Purpose

This policy describes privacy practices regarding information collected from the City of Charlotte / Mecklenburg County website. It contains information about what data are collected and how that information is used. This policy may be updated periodically, so please check back from time to time.

This policy applies only to the official City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County website (charmeck.org). When you follow a link to another website, even the site of another governmental agency, you are subject to the privacy policy of that site. You should check the privacy policies of each of these sites if you have questions about how they handle personally identifiable information.

Automatic Collection of Certain Information

No personally identifiable information is collected from visitors who simply browse this site or who download information from it. While our web servers maintain logs of user activity to help us manage the website, information stored in these logs does not identify you personally. The logs store things such the domain name and IP address from which you access our site, the type of browser and operating system you used, the date and time you accessed our site, the pages visited and the address of the site that you linked to us from (if you linked to our website from another website).

We use this information to learn how many visitors we have, where they are coming from, which parts of our website are of most interest to visitors, and other facts that will help us improve the website and the services we offer.

If You Send Us Personal Information

Visitors who request services through this site may be required to furnish additional information in order for us to provide the service requested. The additional information collected will be no more specific than if the visitor were requesting the service by any other means, including by telephone or an in-person visit to a city or county facility. If you participate in a survey, send us an email or submit an online form, your email address and the other information you volunteered will be collected. We may share this information with other governmental agencies or organizations to provide the help you are requesting. We may also use that information to help assess user needs and analyze trends. Certain types of personal information constitute public records, which means that we must provide it to persons making public records requests. However, this does not include the account numbers you use for electronic payment, public enterprise billing information and certain other types of protected information.

If you use this website for electronic commerce, we may collect, process and disclose your name, address and payment information (if applicable) to the extent necessary to complete the online transaction and for record-keeping activities as billing, permits and licenses.

Privacy of Email Lists

The City and County maintain email lists, but only of those individuals or organizations that have specifically opted to receive updates and other information from the City or County. These lists include members of the media and interested members of the general public who have specifically requested to be kept informed about the City or County affairs. Under North Carolina General Statutes §132-1.13 electronic lists of subscribers to local government notification services are open for public inspection but not available for copying. Members of the public, including the media, may hand-copy addresses from a subscriber list, but local governments are not required to provide the list in printed or electronic format. The City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have chosen not to provide these lists in printed or electronic format to any requestors, but must allow inspection as required by law. This law applies to all local governments in North Carolina.

Length of Time Data Will Be Stored / How to Unsubscribe:

Unless you request that we delete any of the information you submitted when you registered for any electronic updates and/or newsletters we may offer, we may store such information indefinitely. You can "unsubscribe" to any newsletters, notices, schedules, etc., sent to you automatically by e-mail in one of the following ways:

• Each e-mail sent to you provides an automatic way to unsubscribe to a mailing list;
• You can unsubscribe by sending an email to webrequests@ci.charlotte.nc.us, and including "unsubscribe" in the subject or message field;
• You can unsubscribe by accessing the user profile you created when you initially subscribed

Security

Some information that you submit to us through this website may be protected by encryption technology, whereas other information may not. Unless a particular web page on this site indicates that encryption technology is being used, you should not assume that information you submit through that web page will be secure. If you submit information to our website or server through a web page containing visible indicators of active encryption technology, we will take reasonable precautions to safeguard the confidentiality of such information. However, no website can protect itself against all eventualities. Neither the City nor the County will be held liable for any injury caused by the disclosure of your information, whether by security breach, accident, inadvertence, or any other act resulting in disclosure.

Use of Cookies

Cookies or other technology may transfer information from this website to your hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Cookies or similar technology can make the Internet more useful by storing information about your preferences on a particular site. The use of cookies or similar technology is an industry standard, and this website, like many other web sites, uses them to provide useful features for our users. Cookies in and of themselves do not personally identify you, although they do identify your computer. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. If you prefer, you can set your browser to refuse cookies. However, you may not be able to take full advantage of this website if you do so.

Public Records

The City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are governed by the North Carolina public records laws. This means that the information we receive online might be disclosed to any person making a public records request. Certain types of information (such as public enterprise billing information and the account numbers you use for electronic payment ) are exempt from disclosure as public records. If you have questions about the North Carolina public records laws, refer to N.C. G.S.§132.1 et. seq. For purposes of determining whether information is a public record, information sent to us through this website is treated the same as information sent to us by mail or delivered to us in person.

Children

No applications on this website specifically solicit information from minors or seek to determine whether the visitor is a minor. Consequently, visitors should be aware that the collection of personal information requested from or volunteered by children online or by email will be treated in the same manner as information given by an adult. Among other things, this means that it may become a public record and therefore may be subject to public access. We ask that parents guide their children when children are asked to provide personal information online. We ask that children get their parents' permission before providing any information to us.

Opting Out

While accessing our site, you may decline participation in any activity that asks for information (i.e. survey or email). Your choice not to participate will in no way affect your ability to use any other feature on our site.