When you visit the portal, we collect limited personal information about you to help us understand who visits the site and how it is being used. Here is how we handle information about your visit.
What We Collect and Store Automatically
If you log in and browse through the website, read pages, or download information, the system automatically collects and stores the following information about your visit:
- Your name, organization, email address, and phone number;
- Your username and what you view on the site;
- The IP address (an IP address is a number that is assigned to each computer connected to the Internet) from which you access our site;
- The type of browser and operating system used to access our site;
- The date and time you access our site;
- The pages you visit;
- The amount of data transferred between our server and your computer; and
- If you linked to our website from another website, the address of that site.
How We Use Your Personal Information
This website uses the information collected, including your personal information, for four purposes:
- We may use your name, phone number, or email address to contact you if we have questions about any of the data you enter into the system.
- We may use the information we collect to count the number and type of visitors to the different pages on our site and to help us make our site more useful to visitors.
- We may use your email address to keep you informed of any reporting deadlines or documents awaiting your attention, or to let you know in advance when the site will be down for maintenance for longer than 2 hours.
- If you choose, you may indicate your name, organization, and/or email address when you contact us either via email or by submitting a Help request.
If You Email Us or Request Help
You may choose to provide us with personal information as an email with a comment or question or as a Help Desk request. We use the information to improve our service to you or to respond to your request. Sometimes we forward your email or Help request to other government or contracted employees who may be better able to help you. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, we do not share our email or Help requests with any organizations outside the Children’s Bureau and authorized contractors of the Children’s Bureau.
Use of Cookies or Other Tracking Devices
A persistent cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer and makes it easy for you to move around a website without having to continually re-enter your name, password, preferences, or other information. Consistent with the Department of Health and Human Services’ policy on the Usage of Persistent Cookies, our website does not use persistent cookies. A session cookie is a small text file that is not stored on your computer, but is kept in memory while you are connected to our site and is deleted when you close your browser or click "Log out" on the home page. We use session cookies only to make your visit more productive for you.
Securing the Information We Collect Online
We are committed to properly securing the information we collect online. To accomplish this, we take the following steps:
- We employ internal access controls to ensure that the only people who can see your information are those with a need to do so to perform their official duties;
- We train relevant personnel on our privacy and security measures so that our personnel know what is required for our compliance;
- We use technical controls to secure the information we collect online, including encryption, firewalls, and password protections;
- We periodically test our security procedures to ensure personnel and technical compliance; and
- We employ external access safeguards to identify and prevent unauthorized attempts by outsiders to hack into, or cause harm to, the information in our systems.
Tampering with this website is punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.
Links to Other Sites
Our website has links to a limited number of public and private organizations. When you click on a link to another site, you are no longer on this site and are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.