Privacy and Security Policy

Privacy Statement

As a public service, DFPS allows web site users to electronically submit to the Department certain forms and materials that may contain personal information. With a few exceptions, Texas privacy laws and the Public Information Act entitle persons who submit personal information to ask DFPS about the information collected on such forms, to receive and review their personal information, and to request that DFPS correct any inaccuracies in the personal information. DFPS' procedures for requesting corrections are in Title 1 of the Texas Administrative Code, sections 351.17 through 351.23.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) maintains this web site as a public service.

Privacy and Linking Policies for All DFPS Web Sites

Information presented on this site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. We do not collect personal information about you when you visit our web site unless you choose to provide that information to us. This site contains links to other sites. DFPS is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these web sites. Here is how we handle information about your visit to our web site:

We use cookies to collect information. The main purpose for their use is to identify user sessions. The cookie uniquely identifies returning visitors and tracks their path through our site. No personal information is stored, the only thing that is stored is the visitors IP address and the site address. Additional information that is collected for analysis is:

SERVICE NAME: The internet service that is running on the client computer.
SERVER PORT: The (software) port number that the client is connected to.
COOKIE: The content of the cookie sent or received.

Note: A cookie file contains unique information a web site can use to track such things as passwords, lists of pages you've visited, and the date when you last looked at a specific page or to identify your session at a particular web site. A cookie is often used in commercial sites to identify the items selected for a specific shopping cart application.

Information is collected for site management functions such as analysis and statistical purposes. The information is not reported or used in any manner that would reveal personal identifiable information, and will not be released to any outside parties unless legally required to do so in connection with law enforcement investigations or other legal proceedings.

Log analysis tools are used to create summary statistics, which are used for purposes such as assessing what information is of most interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas. We use this information to help us make our site more useful to visitors and learn about the number of visitors to our site, what part of the site they are interested in, how long they are on our website, and the types of technology our visitors use. For example, if you connect to our site using AOL, our system will know that someone using AOL connected to the site. However, your actual identity will not be known. We will not know any personal identifiable information about you, including your name or email address.

The following information is collected for this analysis:

User Client hostname - The hostname (or IP address if DNS is disabled) of the user/client requesting access.
HTTP header, "user-agent" - The user-agent information includes the type of browser, its version, and the operating system it's running on.
HTTP header, "referer" - The referer specifies the page from which the client accessed the current page.
System date - The date and time of the user/client request.
Full request - The exact request the user/client made.
Status - The status code the server returned to the user/client.
Content length - The content length, in bytes, of the document sent to the user/client.
Method - The request method used.
Universal Resource Identifier (URI) - The location of a resource on the server.
Query string of the URI - Anything after the question mark in a URI.
Protocol - The transport protocol and version used.

If you send us an electronic mail message with a question or comment that contains personal identifying information, or fill out a form that e-mails us this information, we will only use the personal-identifiable information to respond to your request and analyze trends. We may redirect your message to another government agency or person who is in a better position to answer your question.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Texas Penal Code Chapters 33 (Computer Crimes) or 33A (Telecommunications Crimes).