The Finance Commission of Texas (FC) respects your privacy. We do not collect personal information about persons who visit our web site unless the visitor provides personal information in an electronic mail message so that we may respond to the message or make further inquiries to third parties.

The FC does, however, automatically collect certain technical information about your Internet connection when you visit our web site to read or download information. We use this information to monitor the popularity of the various features of the web site for general reporting and management purposes. This information can also be used to evaluate the accessibility of our web site. As discussed in greater detail below, none of this information permits identification of personal information for any individual.

If you identify yourself or provide personal information when you contact us, as you would, for example, in requesting public information or submitting a complaint about a regulated entity, we will use the information only for the purpose it is submitted. The information will not be shared with anyone outside the FC unless necessary for investigative purposes, or disclosure is compelled by law.

To understand in greater detail how we handle information about your Internet connection or personal information which you supply, consult the appropriate section below.

When you visit the FC web site. If you visit our web site to read or download information we do not collect information about you. In particular, we do not use cookies. Cookies are small text files stored on your hard drive which contain information such as passwords, a list of pages visited, the date you last visited a certain page, or the like. They are often used on commercial sites to record on-line shopping information.

We do use server logs to collect information concerning your Internet connection and very general information about your visit to our web site. Specifically, we record:

• The IP address of the server through which you accessed our web site. If desired, this information could be used to determine the name of the domain through which you access the Internet (such as aol.com if you access through America Online), however, we do not do so, nor could you be personally identified if we did.
• The date and time you accessed our site.
• The pages you visited while at our site.

When you email a complaint about a regulated entity. Information that you provide in registering a complaint with the FC, such as your name, address, telephone number, name of the subject entity, and details of the transaction being complained about, may be shared with FC or other regulatory agency personnel for investigation or analytical purposes, and with the subject entity as necessary to elicit information relevant to your complaint. If you provide us with information that you do not wish to be disclosed outside of the FC or another governmental agency, please specifically so inform us and we will not provide it to the subject entity. However, you should be aware that such a request may hinder or prevent resolution of your complaint. In addition, should records related to your complaint be the subject of an open records request pursuant to Texas Government Code, Chapter 552, or other legal process, we may be legally compelled to disclose them. Please link to Open Records Policies and Procedures for further information.

Other email communications. The FC will not disclose personal information received by email in other contexts (such as in a comment on a pending rule) except as necessary to respond to your request or question, or otherwise serve the purpose for which the information was provided. However, you should be aware that most such information would be subject to public inspection or disclosure if requested. Please link to Open Records Policies and Procedures for further information.

Web Analytics Data. The FC website collect and store information each time you access them to enable us to measure the total number of visitors, and certain non-personal statistical information. This helps us make our website more accessible and useful to visitors.

If you browse through our site reading, printing, or downloading information, no sensitive information, or confidential information about you is collected.

The information we collect when you visit the FC’s site consists of:

• The Internet Protocol (IP) address from which you are accessing the site(s)
• The domain name of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) you are using to access the site(s)
• The date and time you visited the site(s)
• The web pages or services you accessed at the site(s)

The FC uses Google Analytics to measure traffic on our website. Review the Google Analytics Terms of Use or learn more about how Google uses, collects, and processes analytics data. To prevent Google Analytics from recognizing return visits to our website you may disable cookies in your Web browser.