PRIVACY POLICY Thank you for visiting my web site and reviewing my privacy policy. Let me be clear about this policy. I will collect no personal information about you when you visit my web site unless you choose to provide that information. Protecting the personal privacy of users of the Internet is a priority of mine. I have posted this policy because of my firm commitment to protecting your privacy. Information Collected and Stored Automatically
If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the web site, read pages, or download information, the U.S. Senate will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. Here are some examples of the information the U.S. Senate tabulates regarding visits to Senate web sites:
- The pages you visit.
- The Internet domain from which you connect to us (for example, "xcompany.com" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a university's domain);
- The date and time you access our site;
- The address of the web site that provided the link, if any, that was used to reach the Senate site
The U.S. Senate uses this information to help make the U.S. Senate's site more useful to visitors. The U.S. Senate does not use cookies or other means to track or record information about individuals and their visits, nor do I.
If You Send Us Personal Information My web site privacy policy is simple: it will not collect any personal information about you when you visit the site unless you choose to provide that information to us. If you choose to provide us with personal information by sending me an e-mail or by filling out a form with your personal information and sending it to my office, we use that information to respond to your message or to help us give you the information you have requested. We treat e-mails the same way we treat letters sent to my office. If you e-mail me concerning a problem you are having with a Federal Agency, requesting help with a casework matter, or expressing concern about a matter in the jurisdiction of a federal agency, it may be necessary for my office to share the information provided with the agency in order to respond to your concern. Other than for these reasons or in the course of an authorized law enforcement investigation or emergency posing an imminent risk to public safety, my office will not share personal information sent through my web site with any organization or individual, unless you request it. Links to Other Sites My web site has links to other useful sites on the Internet, including sites of other government agencies and sites relating to Illinois. If you follow any link that takes you to a location that does not include 'senate.gov' in the address, you will have left the Senate web server and you will need to refer to that site's own privacy policy. Kids' Page I am especially concerned about protecting children's privacy. I hope parents and teachers are involved in children's Internet explorations. It is particularly important for parents to offer guidance to their children when their children are asked to provide personal information online. I am interested in encouraging children to use the Internet for gathering information and as an educational tool. That is why I provide a Kids' Page on my site. In general, I encourage children to contact me with any questions they might have about me or my views. In doing so, I request that they provide me with an address so I can respond to their concerns. Providing this information is entirely optional. I ask children to get their parents' permission before providing any information online -- at this site or any other site -- and hope parents will always be involved in those decisions. Most importantly, when children do provide information through this web site, it is only used to enable me or my staff to respond to the writer, and not to create profiles of children. |
