Privacy Policy for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Public Health Web Site

Welcome to the Department of Public Health Web site. Your privacy is one of our top priorities. The following policy applies only to the use of the Department of Public Health Web site. Web sites operated by other state agencies have different policies. 

A Privacy Partnership. Your privacy with respect to the use of this Web site results from a partnership between the Department of Public Health and you, the user. At this Web site, we attempt to protect your privacy to the maximum extent possible. However, because some of the information that we receive through this Web site is subject to the Public Records Law, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66, Section 10, we cannot ensure absolute privacy. Information that you provide to us through this site may be available to members of the public under that law. This policy informs you of the information that we collect from you at this site, what we do with it, to whom it may be disseminated, and how you can access it. Based on this information, you can make an informed choice about your use of this site. You can maximize the benefits of your privacy partnership with the Department of Public Health by making informed choices about whether to share personally identifiable information with us through this site.

Personally Identifiable Information. We use the term "personally identifiable information" to mean any information that could reasonably be used to identify you, including your name, address, e-mail address, Social Security number, birth date, bank account information, credit card information, or any combination that could be used to identify you.

Information Voluntarily Provided by You. This site collects voluntary information from you through the e-mails that you send through this site, and in certain cases via the on-line submission forms available. E-mails sent by you to this site and information submitted via on-line submission forms will contain personally identifiable information.

Information Automatically Collected and Stored by this Site. This site does not collect "cookies", but does collect and store indefinitely your Internet Protocol ("IP") address, which does not identify you as an individual, as well as information about the date and time of your visit, whether a file you have requested exists, and how many "bytes" of information were transmitted to you over the Web from this site. We use your IP address to assess the frequency of visits to this site and the popularity of its various pages and functions. We will not attempt to match any personally identifiable information that you provide to us with your IP address, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that doing so would provide information that is relevant and material to a criminal investigation.

Dissemination of Your Personally Identifiable Information. We do not sell any personally identifiable information collected through this Web site. However, once you voluntarily submit personally identifiable information to us through an e-mail or via an on-line submission form, its dissemination is governed by the Public Records Law, the Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66A (Fair Information Practices Act), Executive Order 412, and other applicable laws and regulations. For this reason, part or all of the information you send us may be provided to a member of the public in response to a public records request.

With respect to employees of the Department of Public Health, the information that you voluntarily submit will be disclosed only to those employees or officials with a "need to know" for purposes of fulfilling their job responsibilities. They will only use the information to answer your questions, respond to any requests for information assistance, and fulfill the Department of Public Health's legal obligations. 

Your Access and Opportunity to Correct. The Public Records Law and the Fair Information Practices Act provide you certain rights to get information about you that is in our records. To learn more about the circumstances under which you can get and correct this information, please click on the above references to these laws.

Security. Because this site does not encrypt incoming e-mail or the information gathered via on-line submission forms, you should not send information that you consider highly sensitive through this Web site. We use standard security measures to ensure that your personally identifiable information is not lost, misused, altered, or unintentionally destroyed. We also use software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits.

Special Protections Against Misuse Of Personally Identifiable Information Within Commonwealth Offices. In 1999, then-Acting Governor Swift issued Executive Order 412, which enhanced the privacy protection given to any information about you as a named individual held by the Executive Department of state government. Executive Order 412 limits the collection and dissemination of personally identifiable information within the Executive Department. This site complies with Executive Order 412, so all of the personally identifiable information that you submit to this site is given the privacy protections set forth in Executive Order 412.

Policy changes. We will post changes to this policy at least 30 days before they take effect. Any information we collect under the current privacy policy will remain subject to the terms of this policy. After any changes take effect, all new information we collect, if any, will be subject to the new policy.

Contact Information. For questions about your privacy while using this Web site, please contact Burt Lewis of the Department of Public Health's Information and Technology Services.

Definitions:

Cookies are files that a Web site can place on your computer. A cookie file contains unique information that a Web site can use to track such things as your password, lists of Web pages you have visited, and the date when you last looked at a specific Web page, or to identify your session at a particular Web site. A cookie file allows the Web site to recognize you as you click through pages on the site and when you later revisit the site. A Web site can use cookies to "remember" your preferences, and to record your browsing behavior on the Web. Although you can prevent Web sites from placing cookies on your computer by using your browser's preference menu, disabling cookies may affect your ability to view or interact with some Web sites.

An "Internet Protocol Address" or "IP Address" is a series of numbers that identifies each computer and machine connected to the Internet. An IP address enables a server on a computer network to send you the file that you have requested on the Internet. The IP address disclosed to us may identify the computer from which you are accessing the Internet, or a server owned by your Internet Service Provider. Because it is machine-specific, rather than person-specific, an IP address is not, in and of itself, personally identifiable information.

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