Privacy Policy

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The City of Walnut Creek recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy of the users of this website. This website is not used to collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to a user's request or input, or to complete an online transaction. The City of Walnut Creek does not create individual profiles with the information provided by users of this site, nor does it give or sell such personal information to third parties or private organizations, except if required to do so under the California Civil Discovery Act of 1986 and the California Public Records Act. The City does not track information about individuals and their visits. If a user chooses to use the City of Walnut Creek website’s electronic-government capabilities to conduct business with the City, the information collected will only be that which is necessary to provide the information or services the user requests, just as a person might provide such information when visiting City Hall or another City of Walnut Creek office in person. The information collected is subject to the same controls and uses as that collected by City of Walnut Creek offices visited in person. You do not have to provide personal information to visit the City of Walnut Creek website or download information from the site.

The City only tracks statistical information about overall usage of the website. 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. Examples of the types of technical information our reporting software may collect include:

The Internet domain of the Internet access provider and the IP address of the computer used to access the City's website
The country from which you access the City’s website, if it can be determined from your Internet domain
The type of browser and operating system used to access the City's website
The date and time of the visit
The pages visited
If you linked to the City's website from another website, the address of that website

Information submitted to the City of Walnut Creek website 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 Walnut Creek 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 Walnut Creek or as otherwise provided by law. Except in the case of authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are or will be made to identify individual users or their usage habits schedules and network operational procedures. For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, the City of Walnut Creek employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information or otherwise cause damage. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with the City’s records retention policy.

The City of Walnut Creek and its website provider do not collect information for commercial marketing from its website. The City of Walnut Creek will not send you unsolicited email regarding any commercial offers or advertisements at any time, nor will it give or sell such information to third parties or private organizations. If a user chooses to provide the City of Walnut Creek with personal information, such as sending an email to a City of Walnut Creek employee or by filling out and submitting an online form located on the City of Walnut Creek website, the City of Walnut Creek may use that information to respond to the user's message and to assist in obtaining information the user may have requested. If applicable, we may redirect your message to another government agency or person who is in a better position to answer your question. The City of Walnut Creek treats emails and submitted online forms the same way it treats letters to a Councilmember or a City department.

If You Send Us Personal Information

If a user chooses to join one or more of the City of Walnut Creek’s public notice mailing lists, the City of Walnut Creek and/or GovDelivery will maintain the user’s email address in its mailing list database in order to send messages related to the mailing list topic. The email address information will not be used to send unsolicited email, as discussed above. In order to provide electronic-government capabilities, the name, account number (if applicable), payment information (if applicable) and address that the user might provide when using this website may be collected, processed and disclosed to complete an online transaction for such activities as billing, permits, licenses and other business-related purposes.

For more information about see GovDelivery’s participant privacy policy. Security measures used by the City of Walnut Creek website to protect certain private information are discussed in the “Encryption and Security” section, below.

Cookies

When you visit the City of Walnut Creek website, our web server generates a piece of information known as a cookie. These cookies collect the information described above. The purpose of cookies is to analyze web traffic in order to make the website more useful. The use of cookies or similar technology is an industry standard, and many major websites use them to provide useful features for their users. Cookies do not collect any personal information at any time and they are optional. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies; however, you can refuse to accept cookies by changing the security settings in your browser. Doing so may affect your ability to take full advantage of the City of Walnut Creek website.

Minor's Privacy Policy

Consent of a parent or legal guardian will be obtained before collecting, using or disclosing personal information about a child. Information that could be collected from or for a minor includes, but is not necessarily limited to: name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, school, hobbies and any question or comment submitted. Upon verification of the identity of the child’s parent or legal guardian, the requesting parent or legal guardian will be able to review the personal information collected from their child.

A parent or legal guardian 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.

Encryption and Security

All form data submitted through the City of Walnut Creek website is secured with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. This powerful 128-bit encryption ensures that form information is protected and sent safely. You can tell when you are on an encrypted page because the Web address in your browser will start with "https://" which includes an "s."

Unless a particular web page on the City of Walnut Creek website indicates that encryption technology is being used, the user should not assume that information uploaded through that web page to the City of Walnut Creek web server will be treated as confidential. If a user submits information to the City of Walnut Creek server through a web page containing visible indicators of active encryption technology, the City of Walnut Creek 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.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on the City of Walnut Creek website are strictly prohibited and may be punishable as provided by law.