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Privacy Policy

Thank you for visiting the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) website and reviewing our privacy policy. Our privacy policy is clear: NIMH will collect no personal information about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us.

The following explains how we handle information about your visit to our site:

If You Just Browse or Download Information

If your visit to our site consists only of browsing, reading pages, or downloading information, then we will automatically gather and store just the following generic information (information that does not identify you personally) about your visit:

  1. The domain name of your Internet service provider (ISP): for example, “youragency.gov” if you connect from a government domain, “yourschool.edu” if you connect from an education domain, or “xcompany.com” if you connect from a private ISP.
  2. An Internet Protocol (IP) address. An IP address is a number that your ISP assigns to your computer. Your ISP may use a static addressing system (each time you connect to the Internet, your computer has the same address) or dynamic addressing system (each time you connect to the Internet, your computer may have a different address).
  3. The type of browser you use to access our site (for example, Internet Explorer 6.0, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1, or Safari 1.3).
  4. The operating system you are using (for example, Windows XP, Linux, or Macintosh OS X).
  5. The resolution of your monitor and your system’s color depth.
  6. The size of your browser window.
  7. Adobe Flash support and version.
  8. Java support and version.
  9. JavaScript support and version.
  10. The date and time you access our site.
  11. The pages you visit and the length of time you spend on them.
  12. The terms that you enter into our search engine.
  13. If you linked to our site from another website, the address of that referring site.

This information helps us improve our site and tells us the number of visitors to it and the types of technology they use.

If You Send Us Personal Information

If you choose to provide us with personal information through an e-mail, form, or publication order, we store the question and the e-mail address so that we can respond electronically. NIMH does not disclose, give, sell, or transfer any personal information about our visitors, unless required for law enforcement or by statute. We permit third-party contractors access to your personal information only when we use them for the initial sorting of e-mails, forms, or publication orders. We require these contractors to handle your personal information in accordance with the NIH Privacy Protecting Guidance.

Cookies

When you visit the NIMH website, it will attempt to set “session cookies” on your browser. A browser session begins when you open your browser and ends when you close it. A cookie is a text file that a website transfers to your browser in order to “remember” specific information about your visit or visits. Unlike persistent cookies, session cookies do not remain on your computer after you close your browser. Thus, closing your browser will delete NIMH session cookies.

NIMH does not employ cookies to collect personal information about you, but only about your browser session. The cookies make it easier for you to use the dynamic features of certain pages.

To protect your privacy, be sure to close your browser completely after you have finished conducting business with a website that uses cookies. If you are concerned about the potential use of information that cookies gather from your computer, you can set your browser to ask for your permission before it accepts a cookie. Most browsers have settings that let you identify and/or reject cookies.

Questions about NIMH Privacy Policies

You should send questions about NIMH privacy policies to the NIMH Privacy Coordinator.