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Girlshealth.gov privacy policy

Girlshealth.gov privacy policy en Español

If you are under 13 and surfing the Web, the law says that you and your parents are in charge of what personal information websites can know about you. Some examples of personal information are your full name, home address, email address, phone number, age, or gender.

Personal information

You do not have to give girlshealth.gov any personal information.

You do not have to sign-up to use our site — it’s open to everyone.

You can give us personal information if you want to.

The only way we can see your personal information is if you do something — like type your email address in our contact/question form. We don’t collect information without you knowing. For example, some sites use hidden tools to watch what websites you go to. Then, they use that information to send you spam, or to make ads show up on your computer. We don’t do that.

Here are the places on our website where you might give us personal information:

Contact/Question form. If you use our Contact/Question form, you need to give us your email address so we can answer you. You may give us your name, but that is not required. After we answer you, we delete your name and email address because we don’t need them anymore.
Our Speak Up section. In our Speak Up section, you can give your first name and/or the state you live in with your comment, but you don’t have to. We will review your comment to make sure that it doesn’t show any other personal information (like the city you live in, the school you attend, or your phone number) before anyone else can see it.
Target Heart Rate Calculator. You can enter your name in the Target Heart Rate Calculator on our Getting a Good Workout page. If you do, we don’t save it. It is just used to make the calculator’s results more personal for you.
Create a journal. You might want to put your name on your journal cover using the Create a Journal tool. If you do, we don’t save it. It is just used to make your journal more personal for you.
Website survey. We have a pop-up survey about girlshealth.gov that you may see. If you choose to take the survey, you are not asked to give any personal information.
Parents’ newsletter. If you subscribe to the girlshealth.gov parents’ newsletter, your email address and newsletter preferences are collected by KidsHealth.org. They email the newsletter. You can read KidsHealth.org’s privacy policy for more details.

Non-personal information

We get some non-personal information from your computer when you visit our website. We do not use this to identify you. Your computer gives this information to every website you visit.

The information we get is:

The way you came to our website (for example, did you get on the Internet at school or through AOL?).
The date and time you came to the website.
The pages you read.
The address of the website that linked you to us.
The way you searched on the website.

We get this information from everyone who visits our site. We add it all up, and use it to find out things like how many people come to girlshealth.gov, and what parts of it are the most popular. This helps us make girlshealth.gov better!

Third parties (other companies or websites)

Girlshealth.gov does not share any information about you with anyone else. If you sign up for the parents’ newsletter, the information you provide to KidsHealth.org is not shared with us.

How girlshealth.gov uses third-party websites and applications

Third-Party Websites and Applications (TPWA) are web-based technologies that are not exclusively operated or controlled by The Office on Women’s Health (OWH), such as non-.gov hosted applications and those embedded on an OWH Web page that could cause personally identifiable information (PII) to become available or accessible to OWH, regardless of whether OWH solicits or collects it.

As part of the Open Government Directive, OWH uses a variety of new technologies and social media options to communicate and interact with citizens. These sites and applications include popular social networking and media sites, open source software communities and more. The following list includes the websites and applications we use and their purposes. For any sites or applications that collect PII, this list also includes details on information collected and how OWH protects your private information.

Third-party websites and applications

Google URL Shortener – The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) uses Google URL Shortener to shorten long URLs for use in email and text messages, Twitter feeds, and on Facebook pages. Google URL Shortener collects and provides data on how often email and text message recipients and Facebook and Twitter-users click on the shortened URLs distributed by OWH staff. Google URL Shortener analytics show how many people clicked on the URLs posted by girlshealth.gov compared to the total number of clicks on the shortened URLs. Google URL Shortener analytics do not provide any personally identifiable information about the visitors who opened the shortened links. View the Google privacy policy.
Facebook – The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) has three Facebook pages: Office on Women’s Health, Girlshealth.gov, and Best Bones Forever!. OWH staff post news and other items of interest to citizens on the Facebook pages. If you have a Facebook account or "like" the OWH Facebook pages, you can post comments or click on the "like" option for individual entries. If you comment or click on the "like" button, personally identifying information will be visible to womenshealth.gov staff and other Facebook site visitors. The amount of visible personal information will depend on your own Facebook privacy settings. You can completely avoid displaying any personally identifiable information by not creating an account, not posting comments, and not clicking on the "like" options in Facebook. OWH staff does not collect, use, or disclose any information about visitors who comment or "like" the womenshealth.gov Facebook pages. Facebook collects and reports on non-personally identifiable information about activities on Facebook pages. This information is password protected and only available to members of OWH and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties. View the Facebook privacy policy.
Twitter – The Office on Women’s Health (OWH) has four Twitter accounts: @womenshealth, @girlshealth, @bestbones4ever, and @SaludDLaMujer. OWH uses Twitter to send short messages (up to 140 characters) or "Tweets" to share information about OWH with visitors and respond to comments and inquiries sent via Twitter to OWH. While visitors may read the OWH Twitter feeds without subscribing to them, visitors who want to subscribe to (or follow) OWH Twitter feeds must create a Twitter account. To create an account, you must provide some personal information, such as name, user name, password, and email address. Visitors have the option to provide additional personal information including a short biography, location, or a picture. Most information you provide for a Twitter account is available to the public, but you can modify how much of your information is visible by changing your privacy settings at the Twitter.com website. OWH staff members monitor the number of subscribers and respond to comments and queries via Twitter, but the staff never takes possession of the personal information belonging to Twitter followers. OWH does not collect, maintain, disclose, or share any information about people who follow OWH on Twitter. View the Twitter privacy policy.
YouTube – OWH embeds videos from YouTube on Web pages. You do not need to register with either YouTube or Google (YouTube owner) to watch embedded videos. When visitors watch videos, YouTube may record non-personally identifiable information about its site usage, such as channels used, videos watched, and data transfer details to improve its services. If you log on to the YouTube site before watching a video, YouTube may associate information about your site use with your YouTube account. If you log on to YouTube and comment on an embedded video, any personal information you included when registering for your account will be visible to visitors who click on the comment. If you do not log in before watching an embedded video, your site use will not be associated with you or a YouTube account. View the YouTube privacy policy.

website links

We link to other websites we think have good health information. When you leave girlshealth.gov, and whenever you are online, be sure to check the privacy policy of each site you visit. If they ask for your name or address, be sure to talk to your parents first. Here are some links to good information to help you protect yourself:

Who is girlshealth.gov?

Girlshealth.gov is a project of the Office on Women’s Health — a part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. If you or your parents have questions about our privacy policy, there are 3 ways you can contact us:

You can write to us at:
Attn.: girlshealth.gov
Office on Women's Health
Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, SW Room 712E
Washington, DC 20201
You can call us at 202-690-7650.
You can use our comment/question form.

For more information about us, read About This Site.