Internet Privacy Policy for the Official Fort Bend County Website

Welcome

Thank you for visiting the Fort Bend County website. This website is designed to provide easier and more efficient navigation for Fort Bend County citizens and businesses to interact with their local government.

Like all online resources, Fort Bend County recognizes that visitors to this website are concerned about their privacy. The County is committed to preserving your privacy when visiting this website.

This policy describes Fort Bend County's privacy practices regarding information collected from visitors to this website. This policy describes the data collected and how that information is used. Fort Bend County has adopted this privacy statement in order to demonstrate the County’s firm commitment to the privacy of those who visit this website. This policy is intended to explain the County’s current Internet privacy practices but shall not be construed as a contractual promise. Fort Bend County reserves the right to amend this Internet Privacy Policy at any time without notice.

Because this privacy policy applies only to the official Fort Bend County website, you may wish to examine the privacy policy of any website you visit, including other websites you access through this website.

The information contained in this policy should not be construed in any way as giving business, legal, or other advice, or warranting as fail proof the security of information provided via this website.

The County's Commitment to Security

The County's website has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information we control. The County utilizes layered security to enhance system security protection. The multi-layered approach to security separates the County's internal information from externally-accessible information. The County website also incorporates a method to encrypt personal information, when entered.

Fort Bend County limits employee access to personally identifiable information from this website to only those employees who need access to perform a specific job. Security measures have been integrated into the design, implementation, and day-to-day operations of this website as part of the County’s continuing commitment to the security of electronic content as well as the electronic transmission of information.
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 the County attempt to identify individual users or their usage habits.

Some of the services Fort Bend County provides require personal information (e.g., name, postal and e-mail addresses, phone & fax numbers, content and attachments of emails, etc.) be sent to us via the County’s website. This information is gathered when users enter the information manually. The information you enter may be used to respond to you, to address the issues you have identified, to further improve the website, or to forward your email to another agency for appropriate action. Your personal information is not collected, sold or distributed for commercial or marketing purposes.

Fort Bend County does not surreptitiously retrieve sensitive data from website users. The County will not use or share the information collected on this website in ways unrelated to the purpose for which you provided the information.

If you link to third-party websites from the County’s website, please verify the third-party’s privacy policy when requested to enter personal information (e.g, credit card information for payments).

The County does not knowingly collect or maintain any personal information from children through this website. The collection of personal information provided by any individual in an email or online form will be treated as if the information was entered by an adult, and if not protected by federal or state law, be subject to public access. The County encourages parents and teachers to be involved in children’s Internet activities and guide the children whenever they are asked to provide personal information online.

Computer Tracking & Cookies

The County’s website is not set up to track, collect or distribute personal information not entered by visitors. If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the Fort Bend County website or download information, the County will automatically gather and store certain information about your visit. Your web browser software automatically transmits most of this information to us; however, this information does not identify you personally. The information gathered includes:

• The numeric IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access the Fort Bend County website;
• The type of browser, browser version and operating system used to access this website;
• The date and time of the user’s request to access this website;
• The duration of the visit to this website;
• The web page from which the user accessed this website;
• The exact request the user made, including search phrases used;
• The pages visited, graphics loaded from each page and documents downloaded, such as PDF (Portable Document Format) files and word processing documents, including the content length.

This information is used for statistical analysis by the County’s technical support staff to improve this website’s content and navigation, and to provide better services to the public. The information gathered may also be provided to other organizations or agencies, but only as generic demographic data, and would not reveal any personally identifiable information.

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. The County website uses cookies in rare circumstances and only when necessary to complete a transaction. These cookies do not generate personal data, do not read personal data from your machine, and are never tied to anything that could be used to identify you.

Disclosure of Information Collected Through This Website

When you access the Fort Bend County website, the information listed in the Computer Tracking & Cookies section is automatically collected. No other information is collected through the County website unless you submit such information (see the Personal Information the County May Collect Online section above).

Information collected through this website, personal or otherwise, may, if not protected by local, state or federal law, be subject to disclosure pursuant to law, such as the State of Texas Public Information Act. By law, any information that falls within the boundaries of the State of Texas Public Information Act can be provided to anyone who requests it.

Fort Bend County may release information to proper authorities where release is required by law (such as a subpoena, the Texas Public Information Act, warrant or court order). Fort Bend County reserves the right to disclose information to local, state or federal law enforcement authorities to report any activities that the County, in good faith, believe to be unlawful. The County may disclose certain personally identifiable information when the County believes that such release is necessary to enforce or apply the County’s terms and/or conditions, to enforce the County’s rights against unauthorized access or attempted unauthorized access to Fort Bend County’s information, or to protect the rights, property and safety of others.

Public Information

Notwithstanding the above, information held by Fort Bend County is presumptively public information under the Texas Public Information Act, except to the extent that such information is specifically exempted from public disclosure under the law. Interpretation and enforcement of this law is entrusted to the Texas Attorney General and the Courts of the State of Texas. It is therefore possible that certain information accumulated as a result of online usage could be deemed public, and the County could be ordered to release such information to others, irrespective of the policies, preferences or intentions of Fort Bend County. Users who are concerned about this contingency may learn more about the Texas Public Information Act at the Attorney General's website at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov.

Contact Information

For questions regarding this Internet Privacy Policy please contact us at: webmaster@fortbendcountytx.gov