Massachusetts Division of Banks Privacy Policy
Welcome to the Massachusetts Division of Banks. The Commonwealth
of Massachusetts provides this website as a service to you subject to the following
Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions:
Privacy Policy
Your privacy is one of our top priorities. The following policy applies only to
the use of the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation Portal web site.
As you navigate the Portal, you will see links that, when clicked, will take you
to other Web sites operated by state agencies. These Web sites have individual privacy
policies tailored to the interactions available through each site. You may also
see links that will take you to Web sites external to Massachusetts state government.
We strongly suggest that you read the privacy policies for each Commonwealth Web
site that you visit, and any external site that you visit through a link appearing
at this site.
A Privacy Partnership. Your privacy with respect to the use of the Office
of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation Portal results from a partnership between
the Commonwealth and you, the user. At this Web site, we attempt to protect your
privacy to the maximum extent possible. However, because some of the information
that we receive through this Web site is subject to the
Public Records Law, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66, Section 10, we
cannot ensure absolute privacy. Information that you provide to us through this
site may be made available to members of the public under that law. This policy
informs you of the information that we collect from you at this site, what we do
with it, to whom it may be disseminated, and how you can access it. Based on this
information, you can make an informed choice about your use of this site. You can
maximize the benefits of your privacy partnership with the Commonwealth by making
informed choices about whether to share personally identifiable information with
us through this site.
Security. Because e-mail sent to the Commonwealth is not encrypted,
you should not send messages containing information that you consider highly sensitive
to this Web site. We use standard security measures to ensure that information provided
by you, including your personally identifiable information, is not lost, misused,
altered, or unintentionally destroyed. We also use software to monitor network traffic
to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise
cause damage. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no attempts
are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. The transmission of
Registration IDs and Passwords, personalization information and payment information
to this Web site is encrypted. All eBusiness Account passwords are stored in an
encrypted format and cannot be viewed by anyone, including Commonwealth employees.
Personally Identifiable Information. We use the term "personally
identifiable information" to mean any information that could reasonably be used
to identify you, including your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address,
Social Security number, birth date, bank account information, credit card information,
or any combination of information that could be used to identify you.
Information Voluntarily Provided by You.. This site collects voluntary information
from you in different ways: through surveys and e-mails, a personalization feature,
an authentication feature, the eBusiness Central service, and the use of electronic
payment functionality.
Survey and E-mail. This site collects voluntary information from you through
surveys posted at this Web site and through any e-mail messages you choose to send
to the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation address. Surveys may collect
personally identifiable information you voluntarily submit, such as name, e-mail
address or phone number, so that we may contact you for follow up to your question,
concern or recommendation. Any e-mail messages sent by you to this site will contain
personally identifiable information such as your e-mail address and any other information
you choose to give us to help us answer your inquiry.
Authentication. In order to engage in certain on-line transactions, and access
certain restricted on-line information, you will also be required to register with
the Portal by choosing a name and password and providing your e-mail address. The
authentication feature associated with the Portal will use your chosen name and
password and your e-mail address, as well as information that you provide to the
agency with which you are conducting the transaction or from whom you are obtaining
on-line information, to determine whether you are authorized to conduct the transaction.
Electronic Payments. The Portal also provides a "payment page" feature that
enables you to make payments to the government online for certain information and
transactions. In order to use this feature, you will have to provide certain information
necessary to process your payment(s), including personally identifiable information
such as your name, address and credit card number.
Live Chat. The Office of Consumer Affairs live chat service is an interactive
forum where consumers can obtain consumer-related information from hotline staff
in “real time.” The online privacy and security of consumers are a priority of this
agency. Ensuring electronic access to state government information and services
while maintaining privacy is our guiding principal.
This site collects voluntary information from you through surveys completed before
and after initiating a live chat session. Surveys may collect personally identifiable
information you voluntarily submit, such as name, email address, and any other information
you choose to give us to help us answer your inquiry. Please do not put confidential
and personal information such as your social security number, date of birth, bank
account and credit card information, mother’s maiden name or medical information
in your live chat communications to the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business
Regulation.
Information Automatically Collected and Stored by this Site.
This Web site does not use permanent "cookies". However, the site uses temporary
"session cookies" to allow visitors to interact with the Portal and to use online
applications. "Session cookies" do not allow us to personally identify a visitor.
These cookies are stored only in memory and are deleted when the user's browser
is shut down.
This site does collect and store indefinitely your "Internet Protocol ("IP") address,"
(which does not identify you as an individual), as well as information about the
date and time of your visit, whether a file you have requested exists, and how many
"bytes" of information were transmitted to you over the Web from this site. We use
your IP address to assess the frequency of visits to this site and the popularity
of its various pages and functions. We will not attempt to match any personally
identifiable information that you provide to us with your IP address, unless there
are reasonable grounds to believe that doing so would provide information that is
relevant and material to a criminal investigation.
However, you should know that, because we are using third party software for certain
services, some of the information you provide us may be collected by entities other
than the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. Such services include
Live Chat and the Google Public Calendar. We cannot control your information in
the hands of these third parties but we have provided here, for your convenience,
links to their published privacy policies. You should read them before deciding
to proceed.
Dissemination of Your Personally Identifiable Information. We do not sell
any personally identifiable information collected through this Web site or submitted
to the Commonwealth in conjunction with using functions on the Web site, and there
is no direct or online public access to the information. However, once you voluntarily
submit personally identifiable information to us related to your use of the Portal,
its dissemination is governed by the
"Public Records Law," the
"Fair Information Practices Act (Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66A), Executive
Order 412," and other applicable laws and regulations. For this reason, part
or all of the information you send us may be provided to a member of the public
in response to a public records request. There are pieces of information,
such as credit card numbers, TIN, username, or password that are not considered
public for the purposes of a public records request. For more information on types
of data exempted from disclosure under the Public Records Law please read the Secretary
of the Commonwealth's Overview
of the Massachusetts Public Records Law.
In addition, the information that you voluntarily submit will be disclosed only
to Commonwealth employees or officials, or those under contract with the Commonwealth,
with a "need to know" for purposes of fulfilling their job responsibilities. The
information will be used for such purposes as: answering your questions, responding
to any requests for assistance, personalizing your on-line experience with the government,
authenticating you for access to certain transactions and information, authorizing
access and facilitating single sign-on to certain applications, generating summary
statistics about usage, auditing applications and detecting fraud, processing and
giving you credit for any payment transactions, aiding in the planning, design and
development of the Mass.Gov Portal, and fulfilling the Commonwealth's legal obligations.
We will collect and aggregate the information you provide through surveys for purposes
of market research to improve this Portal by making it more responsive to customer
needs. Where appropriate, we may provide the information submitted by you through
an e-mail to the person or company that is the subject of your inquiry, or to a
government agency responsible for the matters referred to in your communication.
We will only use information provided by you for the My Mass.Gov personalization
feature to provide you with a customized experience, and the information provided
by you for the authentication feature for the purposes of authenticating you. Mass.Gov
will transmit your electronic payment information to payment processors and appropriate
Commonwealth agencies for the purpose of completing your payment transactions.
Your Access and Opportunity to Correct. The
"Public Records Law" and the
"Fair Information Practices Act" provide you certain rights to get information
about you that is in our records. To learn more about the circumstances under which
you can get and correct this information, please click on the above references to
these laws.
Special Protections Against Misuse Of Personally Identifiable Information Within
Commonwealth Offices. In 1999, then-Acting Governor Swift issued
"Executive Order 412," which enhanced the privacy protection given to
any information about you as a named individual held by the Executive Department
of state government. "Executive
Order 412" limits the collection and dissemination of personally identifiable
information within the Executive Department. This site complies with
"Executive Order 412", limits the collection and dissemination of personally
identifiable information within the Executive Department. This site complies with
"Executive Order 412",
so all of the personally identifiable information that you submit to this site is
given the privacy protections set forth in
"Executive Order 412".
Policy changes. We will post substantive changes to this policy at least
30 days before they take effect. Any information we collect under the current privacy
policy will remain subject to the terms of this policy. After any changes take effect,
all new information we collect, if any, will be subject to the new policy.
Contact Information. For questions about your privacy while using this Web
site, please contact Jean Calixte at Jean.Calixte@state.ma.us.
Definitions:
Cookies are files that a Web site can
place on your computer. A cookie file contains unique information that a Web site
can use to track such things as your password, lists of Web pages you have visited,
and the date when you last looked at a specific Web page, or to identify your session
at a particular Web site. A cookie file allows the Web site to recognize you as
you click through pages on the site and when you later revisit the site. A Web site
can use cookies to "remember" your preferences, and to record your browsing behavior
on the Web. Although you can prevent Web sites from placing cookies on your computer
by using your browser's preference menu, disabling cookies may affect your ability
to view or interact with some Web sites.
An "Internet Protocol Address" or "IP Address" is
a series of numbers that identifies each computer and machine connected to the Internet.
An IP address enables a server on a computer network to send you the file that you
have requested on the Internet. The IP address disclosed to us may identify the
computer from which you are accessing the Internet, or a server owned by your Internet
Service Provider. Because it is machine-specific, rather than person-specific, an
IP address is not, in and of itself, personally identifiable information.