Purpose

The City of Fairfield recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy of the users of this website. The City of Fairfield World Wide Web site is a fundamental communication tool for providing critical and informative City information and interactive services to its citizens and the world. The goal of the City of Fairfield Web site is to encourage user participation in the City government, to enable electronic service delivery to the public, and to help create a better Fairfield.

Personal/Confidential Information

The City of Fairfield does not use its Web site to collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to a user's request or input, or to complete an online transaction. The City of Fairfield does not create individual profiles with the information provided by users of this site, nor does it give or sell such personal information to third parties or private organizations, except if required to do so under the California Civil Discovery Act of 1986 and the California Public Records Act. The City does not track information about individuals and their visits. If a user chooses to use the City of Fairfield web site’s electronic-government capabilities to conduct business with the City, the information collected will only be that which is necessary to provide the information or services the user requests, just as a person might provide such information when visiting City Hall or another City of Fairfield office in person. The information collected is subject to the same controls and uses as that collected by City of Fairfield offices visited in person. You do not have to provide personal information to visit the City of Fairfield website or download information from the site.

The City only tracks statistical information about the overall usage of the Web site. The information does not identify you personally.

Web usage summary statistics are gathered for site management and other purposes, such as assessing what information is of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance issues. Examples of the types of information our reporting software may analyze include:

• The Internet domain, Internet access provider, and IP address from which you access the City's Web site;
• The country from which you access the City’s web site if it can be determined from your Internet domain;
• The type of browser and operating system used to access the City's Web site;
• The date and time and duration of the visit;
• The pages visited;
• If you link to the City's Web site from another Web site, the address of that website.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs 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 other attempts are or will be made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with records retention schedules and network operational procedures. Our own network staff, are instructed to limit employee access to personally identifiable information to only those employees who need access in order to perform their assigned duties and to enforce with staff their responsibilities in protecting user information.

The City of Fairfield and its website provider do not collect information for commercial marketing from its Web site. The City of Fairfield will not send you unsolicited email regarding any commercial offers or advertisements at any time, nor will it give or sell such information to third parties or private organizations. If a user chooses to provide the City of Fairfield with personal information, such as sending an e-mail to a City of Fairfield employee or by filling out and submitting an online form located on the City of Fairfield's Web site, the City of Fairfield may use that information to respond to the user's message and to assist in obtaining information the user may have requested. If applicable, we may redirect your message to another government agency or the person who is in a better position to answer your question. The City of Fairfield treats e-mails and submitted online forms the same way it treats letters to a Councilmember or a City department.

If You Send Us Personal Information

If a user chooses to join one or more of the City of Fairfield’s Internet mailing lists (“listservs”), the City of Fairfield will maintain the user’s e-mail address in the mailing list database in order to send messages related to the mailing list topic. The e-mail address information will not be used to send unsolicited e-mail, as discussed above. In order to provide electronic-government capabilities, the name, social security number (if applicable), account number (if applicable), address, and payment information (if applicable) that the user might provide when using this Web site may be collected, processed, and disclosed to complete an online transaction and for record-keeping for such activities as billing, permits, licenses and other business-related purposes. Security measures used by the City of Fairfield’s website to protect certain private information are discussed in the section labeled “Security”, below.

Cookies

Cookies or other technology may transfer information from the City of Fairfield's Web site to your hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Cookies or similar technology can make the Internet more useful by storing information about your preferences on a particular site. The use of cookies or similar technology is an industry-standard, and many major Web sites use them to provide useful features for their users. Cookies in and of themselves do not personally identify users, although they do identify a user's computer. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. If you'd prefer, you can set yours to refuse cookies. However, you may not be able to take full advantage of the City of Fairfield's Web site if you do so.

Notwithstanding the above provisions of this section, information submitted to the City of Fairfield's Web site may be subject to disclosure to another party pursuant to various provisions of California law, including, but not limited to, the California Civil Discovery Act of 1986 and the California Public Records Act. The City of Fairfield only shares such information with another government agency if the user's inquiry relates to that agency, to protect the interests of others, to protect and defend the rights or property of the City of Fairfield or as otherwise provided by law

Minor's Privacy Policy

Information that could be collected from or for a minor includes, but is not necessarily limited to: name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, school, hobbies, and any question or comment submitted. Any information collected by any City of Fairfield website from children 13 and under is subject to the guidelines of the City’s general privacy policy, as described in this document. In addition, for any information collected by or for any child under 13, the following guidelines will be followed:

Parental Consent

[Parent includes legal guardian]

Parental consent will be obtained before collecting, using, or disclosing personal information about a child. In the event that the City changes its practices of collecting, using, or disclosing any information in a substantive way, new parental consent will be obtained. An example of a change may include, what material is collected, how the information may be used, or third-party access to that information. Upon verification of a child’s parent’s identity, the requesting parent will be able to review the personal information collected from their child.

A parent will be allowed to revoke their consent and the City will delete information collected from or for their children on request. When consent is revoked, the website will stop collecting, using, or disclosing information from or for that child. Revocation may end a child's participation in an activity if the information collected was necessary for participation on the website.

Additional information can be obtained at the FTC's Consumer Response Center and the Kidz Privacy websites.

Encryption and Security

All form data sent through the City of Fairfield website is secured with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. This powerful 128-bit encryption ensures that form information is protected and sent safely. You can tell when you are on an encrypted page because the web address in your browser will start with "https://" which includes an "s." Another way to tell that a page is encrypted is to look for the locked "padlock" icon in the lower-right corner of your browser.

Unless a particular web page on the City of Fairfield's Web site indicates that encryption technology is being used, the user should not assume that information uploaded through that web page to the City of Fairfield's Web server will be treated as confidential. If a user submits information to the City of Fairfield's server through a web page containing visible indicators of active encryption technology, the City of Fairfield will take all reasonable precautions to safeguard the confidentiality of such information, but shall nevertheless not be held liable for any injury caused by the disclosure of that information, whether caused by security breach, accident, inadvertence, or any other act resulting in disclosure.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on the City of Fairfield website are strictly prohibited and may be punishable as provided by law.

© 2001 City of Fairfield. All rights reserved.