Privacy Policies
Other than information automatically collected and stored by our web server when you visit our website, we collect no personal identifying information about you unless you choose to provide that information to us.
Use of Social Media
The TCEQ’s social-media sites are hosted by private-sector companies governed by separate privacy policies and terms of service. The privacy and service policies of these companies also apply to your use of any of our social-media sites and are outside of our control.
We reserve the right to add, remove or edit content on our social-media sites at our sole discretion. We make every effort to monitor the contents on our sites and ensure content is of an appropriate nature. However, we are not responsible for inappropriate content submitted by other social-media users.
Some examples of inappropriate information: commercial endorsements or advertisements; content that is off-topic; obscene, inflammatory, unlawful or otherwise objectionable content; information that infringes on the privacy of others or is defamatory in nature; information that is copyrighted or otherwise not open to the public.
If you find inappropriate content on one of our social-media sites, please notify us so we may review the content and remove it if we deem it inappropriate.
Questions? Please email webmaster@tceq.texas.gov.
Privacy of Email Addresses
Section 552.137 of the Texas Public Information Act (codified at Texas Government Code, Section 552.011, Vernon's 2000) says the email address of a member of the public that is provided for the purpose of communicating electronically with a governmental body is confidential, unless the email address is covered by one of the exceptions found in Section 552.137(c).
However, since Sept. 1, 2009, email addresses provided to a governmental body (including the TCEQ) for the purpose of providing public comment on or receiving notices related to an application for a license as defined by Section 2001.003(2) of the Government Code, or receiving orders or decisions from a governmental body, are not subject to the confidentiality provisions of Section 552.137. This means email addresses in the possession of the TCEQ that meet the above criteria [set forth in Section 552.137(c)(5)] are subject to disclosure. This exception is in addition to existing exceptions found in the Act.
The TCEQ does not sell email addresses.
Please note that emails sent to the agency are not encryption protected via Secure Sockets Layers by our server and may be subject to interception by common third-party internet tools.
Use of Cookies When Logging into Web Applications
Some TCEQ web applications require users to log on with a user name and password. These applications may use “cookies” to keep track of log-on information. A cookie is a small piece of information that a web server stores in your web browser or on your hard drive. We use cookies to prevent third parties from hijacking web sessions after users have logged in. The TCEQ uses only “session” cookies. This means that the cookies go away after you have logged off the web application, ending your session with us.
Disclosure of Information Collected
All information collected, including server log information and information submitted on electronic forms, is subject to disclosure to others upon request according to the requirements of the Texas Public Information Act (codified at Texas Government Code, Section 552.011, Vernon's 2000) and the State Government Privacy Policies Act (codified at Texas Government Code, Section 559, Vernon’s 2001).
Review of Personal Information
Individuals are entitled to request and review their personal information that the agency gathers on its forms (both print and electronic forms). They may also have any errors in their information corrected. For assistance, contact us at 512-239-3282.
About Web Server Logs
For site management functions, information is collected by our web server for our own analysis purposes. This information is not reported or used in any manner that would reveal personal identifying information, and will not be released to any outside parties unless legally required to do so in connection with law enforcement investigations or other legal proceedings. We use web log analysis tools to create summary statistics, which are used for purposes such as assessing what information is of most interest to those who visit our site, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas. The following information is collected for this analysis:
User Client domain name - The domain name (or IP address if DNS is disabled) 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 it's running on.
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.
Protocol - The transport protocol and version used.