The Texas Division of Emergency Management (“we”, “our”, “us”) maintains this website as a public service. This Website Privacy Notice (“Notice”) describes our privacy and security practices with respect to information collected from visitors to our main website (https://tdem.texas.gov/) and any other websites that we own or control that link to this Notice (collectively, our “Sites”).
Notice about the Texas Public Information Act
Since we are a public institution, the information we collect from our Sites may be subject to public disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act (Chapter 552 of the Texas Government Code). With few exceptions, you have the right to be informed about the information that our Sites collect about you. You also have the right to receive and review that information and to have us correct information about you that is incorrect.
You may request to receive and review your information by utilizing the procedures outlined on our webpage. In the event that any of your information is incorrect, you may request that we correct such information by contacting us at [email protected].
Personal Information Collection and Use
We collect personally identifiable information (such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses) of users who communicate with us via email, fill out a web-based form on our Sites, leave comments on our Sites, or otherwise participate in surveys or other activities on our Sites.
We only use your personal information for the particular purpose for which it was provided (for example, event registration), to respond to your inquiry, complete a transaction, or fulfill other forms of public service.
With few exceptions, we may not publicly disclose the e-mail addresses of members of the public that have been provided to electronically communicate with us unless the members of the public consent to the disclosure. In some cases, we may redirect your communications to another governmental agency or employee who is in a better position to assist you.
We share your personal information with third parties that we engage to process information on our behalf, including vendors who assist with our web hosting and web-based forms. We may also share your personal information with your consent; to comply with a legal process, subpoena, order or other legal or regulatory requirement; enforce our policies or terms and conditions; protect our operations, employees or users; pursue available legal remedies or defend against legal claims; or in the event of a reorganization, merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
We use cookies and other technologies to better understand the behavior of visitors to our Sites and the usage of our Sites and to help us remember you and your preferences when you visit our Sites.
Cookies. A cookie is a record containing unique information that a website can use to track passwords, lists of pages visited, and the date when a specific page was accessed, or to identify a user session at a particular website. General information about cookies and how they work is available at www.allaboutcookies.org.
We use various types of cookies, including:
You can change your cookie settings at any time by reviewing your internet browser’s cookie options. Typically, such information can be found under the ‘Help,’ ‘Preferences’ or ‘Options’ menus on your browser. Should you choose to decline or block cookies by adjusting your browser settings, all or parts of our Sites may not be functional or accessible to you. Our Sites will issue cookies as soon you visit them unless your browser cookie settings are adjusted to decline or block them.
Logs and Network Monitoring. We use server logs and log analysis tools to create summary statistics about usage of our Sites in order to improve site management, assess the information that is of most interest to users, determine technical design specifications, and identify system performance or problem areas. We collect the following information for this analysis:
Third Party Cookies. We allow selected third parties, such as Google, to place cookies or other technologies on our Sites to provide us with better insights into the use of our Sites and user demographics and. These third parties may automatically collect information about your visits to our Sites, your IP address, your Internet service provider, the browser you use to visit our Sites, pages viewed, time spent on pages, links clicked, and other conversion information. To manage settings for Google’s advertising cookies and to opt-out of certain features, you should refer to Google’s Ad Settings website. You can learn more about Google’s use of cookies and other technologies by referring to their privacy policy.
Links to Third-Party Sites
Our Sites may contain links to external third-party websites, content, products, or services (“Third Party Sites”). Those Third Party Sites are not under our control, and we are not responsible for the privacy and security practices of their operators. You should refer to the privacy policies of those Third Party Sites to learn about their privacy and security practices.
Information Security
We take the security of our Sites and your information seriously. Our security rules and standards can be found at our webpage.
Children’s Privacy
Our Sites are not designed or intended for use by children under the age of 13. If we learn that we have collected information of a child under the age of 13, we will take steps to delete that information as soon as possible.
Retention
We retain your information in accordance with applicable law and for as long as needed to fulfill the particular purpose for which your information was provided. We may also retain your information if needed to comply with our legal obligations, pursue a legal action, detect or monitor fraud, or for the performance of a task in the public interest. We may delete your information upon your request if we are not required to retain it by law or for other legitimate purposes.
Changes to this Notice
We reserve the right to change this Notice at any time. Your continued use of our Sites after any change to this Notice will constitute your acceptance of such change.
Questions
If you have questions about this Notice or our privacy and security practices, please contact us at [email protected].
Internet-Based Advertisements
Some of our Sites engage in online interest-based advertising to enhance your experience and show you advertisements that might interest you. Like many organizations, we and our advertising partners display tailored interest-based advertising using information you make available to us when you interact with our Sites. Interest-based ads, also sometimes referred to as personalized or targeted ads, are displayed to you based on information from activities such as searching on our Sites or visiting websites that contain our content or ads. We do this using a variety of digital marketing networks and ad exchanges, and we use a range of advertising technologies like web beacons, pixels, ad tags, cookies, and mobile identifiers.