Privacy Act
Non-personal information we record
Security and Intrusion Detection
Information from e-mail you send us
Information collected if you complete a form on
our Web sites
State Certification
Your rights under the Paperwork Reduction Act
More about privacy and your student aid records
Privacy Notice
Privacy Impact Assessment
Privacy Act
Thank you for
visiting our Web site. Our privacy policy is simple: We collect
no personal information about you unless you choose to provide
that information to us.
Below you will find information explaining how your
information will be safeguarded.
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Non-personal information we record
If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the Web
site, read pages, or download information, our Web site's
operating system will automatically record some general
information about your visit.
During your visit, our Web operating system will record:
1. The
Internet domain for your Internet
service, such as "xcompany.com" or "xcompany.net" if you use a
private Internet access account, or
"yourschool.edu" if you connect from a college or university
domain.
2. The
type of browser (such as
"Internet Explorer version X") that you are using.
3. The
type of operating system that you use (such as Macintosh, UNIX,
or Windows).
4. The
date and time you
visit our site, and the Web pages that you visit on our site.
5. The
address of the previous Web site you were
visiting, if you linked to us from another Web site.
We use this information for statistical analysis, to help
us make our site more useful to visitors. This tracking system
does not record information about individuals.
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Security and Intrusion Detection
For security purposes and to make sure this service remains
available to all users, we use special software programs for
monitoring network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to
upload or change information, or otherwise to cause damage to
this government computer system. These programs collect no
personally identifiable information, but they do collect
information that could help us identify someone attempting to
tamper with this Web site.
Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, we
make no other attempts to identify individual users or their
usage habits. We only use raw monitoring data logs for
determining trends in usage patterns and in diagnosing system
problems.
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Information from e-mail you send us
If you decide to send us an electronic mail message (e-mail,
which includes information you send to Customer Service
regarding a problem or feedback you provide on a Customer
Survey), the message will usually contain your return e-mail
address. If you include personally identifying information in
your e-mail because you want us to address issues specific to
your situation, we may use that information in contacting
other federal agencies or our partners (such as schools,
lenders, or state agencies) in connection with your student
aid application or aid awards. In other limited circumstances,
including requests from Congress or other parties, we may be
required by law to disclose information that you submit.
Also, e-mail is not necessarily secure against
interception. If your communication is very sensitive, or
includes personal information such as data from your tax return
or student loan account, you may prefer to mail it by postal
mail to:
Federal Student Aid Information Center
P.O. Box 84
Washington, D.C. 20044
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Information collected if you complete a form on
our Web sites
On this Web site, we offer
interactive forms that allow you to apply for financial aid.
When you apply for federal student aid using one of these
forms, the Office of Federal Student Aid is authorized to
maintain a record of the transactions related to your
application.
Under the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended we are
allowed to ask for the information on this form so that we can
determine whether you are eligible for aid, and, if so, how
much. We will share the information with other agencies, such as
the Social Security Administration, to verify the information
you put on the application. If you do not give us all of the
information we need to process your FAFSA, your aid may be
delayed or denied. For a complete description of the information
we must tell you under the Privacy Act (Your Privacy Act
Rights), click the Privacy Act link below.
Your
Privacy Act Rights
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State Certification
When you
submit this application, you are automatically applying for
financial aid from your state of legal residence and, in some
cases, the state in which your school is located. You are
giving your state financial aid agency permission to verify
information on this form and to obtain income tax information
for all people who are required to report income on this form.
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Your rights under the Paperwork Reduction Act
According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons
are required to respond to a collection of information unless
such collection displays a valid OMB control number, which for
this form is 1845-0001. Public reporting burden for this
collection of information is estimated to average 55 minutes
for applicants who use FAFSA on the Web to complete and
submit the application, an average of 45 minutes for an
applicant who has previously used
FAFSA on the Web and completes a renewal FAFSA, and an
average of 10 minutes to make FAFSA corrections; these averages
include time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data
sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and
completing and reviewing the collection of information. The
obligation to respond to this collection is voluntary. Send
comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of
this collection of information, including suggestions for
reducing this burden, to the Federal Student Aid Information
Center, P.O. Box 84, Washington, D.C. 20044.
We may request additional information from you to process your
application more efficiently. We will collect this additional
information only as needed and on a voluntary basis.
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More about privacy and your student aid records
When you apply for federal student aid, the
Office of Federal Student Aid Programs is authorized to
maintain a record of the transactions related to your
application.
Click
this link to review the System of Records notices, which list
the authorized disclosures and the safeguards for the Office of
Federal Student Aid Program systems under the Privacy Act
of 1974, as amended.
If you have authorized us to share your financial aid information
with state agencies or the schools that you are thinking of
attending, they will also store that information (often in
electronic form). State agencies and schools also collect other
information relating to financial aid payments, admission,
enrollment, etc. The privacy of these records is protected by the
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
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