Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Privacy Notice
LEGAL NOTICES
Access to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity web site is provided subject to the following terms and conditions. Please read these terms carefully as use of these sites constitutes acceptance of all of the following terms and conditions:
PREAMBLE
Pursuant to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of government, it is declared to be the public policy of the State of Illinois that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those who represent them as public officials and public employees. Access to this information is not intended to violate individual privacy, or further a commercial enterprise, or disrupt the duly undertaken work of any public body independent of the fulfillment of any of rights of the people to access information.
PRIVACY NOTICE
Information collected and received through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) web site may become public record and therefore subject to disclosure under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. It is therefore the policy of the State of Illinois that no personal information you provide to us, including, but not limited to, your name, address, telephone number, drivers license number,
Social Security Number and email address will be sold or rented to any entity or individual or disclose to unauthorized entity or individual. The release of personal information by the departments under the control of the Governor shall be limited, according to Illinois law, to the State of Illinois government agencies and/or to authorized department contractors or grantees.
This Privacy Notice applies to the use of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity public web site, and any portals or Website subsidiaries of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity used in conducting business. It does not apply to information collected by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity in the course of exercising its legislative mandate through the filing of applications, forms and/or petitions, correspondence and e-mail directed to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity or any information subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
The information we receive from your visit to our web site(s) depends on the category of services you use and the information you reveal during your visit. Visit categories include general browsing, searching, on-line complaint and survey forms and use of “Business Portals”. No personal information is collected, stored or distributed as a result of your visit to our public web site or public non-authenticated use of “Business Portals”, or Website subsidiaries.
PERSONAL INFORMATION AND CHOICE
"Personal information" is information about an individual that is readily identifiable to that specific individual. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, personal identifiers such as an individual's name, address, phone number, driver’s license number and social security number. A domain name or Internet Protocol address is not considered personal information. We collect no personal information about you unless you voluntarily participate in an activity that asks for information (e.g., sending an e-mail or participating in a survey). If personal information is requested on the web site or volunteered by the user, State law and the federal Privacy Act of 1974 may protect it. However, this information is a public record once you provide it, and may be subject to public inspection and copying if not protected by federal or state law.
POLICIES FOR INDIVIDUALS UNDER 13 YEARS OF AGE
The State of Illinois is committed to complying fully with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (http://www.illinoisbiz.biz/kidz/kidz.aspx). Accordingly, if you are under the age of 13, you are not authorized to provide us with personally identifying information, and we will not use any such information in our database or other data collection activities. We appreciate your cooperation with this federally mandated requirement. Users are cautioned that the collection of personal information volunteered by children on-line or by e-mail will be treated the same as information given by an adult and may be subject to public access.
WEB LOGS
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity analyzes our web site logs to continually improve the value of the materials available on our site. Our web site logs are not personally identifiable.
INFORMATION RETAINED AND HOW IT IS USED FOR ANONYMOUS USERS
As you browse through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Web site as an anonymous users and look at, print, and download information, no personally identifying information will be revealed or recorded about you. Our web server logs collect and store only the following general information about your visit:
• The domain and name of the service provider from which you accessed our Web site. The domain indicates what type of service provider you are connecting from, e.g., a commercial carrier, governmental entity, or university. The name of the service provider tells us which provider you are using without disclosing any of your personal information.
• The date, time of the visit and the pages viewed identified only by the Internet address of your service provider, the Internet address of the Web site from which you linked directly to us and the type of browser used. No name, address, e-mail address or any personal information of any sort is collected.
• The type of web browser used (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc.). Web pages do not always display the same on every type or version of web browser and thus must be coded for appropriate access.
This information is used to prepare summary statistics on most frequently visited and least frequently visited pages to help us decide which content is the most useful to our visitors. This information is used solely to help us improve our online services by determining how often our Web site is visited and which areas of the site are visited most to gauge overall interest. Our office exclusively uses all information; none of the information we collect is disclosed to third parties except as may be required to fulfill a request made pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act.
CORRESPONDENCE
If while visiting DCEO’s website you participate in a survey or send e-mail, the following additional information will be collected:
• E-mail Correspondence: The e-mail address and contents of the e-mail. We may use your e-mail to respond appropriately. This may be to respond to you, to address issues you identify, to further improve our web site, or to forward the e-mail to another agency for appropriate action.
• Survey Responses: Currently survey responses are completely anonymous. No specific information is collected other than a Yes or No reply and any information you volunteer in the comments area. However, any information you volunteered in response to a survey is used for the purpose designated. The information collected is not limited to text characters and may include audio, video, and graphic information formats that you have provided.
ANONYMOUS SEARCHING
You must have per-session cookies enabled to utilize the search capabilities of our web site. Our web server software issues a temporary session cookie that is deleted when you close your browser. This cookie is necessary to keep track of your search criteria and which page of the search results you are viewing to enable navigation through the search results. No personal information of any sort is stored in the cookie and nothing is maintained on our web site about the cookie after you close the browser session.
See your browser documentation for directions on how to enable and disable cookies. Per-session cookies are used to store state information only within a session. These cookies are cached only while a user is visiting the Web server issuing the per-session cookies and are deleted from the cache when the user closes the session. No personal information is stored or collected by our web site through the use of per-session cookies. Per-session cookies are used by Active Server Pages (ASP) running on Microsoft Internet Information Server, or as per session cookies running as a “dotnet” application. These cookies store session information as the user navigates to multiple ASP pages in a site.
AUTHENTICATED APPLICATIONS
Authenticated Applications at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity do not allow anonymous users to enter information. Authenticated applications require an Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity provided user-id and password to enter information. Authenticated applications enable the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to collect electronic information in the course of exercising its legislative mandate through the filing of applications, forms and/or petitions, correspondence and e-mail directed to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity or any information subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.
ACCESS OF INFORMATION COLLECTED
No personally identifying information is collected unless you are specifically prompted for such information. Information submitted via survey forms or on-line complaints can not later be viewed or altered; however, information collected when authenticated to our system through an Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity provided user-id and password can be reviewed and corrected by logging back in and changing the information.
SECURITY OF INFORMATION COLLECTED
When you enter personally identifying information it is collected through a secure encrypted tunnel. Storage of this information is secured in system with a user-ids and password.
The Information Technology Management, as developer, and administrator of this web site, has taken several steps to safeguard the integrity of its communications and computing infrastructure, including but not limited to authentication, monitoring, auditing, and encryption. Security measures have been integrated into the design, implementation and day-to-day practices of the entire Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity operating environment as part of its continuing commitment to risk management.
DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY
Neither the DCEO nor any of its employees shall be held liable for any improper or incorrect use of the information described and/or contained herein and assumes no responsibility for anyone's use of the information. In no event shall the DCEO web site or its employees be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement or substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this system, even if advised of the possibility of such damage. This disclaimer of liability applies to any damages or injury, including but not limited to those caused by any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus,
communication line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, alteration of, or use of record, whether for breach of contract, tortuous behavior, negligence or under any other cause of action.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND ACCURACY OF DATA
Although the data found using the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity access systems have been produced and processed from sources believed to be reliable, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or usefulness of any information. This disclaimer applies to both isolated and aggregate uses of the information. The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity provides this information on an "as is" basis. All warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, freedom from contamination by computer viruses and non-infringement of proprietary rights are disclaimed. Changes may be periodically made to the information herein; these changes may or may not be incorporated in any new version of the publication. If you have obtained information from any of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s web pages from a source other than the DCEO pages, be aware that electronic data can be altered subsequent to original distribution. Data can also quickly become out of date. It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data associated with a file, and that the originator of the data or information be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, we encourage you to report them to the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity - CIM via e-mail.
DISCLAIMER OF ENDORSEMENT
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is a distributor of content sometimes supplied by third parties and users. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including information providers, users, or others, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and do not necessarily state or reflect those of the DCEO and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the DCEO.
DISCLAIMER OF EXTERNAL LINKS
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic web site contains links to other related World Wide Web Internet sites and resources. The DCEO is not responsible for the contents of any off-site pages referenced. The user specifically acknowledges that the DCEO is not liable for the defamatory, offensive, or illegal conduct of other users, links, or third parties and that the risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with the user. Links from the DCEO’s web pages on the World Wide Web to other sites do not constitute an endorsement from the DCEO. These links are provided as an information service only. It is the responsibility of the web surfer to evaluate the content and usefulness of information obtained from other sites. Since the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic web site is not responsible for the availability of these outside resources or their contents, you should direct any concerns regarding any external link to its site administrator or Webmaster.
DISCLAIMER OF DUTY TO CONTINUE PROVISION OF DATA
Due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, resources that are free and publicly available one day may require a fee or restricted access the next, and the location of items may change as menus, home pages, and files are reorganized. The user expressly agrees that use of the DCEO’s web site is at the user's sole risk. The DCEO does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error free. The documents and related graphics published on this server could contain technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically added to the information herein. The State and/or its respective agencies and programs may make improvements and/or changes in the information and/or programs described herein at any time.
CHOICE OF LAW
Construction of the disclaimers above and resolution of disputes thereof are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois. The laws of the State of Illinois, U.S.A., shall apply to all uses of this data and this system. By use of this system and any data contained therein, the user agrees that the laws of the State of Illinois shall apply; venue shall be vested in the courts of Illinois; use shall conform to all applicable laws and regulations of the state of Illinois; and user shall not violate the rights of any third parties.
This information 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 Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity supported web sites
This privacy notice applies to all Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity URLs.