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Privacy Policy

Virginia.gov Internet Privacy Policy

Virginia law

We protect our records in accordance with our obligations as defined by applicable Virginia statutes, including, but not limited to, the “Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act,” Chapter 38 of Title 2.2 of the Code of Virginia (§ 2.2-3800 and 2.2-3803), “Administration of systems including personal information; Internet privacy policy; exceptions” Code of Virginia, § 2.2-3803, the “Virginia Freedom of Information Act” § 2.2-3700, et seq., and by any applicable U.S. federal laws. Any personal information that is collected and retained is maintained in compliance with statute.

Information we collect

We collect only the minimum amount of information needed to provide services. If you do nothing during your visit to the virginia.gov website but browse or download information, we automatically collect and store the following information about your visit:

  1. The Internet domain and IP address from which you accessed our site;
  2. The type of browser and operating system you used;
  3. The date and time you visited this site;
  4. The pages visited; and
  5. If you arrived from another website, the address of that website.

The information in our web logs is not personally identifiable, and no attempt is made to link it with the individuals that browse our website.

How the collected information is used

Your input is used to improve the content of our web services and to help us understand how people are using our pages. Routing information is used to send requested web pages to your computer for viewing. Transaction routing information is used primarily in a statistical summary format to assess content and server performance. We may share this summary information with our business partners when needed.

We may keep your information indefinitely, but we ordinarily delete routing information regularly after the web page is transmitted. However, on rare occasions when a “hacker” attempts to breach computer security, logs and any other relevant information in our possession may be shared with law enforcement agencies.

Optional information is retained in accordance with the records retention schedule at the Library of Virginia.

Under the “Virginia Freedom of Information Act” (FOIA), any records in our possession at the time of a “Freedom of Information Request” might be subject to inspection by or disclosure to members of the public. However, identifiable personal information will be removed prior to such release in accordance with FOIA.

Restrictions on the disclosure of customer information

We do not sell or rent our subscribers’ information to any outside company or organization. We do not reveal specific information about users or other personally identifiable data to unaffiliated third parties for their independent use, except if required to do so by FOIA or other law.

Cookies

“Cookies” are small files either stored on a server or sent back to a visiting computer. In certain applications user information is stored as cookies, which are then sent back to and stored on the user’s computer. Some sections of the website use cookies to customize the information presented to you. Cookies are also used to aggregate site usage information to help us improve our users’ experience.

Copyright

The copyright to the virginia.gov website is owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and pages are marked with the notice “© Commonwealth of Virginia.” Permission is granted to website visitors to make fair use of the contents, as per http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html. If you are in doubt about whether your use constitutes fair use, please send a request for explicit permission to copy the contents by emailing virginiawebmaster@vita.virginia.gov.