Terms Of Use/Privacy Policy

Harris County maintains this web site as a public service to provide available service and information to our constituents. The purpose of this policy is to explain how Harris County handles information collected from you during your visit to the County web site. It is important to keep in mind that Harris County does not collect personally identifiable Information (name, address, e-mail address, social security number, or other unique identifiers) on our web site unless we specifically advise you that we are doing so.

Please Note: All information collected or maintained by Harris County and/or its agencies is subject to the Texas Public Information act (chapter 552, Texas Government Code)

How we handle the information we gather when you visit our web site

We collect and store only the following information about you: the name of the domain from which you access the Internet (i.e., erols.com, if you are connecting from an Erols account, or harvard.edu if you are connecting from Harvard University's domain); the date and time you access our site; the item you requested from the server; and the Internet address of the web site from which you linked directly to our site. If your browser accepts cookies we may use a cookie to determine if you are a repeat or new visitor, or to understand how many different visitors come to our sites. When we examine this data, it is always presented in an aggregate form. Except as outlined in the Security section at the bottom of this document, we do not track or look at individuals' usage behavior.

If you identify yourself by sending an E-mail:

When you send us personally identifying information, (e.g., in an electronic mail message containing a question or comment), or by filling out a form that E-mails us this information, Harris County will use this information to respond to your request. We may also forward the information you submit (including your E-mail address) to other Government employees, who are better able to answer your questions.

We want to make it clear that we will not obtain personally identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, or as otherwise required by law, we do not share any information we receive with any outside parties.

Links to other sites:

The documents posted on this Website may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. Harris County does not control or guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information from non-Harris County sites.

Cautionary Note: The Harris County privacy policy only applies to this web site. When you follow a link to another site, even the sites of state agencies, local governments, and local Harris County officials, this policy will not apply. You should check the privacy policy of each of these sites if you have concerns about how they handle personally identifiable information.

The inclusion of links or pointers to Web sites is not intended to assign importance to those sites or the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse or recommend any views expressed, or products or services offered on these sites.

Personalization:

Some Harris County sites allow you to personalize them, either by selecting sets of content to place on a web page or by clicking on an icon indicating a desire for a certain kind of content. In some cases, you are asked to "register" in order to get this personalized content. If you provide personally identifying information when registering for personalized content, that information is used to deliver the content to you. The information is not shared with third parties.

Security:

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, Harris County servers employ industry-standard methods to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on Harris County servers are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

In the specific context of this security monitoring, there is no expectation of privacy. However, only in the case of actual law enforcement investigations, will we attempt to identify individual users or their usage habits.

Cookies and Harris County

What is a Cookie?

A cookie is a small piece of information that is sent to your browser-- along with a Web page-- when you access a Web site. There are two kinds of cookies. A session cookie is a line of text that is stored temporarily in your computer's RAM. Because a session cookie is never written to a drive, it is destroyed as soon as you close your browser. A persistent cookie is a more permanent line of text that gets saved by your browser to a file on your hard drive. Depending on your browser settings, you may receive notification that a given site is requesting cookie information, possibly with an expiration date. Persistent cookies have an expiration date in the future. Session cookies have no date associated with them.

Harris County’s Use of Cookies

The site will create a session cookie whenever you access Harris County. The session cookie is destroyed as soon as you close your browser. Harris County does not create persistent cookies.

County Seal

It is a violation of the law to use the Harris County Seal in an unauthorized manner. It is strictly prohibited for anyone to use the Harris County Seal or any other official logo on the Harris County web site to imply an official endorsement, recommendation, partnership or other relationship with Harris County without the express written consent of Harris County.