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Site Policies

Disclaimer

The website for the Office of the Governor (“OOG”) includes the sites of the various other component offices and entities that are administratively supported by the domain gov.texas.gov .  This site may include facts, views, opinions, or recommendations of individuals or organizations not affiliated with the OOG. The OOG does not endorse, guarantee, or warrant, either expressly or implicitly, the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of facts, views, opinions, or recommendations on this website.

Intellectual Property/Copyright

All photographs and videos are copyrighted and may not be used without permission. Commercial use of any reproduction of any portion of this website is strictly prohibited. The OOG respects the rights of intellectual property owners and will not intentionally infringe on those rights. If an intellectual property owner believes his or her rights have been infringed by the posting or sharing of intellectual property on an OOG website or social media page, please visit the Contact page.

Privacy Policy

Your privacy and security are important to us. The OOG has tried to balance the interest of individual privacy with the requirements of open government. The OOG will continue to review our website to ensure that the OOG is protecting your privacy in accordance with applicable law and will update our privacy policy whenever necessary to reflect any relevant changes to the OOG’s site or our practices.  This Privacy Policy outlines our general practices for the online collection, use, and disclosure of information that you provide to the OOG when you use the site, as well as data that the OOG collects through the site.

By using this site, you agree that this Privacy Policy and any applicable site policies govern your use of the site. From time to time, the OOG may update this Privacy Policy, and you are encouraged to periodically check this site for updates. Your continued use of the site affirms your agreement to any changes we make to this Privacy Policy.

Information Collected and How it is Collected

Voluntary Information: All site users remain anonymous unless they choose to provide their personal information to the OOG. The OOG may collect personal information you voluntarily provide, including your name, e-mail address, postal address, phone number, mobile number, and geographic location. You may provide this information when you request information, register, or submit correspondence, or for other purposes. In limited circumstances, the OOG or a third-party service provider may collect payment information such as credit card number to complete a requested service or transaction. By requesting information from your mobile phone, the OOG may obtain the following information from you: your cell phone number (if using SMS), your carrier’s name, and the date, time, and content of your messages to the OOG, as well as other information that you voluntarily provide. The OOG will use such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Automatically Generated Information: The OOG and certain third-party service providers may also collect information that is generated automatically while you are visiting the site, other websites, mobile websites, mobile applications, or elsewhere on the Internet, in order to provide content that may be of interest to you across those various devices. This data includes, but is not limited to, information such as IP address, web pages visited before and after visiting the site, date and time, domain type, type of mobile device you use, your device’s unique ID, web pages you view and links you click on within the site, and interactions with page content. This type of information may be collected using different types of technologies, such as cookies and pixels. An IP address, for example, is a unique identifier that certain electronic devices use to identify and communicate with each other on the Internet. When you visit the site, the OOG may view the IP address of the device you use to connect to the Internet. The OOG may use this information to determine the general physical location of the device and understand from what geographic regions the OOG’s site visitors come. The OOG may also use this information to enhance the site.

Cookies and Other Technologies

Overview: The OOG uses cookies and other technologies to obtain certain types of information across various devices when your web browser accesses the site, other websites, mobile websites, advertisements, or mobile applications. “Cookies” are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser. The site may use cookies and other technology to speed navigation and keep track of items and to gather anonymous traffic data that may be used to enhance the site and for other internal purposes. By continuing to use the site, you are consenting to the acceptance of cookies.

Disabling Cookies: If you wish to withdraw your consent at any time, you will need to delete your cookies using your browser settings. The “Help” portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive cookies, and how to disable cookies altogether. Note that if you reject or block cookies, it may affect your ability to access the full functionality and experience of the site.

Google Analytics: The site uses Google Analytics to measure traffic. Review the Google Analytics Terms of Use to learn more about how Google uses, collects, and processes analytics data. The OOG’s websites collect and store information each time you access them to enable us to measure website traffic. This helps us make our websites more accessible and useful to visitors. If you browse through our sites reading, printing, or downloading information, no sensitive information and no confidential information about you is collected.  The information we collect when you visit OOG sites consists of:

  • the IP address from which you are accessing the sites;
  • the domain name of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) you are using to access the sites;
  • the date and time you visited the sites; and
  • the web pages or services you access at the sites.

Web Beacons: Certain pages of the site and OOG e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the OOG to count users who have visited those pages or opened an e-mail and for other related site statistics.

Information Use and Sharing

Use of Personal Information: If you provide your personal information to the OOG, the OOG will only use it for the purposes described herein. The OOG may use this information or share it outside of the OOG if (1) you authorize us to do so; (2) it is necessary to allow our service providers or agents to provide products or services to the OOG in connection with your use of the site; (3) it is necessary in order to facilitate official government business or provide information to you, including contacting you when necessary; (4) subject to applicable contractual or legal restrictions, it is disclosed to other entities, including other governmental agencies, that perform services or official government business for the State of Texas or on behalf of the OOG; (5) it is necessary in connection with other governmental purposes including, without limitation, responding to your inquiries or requests for information or services, constituent communications, service quality, business management and operation, risk assessment, security, fraud and crime prevention, monitoring, research and analysis, website preferences and trends, or dispute resolution; (6) it is necessary to disclose in order to protect or defend the rights or property of the OOG or of site users; (7) it is necessary to disclose in order to protect the personal safety of site users or the public; (8) it is necessary for the OOG to provide it to its attorneys, accountants, regulators, auditors or other authorized parties; or (9) as otherwise required or permitted by law, or required to comply with the Texas Public Information Act (Texas Government Code, Chapter 552) or legal process served upon the OOG or its authorized service providers or agents.

Use of Non-Personally Identifiable Information: The OOG may use non-personally identifiable information to improve or modify website content in an effort to create a more relevant experience for each person that visits the site or elsewhere on the Internet. This non-personally identifiable information may also be used to predict responses to content, to help determine which website content performs best and which content is most appropriate for different individuals, to measure and optimize the usefulness of content, and to provide aggregate reporting for our internal purposes. The OOG uses various website analytics tools and technologies regarding activities on our site that require storage of web session data.  The overall aim of these tools is to aid in making our site easy to use, to identify and correct error conditions, and to provide more relevant content to you.  These tools and technologies are also used to assist site visitors who report problems in the use of our site. Stored web session data is used in accordance with this policy.

Website Link Policy: The OOG’s website complies with the Texas Department of Information Resources State Website Link Policy, which contains guidelines and information on linking to state agency websites. This policy also governs linking to and from any OOG social media page. The site may include links to a variety of other public and private websites. These external sites have been selected based on the relevance of their content to assist visitors in locating additional resources and information on matters within the scope of the agency’s duties or of general public concern. Some links to external sites are required by law to be included on the OOG site. The OOG does not assume responsibility for the content of linked sites and makes no representations or warranty of any kind as to the accuracy or any other aspect of the information contained on such third-party Internet servers, and does not endorse the content, products, services, or viewpoints contained within any linked sites.

E-mail Address Submissions

E-mail Address: The OOG accepts e-mail addresses  submitted through the site. Please see the Contact page.

Submitting your e-mail address: Submitting your e-mail address anywhere on the site may result in your e-mail address being added to an OOG e-mail list. You may unsubscribe to OOG e-mails at any time by opting out of e-mail subscriptions if an “unsubscribe” link is included in the e-mail, or by contacting the OOG with a request to unsubscribe. Please allow us a reasonable period of time in order to satisfy your request, as some promotions may already be in process.

Security

OOG websites have reasonable security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of your data and information that is under our control. Interactive applications and forms that collect sensitive or confidential information are encrypted using privacy and security safeguards such as a Secure Socket Layer session or similar technology.

Appropriate computer, network, and Internet technical security controls at the employee and departmental level prevent unauthorized access to information voluntarily provided by you. Some of these security controls are password and user identification verification, data encryption, confidential transmissions, secure storage areas, and audit trails.  Despite such efforts, however, please note that no organization can fully eliminate risks or guarantee the absolute security of personal information.

Data Retention

The OOG may retain information collected through the site, including any personal information, based on agency needs and any applicable records retention or other legal requirements.  Generally, the OOG retains personal information for as long as is necessary for the processing purposes for which the data was collected, and for the length of time required for compliance with agency applicable records retention requirements.  When information is no longer needed, the OOG may securely destroy the information, unless required by applicable law to retain or archive the information for a specific retention period.

Open Records Policy

The Texas Public Information Act (Texas Government Code, Chapter 552) provides the public with a legal right to access government records. All government information is presumed to be available to the public unless a legal exception to disclosure applies. Governmental bodies are required to release requested information unless the information is excepted from disclosure or required to be maintained as confidential by law in accordance with a constitutional, statutory, or judicial exception.

To make an open records request, please visit the Public Information page.

For more information about the Public Information Act, please visit the website of the Office of the Attorney General.

State Privacy Rights

To the extent information collected about you is collected or maintained by a governmental body of the State of Texas, that information may be subject to public disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act (Texas Government Code, Chapter 552).  Non-governmental e-mail addresses are generally not subject to disclosure unless you affirmatively consent to the disclosure of your e-mail address.

Under Texas Government Code, Chapter 559, you are entitled, upon request, to: (i) know if information has been collected about you by a governmental body of the State of Texas; (ii) receive and review any information collected under sections 552.021 and 552.023 of the Texas Government Code; and (iii) correct inaccurate information under section 559.004 of the Texas Government Code, subject to any applicable exceptions.  If you would like to request information about you that may be subject to this law, you may submit a request through the Public Information page at: https://gov.texas.gov/pir-info.

Children and Minors

Parents and guardians are encouraged to regularly monitor and supervise their children’s online activities. The OOG does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Special Statement for Job Applicants

Any personal information that you provide to the OOG when applying for employment will be used solely to consider and act upon your application. We may disclose your personal information to our agents for the purpose of evaluating your qualifications for the particular position for which you applied, for other available positions, or as otherwise authorized by law. The OOG may also disclose your personal information to third parties authorized by the OOG to collect, maintain, and analyze candidates for career positions or as otherwise authorized by law.

Visiting Our Site from Outside of the United States

If you are visiting the site from outside of the United States of America, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, or processed in the United States, where the OOG’s servers and central database are operated. For example, if you are located outside of the United States, the OOG will typically transfer any information collected through the site to the United States and process all personal information in the State of Texas. The data protection, privacy regulations, and other laws applicable to your use of the site may not be as comprehensive as those applicable in your home country. By using this site, you understand that your information may be transferred to OOG facilities and third parties with whom the OOG shares information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Social Media Policy

Purpose & Scope

Social media tools are software systems or services provided on the Internet, such as Facebook and Twitter, through which users create online communities or web pages to share information and other content. The OOG recognizes that social media tools allow users to quickly and easily share information with one another. In keeping with the OOG’s goal of making government open and accessible, the agency may utilize social media tools to post or share information related to agency business or items of interest to the general public. The purpose of this policy is to ensure that the OOG’s official use of social media tools for official agency business remains in compliance with any applicable laws and rules. This policy does not govern OOG employees’ personal use of social media tools.

Social Media Disclaimer: Any information, communications, or material of any type or nature that you submit to any of the pages contained on an OOG social media platform or social media site (such as Facebook or Twitter) by e-mailing, posting, messaging, uploading, downloading, or otherwise (collectively, a “Submission”) is done at your own risk and without any expectation of privacy. The OOG does not have ownership or control of any such social media platforms or sites, and is therefore not responsible for any third-party content or submissions contained on such platforms and sites. By visiting any of the OOG’s pages or websites that are contained or hosted on a social media platform or website, you are representing and warranting to the OOG that you have reviewed the applicable privacy policy and terms of use of such platform or website and that you will abide by all such provisions contained therein. Additionally, in the event that the OOG may offer a message board or any other interactive or social-type feature on a website administered directly by the agency, please be aware that these areas may allow you to publicly post, and share with other users, certain messages, content, or other information. Although the OOG may take certain precautions to protect users of those sites, users are encouraged to avoid giving out any personal information in such public forums. The information you post can be collected and used by people you do not know. The OOG cannot guarantee the privacy and safety of these sites and is therefore not responsible for any information you choose to post. Your use of these features or sites is fully at your own risk.

Control & Monitoring

The OOG shall exclusively control and regularly monitor any OOG social media page or account. Unless otherwise prohibited by law or rule, information posted or shared on an OOG social media page may be removed or deleted from the page at any time at the OOG’s discretion.

Information & Privacy

The OOG will not post or share information on an OOG social media page if that information is confidential under any law or rule.  Members of the public should not post or share information on an OOG social media page if that information is personal, confidential, sensitive, obscene, threatening, harassing, or discriminatory, or would otherwise compromise public safety or incite violence or illegal activities.

Retention, Destruction & Removal of Information

Information posted or shared on an OOG social media page may qualify as public information or a state record. Accordingly, such information may be retained or destroyed in accordance with the OOG’s Records Retention Schedule and any applicable laws or rules.

Intellectual Property The OOG respects the rights of intellectual property owners and will not intentionally infringe on those rights. The OOG’s use of protected intellectual property on an OOG social media page should be in compliance with applicable laws and rules.  The terms of service of the respective social media tool will govern the posting or sharing of intellectual property on an OOG social media page by a member of the public.

Constituent Communications

The OOG will not accept constituent assistance requests submitted through an OOG social media page or through embedded messaging or e-mail applications that may be on social media sites. In order to share your opinion or request assistance from the OOG, please visit the Contact page.

Public Information Requests

The OOG will not accept public information requests submitted through an OOG social media page. In order to make an open records request of the OOG, please visit the Public Information page at: https://gov.texas.gov/pir-info.

Social Media Linking

The Texas Department of Information Resources State Website Link Policy, which contains guidelines and information on linking to state agency websites, will govern linking to and from an OOG social media page. The OOG does not assume responsibility for the content of linked sites and does not endorse the content, products, services, or viewpoints expressed or provided by linked sites.

Accessibility Policy

The OOG is committed to making its website accessible to all users, following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA. For more information, visit: https://www.w3.org/. We welcome comments and suggestions to improve the accessibility of our website.

If you use assistive technology and the format of any material on our website interferes with your ability to access the information, please report these issues through the Contact page.

To enable the OOG to respond in the most helpful way, please indicate the nature of the accessibility problem, the preferred format in which to receive the material, the Web address of the requested material, and your contact information. Every attempt will be made to resolve the problem; however, due to technological resource limitations, we may be unable to address all issues.

Additional information on accessibility programs is available from the Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Site Policy, please visit the Contact page.