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Privacy Policy

Purpose

The purpose of the City website is to provide information of the City’s choosing to the public in order to conduct the City’s business and promote the City’s goals as guided by the City Council. The City’s website is intended to serve the City’s need to make useful and practical information available to residents, businesses, and visitors as such information facilitates the provision of a City service in a cost-effective and efficient manner or furthers another specifically articulated purpose of the City. The City’s websites and the selection of sites to which any of them may be linked are not intended to serve as a forum for free discussion.

Terms of Use

Any use of the City of San Mateo website shall conform to all City, State and federal laws, rules and regulations. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or alter information on this website are strictly prohibited. By visiting the City of San Mateo website, you agree that you will not use the site for any unlawful activity or use it in any way that would violate the above terms.As a visitor to our site, your IP Address is automatically collected solely for the purpose of tracking the number of computers that visit our website, what pages are visited, and the timeframe most frequently used. However, we do not collect or track any personal information on any individual who uses this website. Below are our standard operating practices regarding our website.

ADA

The City of San Mateo is committed to complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Reasonable accommodations, including equal access to communications, will be provided upon request. Requests for reasonable accommodations, with regard to equal access to communications, should be directed to the City of San Mateo at (650) 522-7047.

Email Subscription Service

The City of San Mateo website provides users the opportunity to request to receive communication from us via email. Users may edit their email subscription preferences and/or cancel their subscription by following the directions at the bottom of the emails they receive.

The City of San Mateo will not sell or provide the email addresses and personal information collected to anyone outside the City of San Mateo – except to the extent it constitutes a public record subject to disclosure in accordance with the state Public Records Act. The goal of collecting this data is to provide you with as effective service as possible. By understanding and knowing your needs and/or preferences, we are in a better position to provide you with the best service possible.

Privacy and Disclosure

The following is the City of San Mateo’s policy with regards to the collection and use of personally identifiable information (PII), that is, any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual who is the subject of the information. The City of San Mateo collects two kinds of customer information: (1) anonymous; (2) personally identifiable information (PII). Anonymous information: This type of information does not identify specific individuals and is automatically transmitted by your browser. This information consists of:

  • The URL (Uniform Resource Locator or address) of the web page you previously visited;
  • The domain names and/or IP addresses which are numbers that are automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are connected to the Internet or World Wide Web.
  • The browser version you are using to access the site.

None of the information can be linked to an individual.

Personally Identifiable Information (PII): This type of information could include name, address, email address, telephone number, credit/debit card information as submitted through any of the City’s websites in conjunction with the provision of services and associated payments. The City will make every reasonable effort to protect your privacy. It restricts access to your personal identifiable information to those employees who will respond to your request. The City will not and does not intentionally disclose any personal information about our customers to any third parties or outside the City except as required by law or by the consent of the person providing the information.

The City only collects personally identifiable information that is required to provide service. You can decline to provide us with any personal information. However, if you should choose to withhold requested information, the City may not be able to provide you with the online services dependent upon the collection of that information.

Access to Personally Identifiable Information: Access to personally identifiable information in public records at local levels of government in the City of San Mateo is controlled primarily by the California Public Records Act (Government Code Section 6250, et. seq.). Information that is generally available under the Public Records Act may be posted for electronic access through the City’s website. While the Public Records Act sets the general policies for access to City records, other sections of the California code as well as federal laws also deal with confidentiality issues.

Electronic Signatures and Payments: The City of San Mateo is committed to data security and the data quality of personally identifiable information that is either available from or collected by the City’s website and has taken reasonable precautions to protect such information from loss, misuse, or alteration. When a City application accepts credit cards or any other particularly sensitive information for any of its services, the information is encrypted via a process by which bits of data are mathematically jumbled and assigned a password-key. The encryption process makes sensitive data unreadable unless or until decrypted in order to protect the confidentiality of the data

Use of Cookies

The City of San Mateo website does not currently use cookies.

Note: Information stored on a user’s computer by a web browser at the request of software at a website. Websites use cookies to recognize users who have previously visited them. The next time the user accesses that site, the information in the cookie is sent back to the user so the information displayed can vary depending on the user’s preferences. You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser.

Access to Information

Unless otherwise prohibited by law, you will be granted the ability to access and correct any personally identifiable information. The City will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting such access. Each City service that collects personally identifiable information will allow for review and update of that information.

Security

The City of San Mateo is committed to data security and the data quality of personally identifiable information that is either available from or collected by the City’s website and has taken reasonable precautions to protect such information from loss, misuse, or alteration.

External Website Links

The City of San Mateo website contains links to external websites for the purpose of providing reference material and information on community-related subjects. The inclusion of these links should not be construed as an endorsement or sponsorship of these external websites, their content, viewpoints, products, services, or their hosts.

The City of San Mateo allows entities meeting any of the following criteria to place a link to that entity’s website on the City of San Mateo website:

Other governments, special purpose districts, hospitals, and public educational institutions

Copyright

While the City of San Mateo makes the information contained within this website available to anyone, we retain copyright on all text, graphic images, and other content. This means you may not: distribute the text or graphics to others without express written permission of the City of San Mateo; ‘mirror’ this information on your server without our permission; or modify or re-use the text or graphics on this system. You may: print copies of the information for your own personal use and; reference this server from your own documents. The City of San Mateo reserves all other rights.

Disclaimer

The City of San Mateo is neither responsible nor liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions arising out of your use of the website or with respect to the material contained on the website, including without limitation, any material posted on the website or any viruses or other contamination of your system. The City website and all materials contained on it are distributed and transmitted “as is” without warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including without limitations, warranties of title or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The City of San Mateo is not responsible for any special, indirect, incidental or consequential damages that may arise from the use of, or the inability to use, the website and/or the materials contained on the website whether the materials contained on the website are provided by the City of San Mateo or a third party. The City of San Mateo is neither responsible nor liable for any viruses or other contamination of your system.

Contacting Us

If you send us an electronic mail message (email) that contains personally identifiable information or fill out a form that emails us this information, we will use the personally identifiable information to respond to you. Email is within the definition of a public record under the state public records law and is subject to public disclosure under that law. Any personal information you provide to us via email may be used to respond to your question or request for information. The City of San Mateo will not sell or provide the email addresses and personal information collected to anyone outside the City of San Mateo.