Privacy & Terms of Use

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Regulatory Compliance
Paperwork Reduction Act Notice (Public Law 104-13): This collection of information is approved under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number 1290-0003, which expires on January 31, 2012. Persons are not required to respond to a collection of information that does not display a currently valid OMB control number. Responding to this collection of information is voluntary. The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 2.5 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, researching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to the U.S. Department of Labor, Benefits.gov / GovLoans.gov Office, FPB, Room N-4309, Washington, D.C. 20210.
Section 508

Section 508 requires the Department of Labor, along with all Federal agencies, to make electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. We are constantly pursuing compliance with Section 508 specifications as set forth by the Federal government. Federal websites provided by the Department of Labor are subject to regulations requiring self-enforcement of Section 508 compliance.

When a webpage requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be used on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to the plug-in or applet a user needs in order to view that content. Links to applets, plug-ins or other applications are listed below:

Disclaimer

We maintain this server to enhance public access to government benefits information. This is a service that is continually under development. While we try to keep the information timely and accurate, we make no guarantees. We will make an effort to correct errors brought to our attention.

The documents on this server contain hypertext pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. Please be aware that we do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of this outside information. Further, the inclusion of pointers to particular items in hypertext is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed or products or services offered by the author of the reference or the organization operating the server on which the reference is maintained.

Translations of any materials into languages other than English are intended solely as a convenience to the non-English reading public. We have attempted to provide an accurate translation of the original material in English, but due to the difficulties of translation slight differences may exist. References identifying the original document in English are available in most non-English documents.
Privacy and Security Statement

Thank you for visiting this site and reviewing our privacy and security statement. We are strongly committed to maintaining the privacy of your personal information and the security of our computer systems. With respect to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, we make every effort to ensure compliance with applicable Federal law, including, but not limited to, the Privacy Act of 1974, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, and the Freedom of Information Act.

We do not collect or store personal, identifying information about you when you visit our site. The information we receive depends upon what you provide when visiting our site, however all information provided and generated will be lost after either closing your browser or 30 minutes of inactivity.

If you visit our site to read or download information, we collect and store the following information:

  • The name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, aol.com if you are connecting from a personal computer account).
  • The date and time you access our site.
  • The Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site.
  • Commonly researched benefits, keywords searched and questionnaire responses.

The above information is used by software programs on our website to create summary statistics. We can then determine the number of visitors to the different sections of our site. We can also identify what information is of most and least interest, helping us make our site more useful to visitors.

If you identify yourself by sending an e-mail containing personal information:

You also may decide to send us personally-identifying information, for example your mailing address, in an electronic mail message requesting that information be mailed to you. Information collected in this manner is used solely for responding to requests for information or records. We may forward your e-mail to other Government employees who are better able to respond to you; however, Benefits.gov will protect this information from disclosure to the fullest extent of the law. Should you wish to file a request under FOIA, instructions are provided at: http://www.dol.gov/dol/foia/main.htm.

Finally, the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552a), requires us to notify you that the Privacy Act protects the information you are providing to us. The Privacy Act also requires we notify you that, in rare instances, we may have to disclose this registration information in accordance with published routine uses of these records, which can be found at: http://www.dol.gov/sol/privacy/intro.htm.

If you link to other sites:

Our website has many links to other sites. When you link to any of these sites, you are no longer on our site and are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

Social Media and Third-Party Sites:

In addition to Benefits.gov official website, we use social media and third party sites to provide Benefits.gov content in a different format that may be useful or interesting to you. When we use these sites, the information we provide is consistent with the intended purpose of the Benefits.gov website. No Personally Identifiable Information (PII) may be requested from or collected by Benefits.gov on social media sites. The privacy protection provided on social media and third party sites that are not a part of the Benefits.gov website may not be the same as the privacy protection given by Benefits.gov and described here.

Cookie Use Notice

On a limited number of our Web pages, we employ "cookies" to provide better service to our customers. We do not use cookies to collect any personal, identifying information from users or to track user activities beyond our website. We do not maintain copies of cookies on our website after you leave our website.

Cookies are small pieces of temporary data that are exchanged between a website and a user's computer which enable a "session", or "dialog", to be established between the two machines. With the session established, we are able to tailor responses (i.e., identify and provide you with the information you want) and help you traverse our web pages in the most efficient and effective manner possible. The session ends when we do not receive further requests from your computer or you simply exit your browser.

We limit our use of cookies to "session cookies"... types of cookies that are temporarily stored in your computer's memory. Session cookies are normally deleted from your computer when you log off the computer or you exit the browser. Benefits.gov does not issue "persistent cookies," which are cookies that could be stored permanently on your workstation and reused each time you visit the Benefits.gov website. Some social media and third party sites that display information from Benefits.gov may use persistent cookie technology. Most Internet browsers automatically accept persistent cookies. Although using persistent cookies may create a better experience for you, these sites should also work without them. If you don't want to accept cookies, you can edit your browser's options to stop accepting persistent cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit.

For security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, our website also employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.