Privacy Policy

January 10, 2007

MWCOG wants to assure you that it respects your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal information. That is why MWCOG collects only the information that is needed to serve you and administer our programs. MWCOG follows the principles outlined below. The effective date of this Policy is January 10, 2007.

1. Personally Identifiable Information

This Policy is intended to cover personally identifiable information (“PII”). PII includes information such as your first or last name, your home or e-mail address, and your telephone number. Generally, MWCOG only obtains your PII when you register for our meetings, publications, make a purchase from MWCOG online, or when you send comments to MWCOG through the use of one of our comment forms.

2. Cookies

The MWCOG site uses Google Analytics to track site traffic. When you visit MWCOG, Google sends one or more cookies - a small file containing a string of characters - to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service by storing user preferences and tracking user trends, such as how people search. This information is shared with Google. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some MWCOG features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.

3. Use of Information

4. Your Choices

5. Consent

If you chose to engage in certain activities on this site, such as ordering publications or products, registering for services, registering for meetings, entering contests, or sending comments, MWCOG may ask you to provide PII by filling out and submitting an online form. These activities, are completely optional for you to engage in, however, MWCOG may ask that you provide information, such as your first and last name, home or business mailing address (including ZIP code), e-mail address, employer name, job title and department, telephone and facsimile numbers, as well as some other personal information that may be used for verification (i.e. birth-place, eye color, etc). Some of the information that MWCOG asks you to provide is identified as mandatory and some as voluntary. If you choose to not provide the mandatory information with respect to a particular activity, you will not be able to engage in that activity.

MWCOG collects PII information in order to deliver the products, information, and services you request easily and efficiently and to administer MWCOG’s programs. The privacy of your PII is a serious matter. MWCOG will not sell or distribute your personal information outside of MWCOG’s member agencies unless it is otherwise posted on the relevant online questionnaire.

6. Security

When requesting credit card information, MWCOG uses secure sockets layers (SSL) encryption to protect the transmission of the information you submit, through secure online forms.

If you send MWCOG an e-mail, you should know that e-mail is not necessarily secure against interception. So if your communication includes sensitive information and you would prefer not to use one of our online forms, contact us by postal mail or telephone rather than e-mail.

7. Notice of Changes to this Policy

If MWCOG decides to change its privacy policy, those changes will be posted here so that you will always know what information MWCOG gathers, how it might be used, and whether MWCOG will disclose it to anyone. Your use of this site will be subject to the most current version of the Privacy Policy at the time of such use.

8. Notice to Parents

Parents or guardians: MWCOG wants to assist you in guarding your children’s privacy. MWCOG encourages you to discuss safe and responsible use of personal information while using the Internet. You can find more information on this subject at http://www.americalinksup.org/ furthermore, under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, (http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/coppa1.htm) no Web site operator can require, as a condition of participation in an activity, that a child under the age of 13 disclose more information than is reasonably necessary. MWCOG abides by this requirement.

More information
For more information about our privacy practices, please contact us any time. Or write to us at:
Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
Office of Public Affairs
777 N. Capitol Street, NE
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20002