Conditions of Use

Correspondence submitted to this office is a government record and may be subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act. Generally, complaints submitted to this office are exempt from disclosure under the Act.

USE OF INFORMATION

The information you provide is used by the Department of Justice to investigate or respond to your complaint or inquiry. You are encouraged NOT to send sensitive information, such as your Social Security Number or credit card numbers.

NOTICE

This website collects information about your browser type, browser version, operating system and IP address, which is technical information typically relayed by the visitor's browser and is never stored permanently. We also collect information on which documents you request and the number of pages you view at this site. This information is used only as anonymous aggregate user data to determine whether improvements can be made in our service. For instance, we may keep a total count on the number of people visiting a certain web page, but do not keep personal information on the identity of an individual visitor.

SECURITY

Any transmission you make on the Internet is not secure. Therefore, you should always be concerned about any personally identifiable information that you submit on the Internet.

Do not send sensitive information, such as credit card or Social Security numbers. If you consider it necessary to provide such sensitive information in connection with a complaint, please send the materials by regular mail only.

PERSONAL IDENTIFYING INFORMATION

We do not collect any personally identifiable information, except as needed to respond to your requests or the filing of a complaint. In such cases, we will ask for your name, street address, city, county, state, zip code, email address and may request your telephone number. In the case of mailing lists, we may ask for your email address. You are able to unsubscribe at any time from the mailing list.

Personally identifying information includes, but is not limited to your:

• Name
• Address
• Email Address
• Social Security Number
• Password
• Bank Account Number
• Credit Card Number
• Any combination of information that could identify you: birthdate, zip code, gender

CHOICE

We do not select and direct mailings to you unsolicited, nor require that you register for general access to our website. Except for what you submit to us, we do not collect any personally identifiable information. If you choose to sign up for one of our online automated notifications, your email address will be permanently stored and used only to send the requested information to you.

ACCESS

If you sign up for one of our online notifications and decide to unsubscribe, your email address will be deleted from our server. Since this site does not collect any personally identifying information other than what you voluntarily provide, we cannot identify or provide access to any information that is specific to you. If you have a concern about a complaint that you have submitted, please contact the Public Inquiry Unit.

COOKIES

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer, often without your knowledge, while visiting certain sites on the Internet used to identify your computer. For example, cookies are used by some sites to greet you personally, to post a list of your favorite books to purchase, to remember what you had in your shopping basket the last time you visited.

On this website, a temporary cookie may be placed on your computer for applications such as online complaint forms or court-appointed conservator registration forms which can be sent electronically. The session cookies are used to facilitate the interaction between you and the fields in the form. The cookies are not used to collect or store information on you and does not track you if you return to our website. The cookie is temporary and will be deleted when you exit your browser.

You can prevent cookies from being placed on your computer by accessing your browser's preferences menu and deleting existing cookies. There also are commercial programs available to help you manage cookies. Before taking such steps, you should be aware that some websites may not work properly if you choose to block the placement of cookies on your computer. You will need to decide whether enabling cookies outweigh privacy concerns.

NOTICE TO PARENTS AND CHILDREN

As a general note, we encourage parents and children to talk about protections of privacy on the Internet to avoid the release of personal information without a parent's permission. Safe and responsible use of personal information is important in protecting your privacy.

CHANGES

Any changes in this privacy policy will be posted at least 30 days prior to the change taking effect. Any information collected under this current policy will remain bound by the terms of this privacy policy. All new information collected, if any, would be subject to the revised privacy policy.

CONTACT

If you have questions about this policy or feel that we have acted in violation of this policy, please contact us or write:

California Department of Justice P.O. Box 944255 Sacramento, CA 94244-2550 (916) 445-9555