Privacy and Security Policy
Web Support with the College of Veterinary Medicine &
Biomedical Sciences ("we", "us" or "our") respects your privacy. We
are providing this privacy statement to ensure that we make every
effort to respect your privacy and to inform you what information
we collect, how we use it, how we protect it, when we can release
it, and how you are entitled to access it. This privacy statement
applies to the web sites we administer and the email you send us.
Because we host several web sites that perform varied functions,
some sites may adopt different privacy and security statements that
reflect their functionality.
Information Collection, Use and Release
When you visit our web sites to read or download information, we
do not collect personal information about you. In particular, we do
not use "cookies" to collect or store personal information.
However, we do collect and store technical information about your
visit in server logs.
Some of our web sites also send general information about your
visit to Google Analytics. We do not send personal information to
Google Analytics.
We use personal information that you provide via email or
through other online means to serve your needs, such as responding
to an inquiry or other request for information. This may involve
redirecting your inquiry or comment to another person or department
better suited to meeting your needs.
We use information from server logs to evaluate accessibility or
gauge the popularity of various features on our web sites. We also
use that information for general reporting and management
functions. Specifically, we use log analysis tools to generate
statistics, determine technical design specifications, and identify
system performance issues.
Occasionally, we acquire, record, and analyze portions of the
data that you enter, store, or transmit through our web sites or
email you send us. We release this information - only when legally
required - to help law enforcement investigations, legal
proceedings, or internal investigations of Texas A&M University
rule and regulation violations. These groups would use the
information to track the electronic interactions back to the source
computer(s) or account(s).
Except for education records governed by the Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), all information collected
from our web sites, including server logs, and information
collected from web forms, or email you send to us, may be subject
to the Texas Public Information Act. This means that while we do
not actively share information, in some cases we may be compelled
by law to release this information.
Cookies
A cookie file contains unique information that a web site can
use to store such things as passwords, or pages you have visited,
or the date you last looked at a specific page. Cookies can also
identify your server session at a particular web site. We do not
use cookies to collect or store personal information.
Sessions
A server session is like a cookie that is stored on a web
server. It can store information such as what web pages you
visited, when you visited a web page, or personal information that
you supply or information the web page retrieves for you.
Occasionally, we use server sessions to store information about
your session. For example, we may require you to login to a web
site and store your username; distinguishing you from other people
using the site.
Server Logs
We store the following information in our server logs:
- User/client hostname - The hostname or IP address of
the user/client requesting access
- HTTP header, "user agent" - The user-agent information
includes the type of browser, its version, and the operating system
on which it is running
- HTTP header, "referrer" - The referrer specifies the
page from which the client accessed the current page
- System date - The date and time of the user/client
request
- Full request - The exact request the user/client
made
- Status - The status code the server returned to the
user/client
- Content length - The content length, in bytes, of the
document sent to the user/client
- Method - The request method used
- Universal Resource Identifier (URI) - The location of
a resource on the server including web pages, images, and other
files
- Query string of the URI - Anything after the question
mark in a URI
- Protocol - The transport protocol and version
used
Google Analytics
Google Analytics stores the following information on their web
site:
- User/client hostname - The host-name or IP address of
the user/client requesting access
- HTTP header, "user agent" - The user-agent information
includes the type of browser, its version, and the operating system
on which it is running
- Universal Resource Identifier (URI) - The location of
a resource on the server including web pages, images, and other
files
- HTTP header, "referrer" - The referrer specifies the
page from which the user/client accessed the current page
- Screen colors - Color processing ability of the
user/client screen
- Screen resolution - The resolution or dimensions of
the user/client screen
- Service Provider - The Internet service provider of
the user/client
- Mobile device - If user/client is a mobile device, the
manufacturer of the mobile device
- Mobile carrier - If user/client is a mobile device,
its Internet service provider
- Bandwidth (Internet connection speed) - The speed of
the user/client connection from their Internet service
provider
- Java support - If Java is enabled
- Flash version - Which version of Adobe Flash is
installed
- Geographic data - Country, State, City, language
preference of the user/client
- Time on page - The time spent on a web page
Google Analytics shares information with Google. Please read Google's Privacy
Policy for more information.
Information Security
We employ extensive security measures consistent with the Texas
Administrative Code (TAC) "Information Security Standards" and
Texas A&M University Rules and Standard Administrative
Procedures to protect against unauthorized access, disclosure,
modification, or destruction of information under our control, as
well as the loss, misuse, or alteration of our web sites and/or
associated electronic information resources. The information
resources that support our web sites undergo an annual information
security risk assessment via the Information
Security Awareness Assessment and Compliance (ISAAC) system.
The ISAAC system assesses the security posture of information
systems and measures compliance with information security
standards.
Information Access
The Texas Public Information Act, with a few exceptions, gives
you the right to be informed about the information our web sites
collect about you. It also gives you the right to request a copy of
that information, and to have the university correct any of that
information. You may request to receive and review any of this
information, or request corrections to it, by contacting the TAMU Public Information
Officer or the TAMU Office of
Open Records, 1181 TAMU, College Station, Texas, 77843-1181, at
979-862-7777.