Privacy Policy

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 be used to violate individual privacy, nor to further a commercial enterprise, nor to disrupt the duly-undertaken work of any public body independent of the fulfillment of any rights of the people to access information.

The purpose of the Illinois Department of Public Health Information (IDPH) information services privacy policy is to clearly communicate the agency's privacy expectations to users of the IDPH Web site. Users should have the expectation of complete privacy, except in the case of suspected wrongdoing.

Information collected and received through the IDPH Web site may become public record and therefore subject to disclosure under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. It is, therefore, the policy of IDPH that no personal information provided to the agency, including, but not limited to, name, address, telephone number, drivers license number, Social Security number and E-mail address, will be sold or rented to any entity or individual or disclosed to an unauthorized entity or individual. The release of personal information by the departments under the control of the governor are limited, according to Illinois law, to state government agencies and/or to authorized department contractors or grantees. 

Electronic files created, sent, received, or stored on computers owned, leased, administered, or otherwise under the custody and control of IDPH are the property of IDPH.

"Personal information" about an individual is that which readily identifies a specific individual. Personal information includes identifiers such as an individual's name, address, phone number, drivers license number and Social Security number. A domain name or Internet protocol address is not considered personal information. 

IDPH collects no personal information unless the user voluntarily participates in an activity that asks for such (e.g., sending an E-mail or participating in a survey). If the user chooses not to participate in these activities, the choice will in no way affect the ability to use any other feature of state of Illinois Web sites. If personal information is requested on the Web site or is volunteered by the user, state law and the federal Privacy Act of 1974 may protect it. However, this information is a public record once it is provided to IDPH, and may be subject to public inspection and copying if not protected by federal or state law. 

The state of Illinois is committed to complying fully with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Accordingly, if the user is younger than 13 years of age, he/she is not authorized to provide IDPH with personal identifying information, and IDPH will not use any such information in any database or other data collection activities. Cooperation with this federally mandated requirement is appreciated by IDPH. 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.

The following statement applies only to members of the general public and is intended to address concerns about the types of information gathered from the public, if any, and how that information is used.

A "cookie" is a small file containing information that is placed on a user's computer by a Web server. Typically, these files are used to enhance the user's experience of the site, to help users move between pages in a database, or to customize information for a user.

Several IDPH Web pages are set up to use "cookies" to enhance a user's experience with the agency's site. Cookies are text files placed on a user's computer to store preferences and session information only. By themselves, they do not reveal E-mail addresses or other personally identifiable information unless the user chooses to provide this information.

IDPH maintains log files of all access to its site and also monitors network traffic for the purposes of site management. This information is used to help diagnose problems with the server and to carry out other administrative tasks. Log analysis tools are also used to create summary statistics to determine which information is of most interest to users, to identify system problem areas, or to help determine technical requirements.

Information such as the following is collected in these files:

• Date and time: date and time user accesses the site
• Client IP address: IP address client is coming from
• User name: name of the user who accesses the Web site
• Service name: Internet service that was running on the client computer
• Server IP: IP of the server where the log file was generated
• Server name: name of the server where the log file was generated
• Hostname: hostname and/or IP address of the computer requesting access to the site
• User-Agent: type of browser, its version, and the operating system of the computer requesting access (e.g., Netscape 4 for Windows, IE 4 for Macintosh, etc.)
• Referrer: Web page the user came from 
• System date: date and time on the server at the time of access
• Full request: exact request the user made
• Status: status code the server returned, e.g., fulfilled request, file not found
• Content length: size, in bytes, of the file sent to the user
• Method: request method used by the browser (e.g., post, get)
• Universal Resource Identifier (URI): the location of the particular resource requested, e.g., Web page, CGI program or script
• Query string of the URI: anything after a question mark in a URI. For example, if a keyword search has been requested, the search word will appear in the query string. 
• HTTP status: status of the action, in HTTP terms
• WIN32 status: status of the action in NT terms
• Bytes sent: number of bytes sent by the server
• Bytes received: number of bytes received by the server
• Time taken: length of time the action took
• Protocol: technical protocol and version used, e.g., http 1.0, ftp, etc. 
• Cookie: content of the cookie sent and received, if any

The above information is not used in any way that would reveal personally identifiable information to outside parties unless IDPH is legally required to do so in connection with law enforcement investigations or other legal proceedings.

If a member of the general public sends IDPH an E-mail message or fills out a Web-based form with a question or comment that contains personal identifying information, that information will only be used to respond to the request and to analyze trends. The message may be redirected to another government agency or person who is better able to answer the question. Such information is not used in any way that would reveal personal identifying information to outside parties unless IDPH is legally required to do so in connection with law enforcement investigations or other legal proceedings.

This site may contain links to other sites. IDPH is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.

This site has security measures in place to protect from loss, misuse and alteration of the information.

If there are any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or dealings with this Web site, contact - DPH.MAILUS@illinois.gov