Thank you for visiting the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality's Web
site. This notice addresses privacy concerns about the information collected on
this site.
The following topics are covered:
- Links to Other Sites - A Disclaimer
- Information Collected When You Just Browse
- Public Disclosure
- Personal Information and Nondisclosure
- Requesting Personal Information Inspection
- Cookies
- Asking questions about this policy
Links to Other Sites - A Disclaimer
This site has links to other Web sites as a convenience to our customers.
These include links to Web sites operated by other government agencies,
nonprofit organizations and private businesses. When you use one of
these links, you are no longer on this site and this Privacy Notice will
not apply. When you link to another web site, you are subject to the
privacy policy of that new site.
When you follow a link to one of these sites neither the State of Oregon, nor
any agency, officer, or employee of the State of Oregon warrants the accuracy,
reliability or timeliness of any information published by these external sites,
nor endorses any content, viewpoints, products, or services linked from these
systems, and can not be held liable for any losses caused by reliance on the
accuracy, reliability or timeliness of their information. Portions of such
information may be incorrect or not current. Any person or entity that relies on
any information obtained from these systems does so at his or her own risk.
Information Collected When You Just Browse
If you do nothing during your visit to this Web site but browse or
download information, we automatically collect and store the standard data
collected by all Web server software. That information is as follows:
- The Internet Protocol (IP) address and domain name used (but not the e-mail
address). The IP address is a numerical identifier assigned either to your
Internet service provider or directly to your computer. We use the Internet IP
to respond to your browser request. Example: 159.121.9.10 ;
- The domain name (DNS) assigned on the Internet to your IP Address (if there
is one). Example: somename.com;
- The type of browser and operating system you used. Example: Mozilla/4.0
(compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows NT; IE4WDUS-1998101501);
- The date and time you visited this site;
- The Web pages or services you accessed at this site; and
- The Web site you visited prior to coming to this Web site. (Note: this is
included so that summary analysis can be done on how visitors get to your site,
i.e., from a search engine, from a link on another site, etc.)
We do not track individual user navigation choices. We do, however, summarize
the information listed above to determine:
- what organizations are our most frequent users (item 2 above) to better
target our content for the audience.
- what browsers are being used on our site to determine what techniques we
can use to develop pages that will work with different browsers (item 3
above).
- how often our pages are being used (item 5 above).
- by the traffic from organization names such things as the search engines
that are good at directing people to the site (item 6 above)
For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available
to all users, this site may monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized
attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. If security
monitoring reveals evidence of possible abuse or criminal activity, system
personnel may provide the results of such monitoring to appropriate officials.
Except for authorized law enforcement investigations no attempts are made to
identify individual users or their usage habits. Unauthorized attempts to upload
information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and
may be punishable under the state law and federal statutes including the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure
Protection Act of 1996.
Public Disclosure
All information collected at this site becomes a public record unless an
exemption in law exists. ORS
Chapter 192 contains the Oregon Public Records Law and other program
specific ORS's and OAR's.
In the State of Oregon, laws exist to ensure that government is open and that
the public has a right to access appropriate records and information possessed
by state government. At the same time, there are exceptions to the public's
right to access public records that serve various needs including the privacy of
individuals. Both state and federal laws provide exceptions. We may request
personally identifiable information from you in order to provide requested
services, but such information is handled as it would be on an in-person visit
to a governmental office.
Personal Information and Nondisclosure
"Personal information" is information about a natural person that is
readily identifiable to that individual, such as an individual's name, address
and telephone number. Such personal information may be exempt from disclosure if
disclosure would constitute an unreasonable invasion of privacy under the
circumstances. A domain name or Internet Protocol (IP) address is not considered
personal information. Most information collected by state government is assumed
to be open to the public unless specifically exempted. ORS
Chapter 192 contains the Oregon Public Records Law. Under this law,
individuals are permitted to request that public officials not disclose a public
record that contains their home address and telephone number under certain
circumstances. ORS 192.445 specifies how to request non-disclosure.
- E-mail: If you send us an electronic mail message with a question or
comment that contains personal information, or fill out a form that e-mails us
this information, we will only use the information needed to respond to your
request. We may redirect your message to another government agency that is in a
better position to answer your question.
The information collected is subject to the access and confidentiality
provisions of the Oregon law including
ORS Chapter192.
- Forms: In general, online forms only collect personal information
which is voluntary (e.g. address to sign up for a mailing list), or information
which is required as a part of a DEQ regulatory program. In both cases, this
information is stored in the same databases as that which is received by other
means. These databases are subject to
ORS Chapter 192, the Oregon Public Records Law, and must be disclosed upon
request. DEQ does not currently collect any information over the Internet which
would be exempt from ORS Chapter 192. See "Public
Disclosure".
- E-mail address and associated information: DEQ has entered
into a contract with GovDocs, a technology provider in St Paul, Minn., to
deliver documents using the Internet and e-mail. We will ask for a person's
e-mail address, name, and/or organization name. The distribution system requires
users provide an e-mail address with optional fields for name and organization.
The terms of our contract ensure that the information collected may not be
released or used in any form by GovDocs. However, the names and addresses in all
DEQ databases are subject to disclosure as outlined in
ORS Chapter 192.
DEQ will not make personal information submitted voluntarily available over the
Internet unless the form specifically identifies that as a possibility.
Requesting Personal Information Inspection
You have the right to review information collected about you by this site.
Contact DEQ Headquarters to arrange this. Staff will have to ask for a
significant amount of information to allow us to determine if any
information about you has been stored.
Cookies
To better serve our users, we use "cookies" to customize your browsing
experience on some parts of DEQ's Web site. Cookies are simple text files stored
on your computer by your Web browser. DEQ uses cookies only to store a randomly
generated identifying tag on your computer. Cookies created on your computer by
using this Web site do not contain personally identifying information and do not
compromise your privacy or security.