Privacy Policy
Thank you for visiting the County of Sacramento website. This Privacy Policy outlines the types of digital information the County of Sacramento gathers on visitors to the County websites, how that information is used, as well as some of the steps taken to safeguard the information.
Information Collection
- The County shall not collect personal information about website visitors unless the visitor chooses to provide that information to the County. See Section 2 below for details.
- The County shall collect limited non-personally identifying information that web browsers make available automatically whenever a visit is made to a website. This information includes the internet address of the computer or network, the date, time, and page visited on a County site, browser and operating system, and the referring page (the last webpage visited before clicking on a link to the County site).
- The County shall use the aggregated information from all of our visitors to measure server performance, analyze user traffic patterns and improve the content of the County site.
- The County shall track the keywords or search terms that are entered into our search engine to measure interest in specific topics, but shall not track which terms a particular visitor enters.
- Do Not Track (DNT) is a setting in most major web browsers that tells websites that the visitor does not wish to be tracked. The County shall honor the preference of visitors to not be tracked when a Do Not Track mechanism is in use.
- Some online County services require account registration. Some personal information is required in order to create an account (typically name, email address and a password for the account); the County will use that information to provide the service. Certain services, such as online payment services, require credit card or other payment information which may be stored temporarily in encrypted form on secure servers.
- Some County applications and websites provide geographically relevant information to visitors using the visitor’s geographic coordinates. This location information is only collected with visitor permission.
Collection of Personally Identifiable Information
Personally identifiable information is information about an individual that is readily identifiable to that specific individual. Personally identifiable information includes personal identifiers such as an individual's name, address, and phone number. A domain name or IP address is not considered personally identifiable information. The County strives to collect the minimum information necessary to comply with applicable law or provide the requested service. If a visitor chooses to participate in a survey, send an email, subscribe to an email service, or perform other transactions using County websites, the following additional information may be collected:
- Email address, and contents of emails sent through the websites - for purposes of the County providing a response
- Information volunteered in response to a survey or through online forms - for purposes identified by the survey or online form.
- Information volunteered by participating in an online transaction with the County - for purposes of completing the transaction only.
The information collected may not be limited to text characters and may include audio, video, and graphic information formats that a visitor sends to the County. The information is retained in accordance with the County’s policies. The County may use visitor email to respond appropriately. This may be to respond to the visitor, to send subscription based emails, to address issues identified by the visitor, to further improve County websites, or to forward the email to another agency for appropriate action. Survey information would be used for the purpose designated.
Distribution of Information
As a government agency, the County of Sacramento is governed by public records laws. As such, any information received through the use of County websites is subject to the same provisions as information provided on paper. The County does not sell, rent or otherwise distribute visitor's information, including email addresses, to any outside company or organization without the visitor’s permission, unless legally required to do so. This applies to information that may be collected by the County on the County’s website and by the County on that of any third party with whom the County contracts to provide internet related services.
Some County websites link to third party social media pages. The social media sites may collect personally identifiable information. Personally identifiable information collected by third party social media sites is not shared with the County.
Notice to County
The County has implemented security measures and systems into the design, implementation and day-to-day operation of its websites, underlying servers and networks. The County progressively implements new security measures as they become available on the market. These security measures are in place primarily to identify and/or block unauthorized intrusions that could upload, change information or otherwise cause damage to County websites.
Terms of Use
Websites are operated and maintained by the County of Sacramento through the Department of Technology. Materials and information on the County of Sacramento's websites are provided as a public service and intended to afford general guidelines on matters of public interest. Accordingly, the information in this site is not intended to serve as legal, accounting or tax advice. Attempts to upload information or change information on the County of Sacramento’s websites are strictly prohibited unless specifically authorized in writing by the County.
Information Security
The County has implemented security measures and systems into the design, implementation and day-to-day operation of its websites, underlying servers and networks. The County progressively implements new security measures as they become available on the market. These security measures are in place primarily to identify and/or block unauthorized intrusions that could upload, change information or otherwise cause damage to County websites.
Electronic Commerce
Visitors choosing to engage in electronic commerce with the County are ensured reasonable security measures. E-commerce transactions are performed only under tightly controlled circumstances, where there are appropriate technological and other safeguards in place to protect financial and other sensitive data. County e-commerce systems supported on the County's websites ensure financial data remains secure and with the individuals and institutions involved in the transaction. Wherever possible, financial information is not collected by the County. Rather, designated banks and financial partners route the data, transfer the funds and confirm payment to both visitors and the County.
Use of Cookies
Cookies are text files created by a web browser and stored on a local system to aid in customizing a visitor’s browsing experience. This website may use cookies. Cookies allow information to change as the visitor navigates through this website. Two types of cookies may be used, "session-only" and "persistent". Sacramento County uses cookies in the following ways:
- If the visitor wishes to access information, the County may use a session-only cookie to reserve storage on his/her computer in order to pass his/her inquiry information to a follow-on page for the purposes of retrieving requested information. The session-only cookies are erased either during web browser operation or after the web browser is shut down.
- If the visitor wishes to conduct on-line transactions, the County may use a session-only cookie when processing that visitor’s request. The type of information voluntarily submitted to fulfill the visitor’s request varies by transaction and may include name, address, phone number, e-mail address, social security or federal identification number, credit card number and expiration date, and/or driver license number. The County cannot control the use of cookies by sites outside its websites. If the visitor chooses to link to a site through a County website, the County cannot control that external site’s use of cookies and this privacy policy will not apply.
Health Information
Agencies requesting or providing personally identifiable health care information on County websites are required to certify that its health care data handling and security procedures are compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). If such data and security services are provided to such agency by a third-party provider, the agency shall be responsible for such third party's compliance with HIPAA.
Contact Information
The County is made up of a number of departments. Each department is responsible for the applications it develops including applications that may gather volunteered personally identifying information. In these cases, contact information is provided at the point of information entry allowing the visitor to contact that department either through e-mail or the phone. Additionally, contact information for websites is provided and can be used as an initial point of contact in lieu of individual department contacts.
External Links
Links to other sites from the Sacramento County websites are provided at the discretion of the County of Sacramento and are provided as a convenience for visitors of this site. Sites that are linked from the County of Sacramento are reviewed periodically to confirm that the link still furthers County purposes. The County reserves the right to refuse to post any website link or to delete links already posted at any time without notice. In the event that a visitor discovers problems with or has concerns regarding the format, accuracy, timeliness or completeness of a linked external website, the visitor is encouraged to contact the organization responsible for the linked external website. The County does not control nor is it responsible for any linked external websites, pages or content.
Intellectual Property
The content of saccounty.net web pages is copyrighted, and contains some third party images/graphics that are used with permission. Visitors are notified, therefore, that one should presume the need to obtain permission from the copyright holder before reproducing or otherwise using images/graphics from this website. Sacramento County does not give permission for images to be downloaded or saved for any reason.
(Revised - August, 2018)