Purpose

The City of San Diego recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy of the users of this web site. The City of San Diego World Wide Web site is a fundamental communication tool for providing critical and informative City information and interactive services to its citizens and the world. The goal of the City of San Diego Web site is to encourage user participation in City government, to enable electronic service delivery to the public, and to help create a better San Diego.

Personal/Confidential Information

The City of San Diego does not use its Web site to collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to a user’s request or input, or to complete an online transaction.

Except as provided below, the City of San Diego does not create individual profiles with the information provided by users of this site, nor does it give such personal information to third parties or private organizations. The City does not track information about individuals and their visits. The information does not identify you personally. Web usage summary statistics are gathered for site management, and other purposes such as assessing what information is of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance issues. We automatically collect and store the following information about your visit:

1. The Internet domain (for example, “xcompany.com” if you use a private Internet access account, or “yourschool.edu” if you connect from a university’s domain) and IP address from which you access the City’s Web site;
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access the City’s Web site;
3. The date and time and duration of the visit;
4. The pages visited;
5. If you link to the City’s Web site from another Web site, the address of that Web site.

The City of San Diego does not collect information for commercial marketing from its Web site. The City of San Diego will not send you unsolicited email regarding any commercial offers or advertisements at any time.

If a user chooses to provide the City of San Diego with personal identifying information, such as sending an email to a City of San Diego employee or by filling out and submitting an online application/submission form (that may require submission of personal identifying information) located on the City of San Diego’s Web site, the City of San Diego may use that information to respond to the user’s message, to assist in obtaining information the user may have requested, or use the information in the manner contemplated by the online submission form. The City of San Diego treats emails and submitted online forms the same way it treats letters to a Councilmember or a City department. As further stated below, an online application/submission form containing personal identifying information will not be disclosed except as permitted by law.

In order to provide electronic commerce capabilities, the name, address and payment information (if applicable) that the user might provide when using this Web site may be collected, processed and disclosed to complete an online transaction and for record-keeping for such activities as billing, permits, licenses and other business-related purposes.

Cookies or other technology may transfer information from the City of San Diego’s Web site to your hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Cookies or similar technology can make the Internet more useful by storing information about your preferences on a particular site. The use of cookies or similar technology is an industry standard, and many major Web sites use them to provide useful features for their users. Cookies in and of themselves do not personally identify users, although they do identify a user’s computer. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. If you’d prefer, you can set yours to refuse cookies. However, you may not be able to take full advantage of the City of San Diego’s Web site if you do so.

Notwithstanding the above provisions of this section, information submitted to the City of San Diego’s Web site may be subject to disclosure to another party pursuant to various provisions of California law, including, but not limited to, the California Civil Discovery Act of 1986 and the California Public Records Act. The City of San Diego only shares such information with another government agency if the user’s inquiry relates to that agency, to protect the interests of others, to protect and defend the rights or property of the City of San Diego or as otherwise provided by law.

Minor’s Privacy Policy

Any information collected by any City of San Diego website from children 13 and under are subject to the same guidelines of the City’s general privacy policy. In addition, for any information collected by or for any child under 13, the following guidelines will be followed:

• Information that could be collected from or for a minor includes, but not necessarily limited to: name, address, telephone number, email address, school, hobbies and any question or comment submitted.
• Parental Consent. [Parent includes legal guardian.]
  • Parental consent will be obtained before collecting, using or disclosing personal information about a child.
  • In the event that the City changes its practices of collecting, using or disclosing any information in a substantive way, new parental consent will be obtained. An example of a change may include, what material is collected, how the information may be used, or third party access to that information.
  • Upon verification of a child’s parent’s identity, the requesting parent will be able to review the personal information collected from their child.
  • A parent will be allowed to revoke their consent and the City will delete information collected from or for their children on request. When consent is revoked, the website will stop collecting, using or disclosing information from or for that child. Revocation may end a child’s participation in an activity if the information collected was necessary for participation on the website.

Additional information can be obtained at the FTC’s Consumer Response Center and the Kidz Privacy websites.

Security

Unless a particular web page on the City of San Diego’s Web site indicates that encryption technology is being used, the user should not assume that information uploaded through that web page to the City of San Diego’s Web server will be treated as confidential. If a user submits information to the City of San Diego’s server through a web page containing visible indicators of active encryption technology, the City of San Diego will take all reasonable precautions to safeguard the confidentiality of such information, but shall nevertheless not be held liable for any injury caused by the disclosure of that information, whether caused by security breach, accident, inadvertence, or any other act resulting in disclosure.