PRIVACY POLICY

Thank you for visiting the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) website. Our privacy policy is simple: We do not collect any personal identifiable information (PII) without your explicit consent.

Here is how we handle your information when you visit our website:

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

When you browse through the CSOSA website, read pages, or download information, we may gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. We may use technologies to gauge your browsing habits or web surfing history to improve the information presented to you.

The information we store does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

  • The Internet domain and IP address from which you access our website. For example, if you access our website from school, we see “schoolname.edu” and the school’s IP address;
  • The type of browser and operating system used to access our site;
  • The date and time you access our site;
  • The pages you visit; and
  • If you linked to our website from another website, the address of that website.

We use this information to help us make our site more useful, to learn about the number of visitors to our site, the types of technology our visitors are using to visit our website, and to present relevant information to you based on your website browsing.

We do not track your web activities beyond your browsing our website. We do not cross reference your browsing habits with other entities, and we do not sell or give away your information to other entities.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

COPPA applies to the online collection of personal information from children under age 13. CSOSA complies with COPPA and does not knowingly collect personal information about children.

Cookies

When you visit some websites, their web servers generate pieces of information known as cookies. Some cookies collect personal information to recognize your computer in the future.

Cookies are small files that web servers place on a user’s hard drive that helps a website or service. There are two types of cookies:

Session cookies, also known as transient or per session cookies, serve technical purposes, like providing seamless navigation through CSOSA.gov. They are stored in temporary memory and are only available during an active browser session. Once you close your browser, the cookie disappears.

Persistent cookies, also known as permanent or stored cookies, are used to collect identifying information about the user, such as user name, web surfing behavior or user preference for a specific website. These cookies operate until they expire or a user deletes them.

CSOSA may use both types of cookies to improve our on-line services to you.

You can disable cookies by adjusting the setting on your web browser.

You Send Us Personal Information

If you choose to provide us with personal information, as in an e-mail to the Director or other CSOSA staff or by filling out a form and submitting it to us through our website, we use that information to respond to your message. This also helps us to locate the information you have requested. We treat e-mails the same way that we handle paper-based correspondence sent to CSOSA. We are required to maintain many documents under the Federal Record Act for historical purposes, but we do not collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to you. We only share the information you give us with another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency or as otherwise required by law. Moreover, we do not create individual profiles with the information you provide, nor will the information you provide be shared with any private organizations. CSOSA does not collect information for commercial marketing.

When We Link You To Another Website

Our website has links to several other federal agencies and other organizations. Once you access another site through a link that we provide, you are subject to the Privacy Policy of the other organization’s site. Links on our website to other, external websites do not constitute CSOSA’s endorsement of that website or its content.

Website Security

Information presented on our website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.

For security purposes and to make sure this service remains available to all users, we use special software programs for monitoring network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise to cause damage to this government computer system. These programs collect no information that would directly identify individuals, but they do collect information that could help us identify someone attempting to tamper with this website.

If you use this system, you should understand that all activities may be monitored and recorded. Anyone using this system expressly consents to such monitoring. If such monitoring reveals possible evidence of criminal activity, monitoring records may be provided to law enforcement officials.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, we make no other attempts to identify individual users or their usage habits. We only use raw monitoring data logs for determining trends in usage patterns and in diagnosing system problems.

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy

CSOSA is committed to maintaining the security of our systems and protecting sensitive information from unauthorized disclosure. For more information, see our Vulnerability Disclosure Policy.

Social Media

CSOSA uses third-party services such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to communicate and interact with the public. You may encounter these services as separate websites or as applications embedded within one of our webpages. These services are controlled and operated by third parties, and are not government websites or applications. By interacting with CSOSA through these third-party services, you may be providing non-government third parties access to your personal information which can be used to distinguish or trace your identity. Any information collected by a third-party service is subject to the privacy policies of the third-party service provider. These third-party services may, for example, use persistent (multi-session) cookies.

Generally, CSOSA does not collect, disseminate, or maintain any personally identifiable information about you maintained by third party sites. However, you should be aware that we may read, review, or rely upon information that you make publicly available, as authorized or required by law.

Please note that these third-party services supplement CSOSA’s traditional communication and outreach efforts. Should you have concerns about communicating with us via these channels, please use traditional channels to contact us.

Agency Privacy Policy

CSOSA’s Privacy Policy (Policy Statement 1113), effective April 15, 2021.

Privacy Rules and Regulations

For more information see:  Privacy Act rules promulgated pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552a(f).

Also see:  eCFR :: 28 CFR Part 802 — Disclosure of Records

Senior Agency Official for Privacy

Shelia Stokes
Senior Agency Official for Privacy (SAOP)
Office of the General Counsel
Office: (202) 220-5797
sheila.stokes@csosa.gov

Consent Forms

Individuals seeking access to records protected under the Privacy Act should use the Consent Forms located under the FOIA section of this website.

Questions

Individuals who wish to submit a privacy-related question or complaint should contact:  GeneralCounselHelp@csosa.gov.

If you have any comments or questions about the information presented here, please forward your concerns through Contact Us.