Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs - Building Homes and Strengthening Communities

Privacy & Security Policy Notice - September 1, 2001

This is the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) Web site. The following is the privacy policy for this site (all pages at URLs containing tdhca.state.tx.us/):

1. We do not use cookies to collect information. However, some of the pages of this Web site do use session variables to facilitate functionality. 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.

2. If you send us an electronic mail message with a question or comment that contains personally identifying information, or fill out a form that emails us this information, we will only use the personally-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.

3. If you send us information or information is collected by us on a form that is filed in an electronic format, you may request to be informed about the information collected, receive and review the information at a minimal charge pursuant to the Public Information Act, and have any incorrect information corrected at no charge. To correct incorrect information, you must notify us by electronic mail at webmaster@tdhca.state.tx.us and provide the following information: (1) Title and/or form number (if applicable) of the document that contains the incorrect information; (2) Section, provision, page number or exhibit number of the document that contains the incorrect information; (3) Description of the incorrect information; and (4) Correct information that should be used.

4. For site management functions, information is collected for analysis and statistical purposes. This information is not reported or used in any manner that would reveal personally 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.

We use Log analysis tools 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. 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, "referrer" - The referrer 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.

Questions about this policy should be sent to the webmaster at webmaster@tdhca.state.tx.us