Thank you for visiting my website. Protecting the personal privacy of individuals who use the Internet is a priority of mine, and I appreciate the opportunity to describe to you the policies I have put in place to safeguard the privacy of individuals who visit my website. If you have questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this website, you can contact webmaster@franken.senate.gov.

My basic Internet privacy policy is simple: my website collects no personal information about you when you visit the site unless you choose to provide that information to me during your visit so that I can send you e-mail updates about my work, contact you about an issue you have raised or help you with a problem. Let me describe more specifically the type of information that may be gathered when you visit my website and how that information is handled.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

The U.S. Senate collects aggregate data about visits to Senate websites, such as statistics that show which parts of each website were visited the most. The following information is also collected when you visit any U.S. Senate website: the domain from which you access the Senate website, the date and time of your visit, the pages you visit, and the address of the website, if any, that provided the link from which you reached the Senate site. This information is gathered only for the purpose of enabling us to improve the online service we provide to visitors to Senate websites.

No individual identifying or personal information (such as your name) is automatically gathered when you visit any Senate website. To learn more about the Senate's Internet security and privacy policy online, please go to this address: http://www.senate.gov/security.html.

If You Send Us Personal Information

My website is set up not to collect any personal information about you when you visit the site unless you choose to provide that information to us. My website has several web forms that you can use to sign up to receive e-mail updates from me, request a tour, apply for an internship, order a flag, request a meeting, apply for a service academy nomination, request appropriations funding, request help with a federal agency, or just contact me about a given issue. To send me e-mail, the online web form asks you for your name, address, e-mail address and telephone number. I use this information provided by you to contact you about the matter on which you expressed your views and to provide any casework assistance I can regarding problems you may be experiencing in dealing with a government agency.  This information will be available to members of my staff so they can help me in responding to your message or request.

If you are requesting help with a casework matter, it also may be necessary for my office to share the information you provide with the government agency from which you are requesting assistance, in order to respond to your request. Other than when needed to perform constituent casework at your request, or in the course of an authorized law enforcement investigation or emergency posing an imminent risk to public safety, my office will share no personal information communicated through my website with any outside organization or individual.

My office tabulates comments received through my website concerning legislation and government policy issues so that I will be fully informed about the views of constituents. From time to time, I come across a comment made by a constituent, or a situation described by a constituent, in an e-mail message (as well as postal mail, phone calls, and faxes) that I feel makes a point of such general interest that I would like to refer to it in a speech, or include it in the Congressional Record, or make some other use of it, either in connection with debate in the Senate or by sharing it with the relevant government agency. My staff makes every effort in such cases to contact the author first. If you intend your message to be confidential, and would prefer that it not be used in such a way, please feel free to advise me of your preference in the message, so I can be sure to respect your wishes and see that your views are held entirely within my office.

Links to Other Sites

My website has links to other useful sites on the Internet, including sites of other government agencies and sites relating to Minnesota. 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.