This privacy statement discloses the privacy practices of the Town of Hawley, MA and its website, www.TownofHawley.com.
Hawley is an independent municipality whose mission is to use the Internet fairly and judiciously to publicize its name and to make its services available to anyone, anywhere. The governing Selectboard of the Town believes that fair information practices are critical to this mission. In order to promote fairness, the Town is hereby making the following information available to you:
- What information of yours is gathered as you browse this website.
- How the information is used.
- Our pledge about not sharing this information with anyone without your permission.
- Your options and recourse with regard to our use of, and the accuracy of, the information the Town has collected.
Collecting and Using Information
The Town of Hawley is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. The Town will not sell, share, or rent this information to others without your express, written permission, except as required to do so by State and Federal law. The Town collects information from its users at several different points on its website.
No Registration Required for Use
All public sections of this website are open to all users. There is a pass-worded sign-in function, but that sign-in is used for purposes of internal website administration, only. As some future date, users may be empowered to sign in to access certain sections of the website and/or to update certain web pages. In either case, the Town will not distribute passwords, email addresses or other personal information except as is dictated by their intended uses.
Cookies
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about the user. Since the Town intends to use only information that you have voluntarily supplied to it, the Town will not employ cookies on its website.
Log Files
The Town may employ software that uses IP (Internet Protocol) addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user movement and activity levels, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. These IP addresses, if they are gathered, are not, and will not be, linked to personally-identifiable information.
Sharing
The Town will NOT share demographic information of any kind generated on or by the website with others, except as required by State and Federal law.
The Town may use outside shipping companies to ship documents and goods, and a credit card processing company to collect Town taxes at some time in the future. Any such companies the Town selects will not retain, share, store or use personally-identifiable information for any secondary purposes, as a condition of the Town’s selection of them.
Links
This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that the Town of Hawley cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. The Town encourages you to be aware when you leave this site and to read the privacy statements of each website that collects personally-identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website, www.TownofHawley.com.
Newsletter
If you wish to subscribe to any newsletters, email updates or other bulletins that the Town may from time to time make available, the Town will ask for contact information such as name and email address. As stated above, that information will not be used for any other purpose beyond the ones described on the form used to gather the information.
Security
www.TownofHawley.com will take every precaution to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information will be protected both online and off-line.
All of your information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in the Town Office. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our Town Clerk or Administrative Assistant) are granted access to personally-identifiable information, except as otherwise authorized by State or Federal law.
If you have questions about the security of www.TownofHawley.com, you can address an email message to that effect to THIS LINK.
Correcting/Updating Personal Information/Opting Out
If your personal information changes (such as your email address), or if you no longer desire the Town to correspond with you, the Town will provide a way to correct, update or remove the personal data you have provided to us. An “unsubscribe” option will be included with every email the Town sends to you, and links will be provided for updating information. When in doubt, use THIS LINK.
Notification of Changes
If the Town of Hawley decides to change its privacy policy, the Town will post a bulletin to that effect in the website “news” section, so that you can always be aware of what information the Town collects, how the Town uses it, and under what circumstances, if any, the Town would disclose it. If at any point the Town decides to use personally-identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, the Town will notify you by way of an email. You will be given a choice at that time as to whether or not you want the Town to use this information in this different manner, and you will be given the option to opt out. If you do not opt out, then the Town will assume it is acceptable to use your information according to the terms of the new Privacy Statement until you inform the Town otherwise.