Privacy and Security
HUD OIG is committed to protecting the privacy and security of visitors to our website. Outlined below is our online privacy policy. If you have questions about this policy, please contact us.
Information Collected and Stored Automatically
When you visit HUDOIG.GOV, we may store some or all of the following: the Internet address from which you access the web site, date and time, the Internet address of the web site from which you linked to our site, the name of the file or words you searched, items clicked on a page, and the browser and operating system used. This information is used to measure the number of visitors to the various sections of our site and identify system performance or problem areas. We also use this information to help us expand the coverage of the site, to analyze patterns of usage, and to make the site more useful. However, this information is not used for associating search terms or patterns of site navigation with individual users. On occasion, HUDOIG.GOV may provide this information to third party entities it contracts with for the purposes of research analysis.
Cookies
When you visit some websites, their web servers generate pieces of information known as cookies. Some cookies collect personal information to recognize your computer in the future.
HUDOIG.GOV uses per-session cookies to serve technical purposes, like providing seamless navigation through HUDOIG.GOV. These cookies do not permanently record data and they are not stored on your computer's hard drive. HUDOIG.GOV 's per-session cookies are stored in memory and are only available during an active browser session. When you close your browser, the per-session cookie disappears.
If You Send Us Personal Information
We do not collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to you (for example, to respond to your questions or provide subscriptions you have chosen). If you choose to provide us with personal information—like filling out a Contact Us form, with an e-mail address and zip code, and submitting it to us through the website—we use that information to respond to your message, and to help get you the information you've requested. We only share the information you give us with another government agency if your question relates to that agency, or as otherwise required by law. HUDOIG.GOV never collects information or creates individual profiles for commercial marketing.
While you must provide an e-mail address and zip code for a localized response to any incoming questions or comments to HUDOIG.GOV, we recommend that you NOT include any other personal information, especially Social Security numbers. The Social Security Administration offers additional guidance on sharing your Social Security number.
Privacy of our email lists
As noted above, we maintain e-mail lists to keep interested, eligible individuals informed about important topics, and individuals must affirmatively request to join them. We configure our list server software to refuse to divulge the email addresses of our list subscribers to anyone other than those whom we authorize. However, we are not the author of this software, and are not responsible for any failures in the software to preserve subscriber anonymity.
Children's privacy
Because we care about the safety and privacy of children online, we comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). COPPA and its accompanying FTC regulation establish United States federal law that protects the privacy of children using the Internet. We do not knowingly contact or collect personal information from children under 13. Our site is not intended to solicit information of any kind from children under 13. It is possible that by fraud or deception we may receive information pertaining to children under 13. If we are notified of this, as soon as we verify the information, we will immediately obtain parental consent or otherwise delete the information from our servers.
Security
We maintain a variety of physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information. For example, we use commercially reasonable tools and techniques to protect against unauthorized access to our systems. Also, we restrict access to Personal Information to those who need such access in the course of their duties for us. Your own efforts to protect against unauthorized access play an important role in protecting the security of your personal information. You should be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer, and always log out of any site when viewing personal information.