also recommended that ATF should require law
enforcement agencies (LEAs) to explicitly classify their trace requests
as ``urgent'' (e.g., assaults, kidnappings, homicides, etc.) or
``routine,'' based on ATF's existing categories, convey the category to
the dealer with the request, and base the dealer's required response
time on the request's urgency. So, for example, instead of being
required to respond within 24 hours to all trace requests, dealers
would respond within 24 hours to urgent requests. But, the commenter
said that, because ATF has a five-day window for responding to LEAs on
routine requests, ATF should allow dealers up to five business days in
which to respond to ATF on such requests. This would retain rapid
investigative support for urgent traces while allowing dealers to plan
their resources and responses more effectively for the bulk of routine
requests, the commenter added. The commenter also suggested that ATF
consider simplified communication for routine trace requests, such as
standardized electronic notices or batching, so dealers could respond
in a single consolidated effort, which would also help reduce burden,
as would encouraging dealers to use NTC Connect or an eTrace Direct API
for faster responses.
ATF agrees that classifying requests as routine or urgent is
helpful and requires submitting LEAs to classify incoming trace
requests as either routine or urgent. We also provide guidance, so
submitters know which requests fall into each group.
NTC strives to complete urgent trace requests within 24 hours and
routine trace requests within seven days. In response to the
commenter's suggestion that ATF allow a longer response time for
routine trace requests, we can't consider changing response times in
the context of this information collection because the response time is
set by statute. 18 U.S.C. 923(g)(7) states that ``Each licensee shall
respond immediately to, and in no event later than 24 hours after the
receipt of, a request by the Attorney General for information contained
in the records . . . .'' ATF does not have authority to supersede
statutory requirements. Aside from the statutory considerations, we
note that, on average, each successful trace to an individual purchaser
involves 3.5 licensees in the chain of distribution. Allowing each of
them up to five days to respond instead of the current 24 hours would
have a significant impact on overall completion time, potentially
taking up to five times longer than NTC's current average trace
processing time of 9.3 days. Given the importance of these traces to
law enforcement in apprehending criminals who use firearms in crimes,
and the impact that has on public safety, ATF would have reservations
about lengthening the licensee response time even in routine cases
because of this cumulative effect.
In response to the recommendation to simplify communication methods
for routine trace requests, ATF agrees these kinds of changes help
reduce burden on responding to licensees. NTC
[[Page 52444]]
continuously strives to make it as easy as possible for licensees to
respond to trace requests by improving efficiency and work processes,
and has incorporated practices such as standardized electronic notices,
batching, and permitting dealers to respond to multiple requests in one
response. NTC consolidates trace requests to the same licensee whenever
possible to reduce unnecessary contacts. Additionally, NTC is
implementing a new dealer contact service component within the Firearms
Tracing System, which will provide standardized electronic
notifications to licensees, along with fillable templates they can use
to respond to a trace request.
ATF encourages manufacturers, importers, and wholesalers to
voluntarily participate in the NTC Connect program and is actively
working to implement a more robust solution, known as FFL DIRECT. FFL
DIRECT is a secure, asynchronous API service that will enable
participating licensees to receive and respond to fully automated
firearm trace requests. This service provides licensees the autonomy to
conduct automated serial number searches against their electronic
records in response to a trace request and electronically transmit
disposition information to NTC without relying on inefficient manual
methods such as email, phone, or fax. NTC encourages licensees to
utilize NTC Connect and has already started promoting the new FFL
DIRECT service. Services such as NTC Connect and FFL DIRECT are
designed to reduce the burden on licensees and make the trace response
process more efficient and secure. By using these tools, licensees can
respond to trace requests more quickly and accurately, reducing the
burden on the licensee, while also increasing public safety through
more timely crime-gun tracing.
The second organization's comments were oriented toward protecting
information obtained during trace requests. The commenter suggested
that ATF include a clear reminder and explicit statement on ATF Form
3312.1 and its electronic equivalents that ATF may only provide a
response for a bona fide criminal investigation by federal, state,
local, or tribal law enforcement agencies or prosecutors, and that
trace data obtained from such requests may not be knowingly and
publicly disclosed pursuant to the restrictions in 18 U.S.C. 923 and
926 and the Tiahrt Amendment. The organization further requested
assurance that NTC properly safeguards firearms trace and Firearms
Tracing System (FTS) data once provided.
ATF agrees with the commenter that it is important to notify
respondents of the disclosure restrictions and to protect the
information provided. Supporting law enforcement agencies in carrying
out their public safety missions while ensuring the integrity,
security, and responsible use of trace data remains a top priority, as
protecting public safety and supporting our law enforcement partners
are central to ATF's mission. To this end, ATF has planned enhancements
already in progress that align with the commenting organization's
input. Specifically, the modernized version of eTrace launched in
September 2025, and is now available to LEAs. The updated system
incorporates a mandatory acknowledgement banner that reinforces these
statutory restrictions and requirements, ensuring that users are
reminded of the appropriate use and protection of trace data before
accessing the system. Additionally, under this new rollout, users are
now required to again acknowledge these restrictions each time they
retrieve trace results, confirming that such information is restricted
to law enforcement use only.
In addition, ATF is adding a statement directly to Form 3312.1, as
suggested by the commenter (and a Spanish version of the same statement
on the Spanish form, Form 3312.1S). The banner is being added to the
forms as part of this ICR renewal and is on the forms being reviewed by
OMB.
If you need additional information, contact: Darwin Arceo,
Department Clearance Officer, Enterprise Portfolio Management; United
States Department of Justice; Two Constitution Square; 145 N Street NE,
4W-218, Washington, DC 20530.
Dated: November 17, 2025.
Darwin Arceo,
Department Clearance Officer for PRA, U.S. Department of Justice.
[FR Doc. 2025-20338 Filed 11-19-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4410-FY-P
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