Please Note:

All information collected or maintained by Harris County is subject to the Texas Public Information Act (chapter 552, Texas Government code). This policy describes the information used to support the Harris County Cloud Identity platform and sites using the Harris County Cloud Identity Platform for user accounts.

This policy describes the information used to support the Harris County Cloud Identity platform and sites using the Harris County Cloud Identity Platform for user accounts.

Information we gather:

In order to provide a better and more personal experience, we must collect some information about you.

• Usage Information: We collect information on how you use the site, such as when visits are made, which pages are visited. Data collected in this manner is anonymized, aggregated, and analyzed in bulk except as it pertains to the security of your account.
• Device information: We collect information about the devices you use to access the site in order to ensure we are able to provide a site that meets the needs of our visitors. This includes information related to the type of device used, screen size, operating system, software version, etc. Cookie data may be stored or retrieved from the device as referred to in the section on cookies below.
• Information you provide: We collect information that you provide in order to deliver custom experiences and communicate with you. Contact information such as email or phone numbers may be used to contact you with notifications about your account or to send communications which you’ve opted into such as alerts. You may choose to provide additional information in order to achieve a better or more personalized experience. This can include things such as providing an address to match data we have nearby (e.g., nearby rain gauges) or linking multiple social media accounts to your Harris County Identity to provide additional authentication options.
• Contacting us: When you send us personally identifying information, (e.g., in an email containing a question or comment), or by filling out a form that sends us this information, Harris County will use this information to respond to your request. We may also forward the information you submit (including your E-mail address) to other Government employees, who are better able to answer your questions.

We want to make it clear that we will not obtain personally identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, or as otherwise required by law, we do not share any information we receive with any outside parties.

How do we use the information?

The information provided above is used to provide a better site experience for you and other visitors.

• Usage information helps inform product direction and troubleshooting
• Contact information helps us provide communications about your account and opt-in notifications for the sites you connect to your account. We may send periodic product information.
• Location information helps us provide more relevant information to you. If you provide an address we may use this to show relevant things in that area. Likewise if you choose to share geolocation data with your browser.
• Security: We may use data to verify your account activity, provide account binding services, investigate suspicious activities or anomalies, and otherwise ensure the integrity of our sites and data.
• Sharing with third parties:
  • We do not share your information with third parties for advertising purposes.
  • Information may be provided to vendors or service providers who provide infrastructure we use to operate the site.
  • We may share data to support authorized law enforcement investigations or other requirements by law.

Removing your information:

Information that you provide as part of your account may be removed by deleting your account. You may choose to do this at one of two levels:

• Individual sites: You may remove your information for individual sites that utilize the Harris County Identity platform, such as the Flood Warning System, on the individual site’s account profile manager. This will remove information collected by that specific site, while allowing other sites to continue to provide service to you unimpeded.
• Harris County Identity: You may remove all of your information from your Harris County Identity by visiting the account deletion page. This will remove not only the information you’ve provided to the identity platform, but will also cascade to every site you’ve used that identity on, ensuring all of your information is removed from the systems.

Links to other sites:

The documents posted on this Website may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. Harris County does not control or guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information from a non-Harris County sites.

Cautionary Note:

This privacy policy only applies to the Harris County Cloud Identity site and sites using the platform. Sites utilizing Harris County Cloud Identity for logins may extend this privacy policy with additional information if they differ in any information handling details, otherwise they will direct to this policy.

When you follow a link to another site, even the sites of state agencies, local governments, and local Harris County officials, this policy will not apply. You should check the privacy policy of each of these sites if you have concerns about how they handle personally identifiable information. The inclusion of links or pointers to Web sites is not intended to assign importance to those sites or the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse or recommend any views expressed, or products or services offered on these sites.

Security:

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, Harris County web servers employ industry-standard methods to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on Harris County servers are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

Cookies and Harris County:

What is a Cookie?
A cookie is a small piece of information that is sent to your browser-- along with a Web page-- when you access a Web site. There are two kinds of cookies. A session cookie is a line of text that is stored temporarily in your computer's RAM. Because a session cookie is never written to a drive, it is destroyed as soon as you close your browser. A persistent cookie is a more permanent line of text that gets saved by your browser to a file on your hard drive. Depending on your browser settings, you may receive notification that a given site is requesting cookie information, possibly with an expiration date. Persistent cookies have an expiration date in the future. Session cookies have no date associated with them.
Harris County’s Use of Cookies:
The site will create a session cookie whenever you access Harris County. The session cookie is destroyed as soon as you close your browser. Harris County does not create persistent cookies.
County Seal:
It is a violation of the law to use the Harris County Seal in an unauthorized manner. It is strictly prohibited for anyone to use the Harris County Seal or any other official logo on the Harris County web site to imply an official endorsement, recommendation, partnership or other relationship with Harris County without the express written consent of Harris County.