Thank you for visiting the Child Welfare Information Gateway (Information Gateway) and/or its affiliate websites. Our policy is clear:

We collect no personal information about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us.

This privacy notice applies to https://www.childwelfare.gov/ and websites under the childwelfare.gov domain with the exception of https://capacity.childwelfare.gov/ and https://learn.childwelfare.gov/. You can find links to our privacy notice in the footer of each of our websites.

For more detailed information on our privacy policy, see the topics below:

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Personal information voluntarily submitted to Child Welfare Information Gateway

Information Gateway does not collect personal information from users unless they choose to provide such information. The process for collecting said information and how it is used is described below.

How personal information may be collected and shared

Submitting personal information is entirely voluntary. If you choose to provide personal information—for example by completing a form, leaving a comment, completing a survey, registering for an account, or ordering free publications through the website—we may use that information to respond to your message and provide you the services you requested.

Information Gateway uses third-party service providers and other vendors to support the operations, hosting, and functions of our website. If a change in provider or vendor occurs, some information may need to be transferred to the new provider or vendor to prevent service interruption. If there is a change in provider or vendor, we notify users via email or an announcement on our website.

Freedom of Information Act

You may request information from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Follow this link to find instructions on how to make a request and contact information: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/freedom-information-act.

For more information, please see the ACF Privacy Policy.

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Interaction with children online

We take all reasonable steps necessary to protect the privacy and safety of any child from whom information is collected, as required by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

We do not share, collect, or use information from minors unless we are obligated to do so as mandated reporters of abuse and neglect.

We provide some publication materials that are created and available for the benefit of all youth, including children age 13 or under. We do not elicit or request any information from children who choose to view these publications.

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Visiting an official Information Gateway and/or affiliate webpage on third-party websites

We maintain accounts on third-party websites, including social media sites, as tools to better interact with the public. The security and privacy policies of third-party websites apply to your activity on those sites. Users of third-party websites often share information with the general public, user community, and the third-party operating the website. You should review the privacy policies of all websites before using them and ensure that you understand how your information may be used. You should also adjust privacy settings on your account on any third-party website to match your preferences.

Information Gateway and its affiliate accounts

Third-party website privacy policies used by Information Gateway and its affiliates include:

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Information collected and used from third-party websites

If you have an account/profile with a third-party website (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), and choose to follow, like, friend, or comment on a third-party website managed by Information Gateway and/or its affiliates, certain personal information associated with your account may be made available to us based on the privacy policies of the third-party website and your privacy settings within that website. We do not share personally identifiable information made available through these websites.

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Information automatically collected and stored

When you browse through our website, we use Google’s Universal Analytics (UA), Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and Siteimprove software to gather and temporarily store a variety of information about your visit. However, this information cannot be used to identify you as an individual. The basic information we collect during your visit includes:

  • The name of the domain you use to access the Internet (for example, Verizon.com, if you are using a Verizon online account, or stanford.edu, if you are connecting from Stanford University's domain)
  • The date and time of your visit to our website
  • The pages and documents you viewed on our website
  • The URL of the website you visited prior to ours
  • The type and version of your web browser and operating system
  • Your location at the time of your visit, down to the city-level

We do not associate any of the data we collect with you as an individual. Instead, we aggregate this data from all visits to improve our website and provide a better user experience to our visitors. The aggregate data is available only to web managers and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties. It is retained only for as long as needed for proper analysis. The Google Analytics privacy policy is available at https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. The Siteimprove privacy policy is available at https://siteimprove.com/en/privacy/.

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Demographic and interest data

On some portions of our website we have enabled Google’s Universal Analytics (UA), Google Analytics 4 (GA4), and other third-party software (listed below), to provide aggregate demographic (age, gender, location) and interest data of our visitors identified as over 18 years old. This information cannot be used to identify you as an individual. While these tools are used by some websites to serve advertisements, Information Gateway and/or its affiliates only uses them to measure demographic data. Information Gateway and/or its affiliates have no control over advertisements served on other websites.

Buffer: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Buffer to manage their social media accounts and shorten URLs. Our staff only conducts analysis on the aggregated data from Buffer from the social media accounts linked. The Buffer privacy policy is available at https://buffer.com/privacy.

Ex Libris: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Ex Libris’ Alma and Primo products to manage its library database individual accounts. Our staff only conduct analysis on the aggregated data from Ex Libris from the library database individual accounts linked. The Ex Libris privacy policy is available at https://exlibrisgroup.com/privacy-policy-1-2/.

Tableau: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Tableau, a software that produces interactive data visualization. Our staff only conduct analysis on the aggregated data from Tableau. The Tableau privacy policy is available at https://www.tableau.com/privacy.

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Other web measurement and customization tools

We use the specified software and features below:

AddThis: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates offer AddThis on its websites, giving visitors the option to bookmark and share content from Information Gateway and/or its affiliates to certain social media sites. Using AddThis on Information Gateway and/or its affiliates does not require registration or personally identifiable information. The AddThis privacy policy is available at https://www.oracle.com/legal/privacy/addthis-privacy-policy.html.

Bit.ly: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Bit.ly to shorten long URLs for use in email and social media messages. Bit.ly does not provide any personally identifiable information about the visitors who click the shortened links. The Bit.ly privacy policy is available at https://bitly.com/pages/privacy.

Buffer: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Buffer to manage their social media accounts and shorten URLs. Our staff only conducts analysis on the aggregated data from Buffer from the social media accounts linked. The Buffer privacy policy is available at https://buffer.com/privacy.

Ex Libris: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Ex Libris’ Alma and Primo products to manage its library database individual accounts. Our staff only conduct analysis on the aggregated data from Ex Libris from the library database individual accounts linked. The Ex Libris privacy policy is available at https://exlibrisgroup.com/privacy-policy-1-2/.

Google Analytics: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates may employ tools provided by Google Analytics 360 to support data collection via cookies and anonymous identifiers, Google Tag Manager, Google Looker Studio, Google Optimize, and/or Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting. Google’s privacy policy and terms are available at https://policies.google.com/privacy.

GovDelivery: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use GovDelivery (also called Granicus) to email newsletters and other messages to visitors who subscribe via Information Gateway websites. Only our staff and managers who email newsletters using GovDelivery and/or monitor the results of email initiatives have access to the subscriber lists. GovDelivery/Granicus never allows access to the subscriber lists to anyone outside of Information Gateway and/or its affiliates for any purpose. GovDelivery/Granicus also provides aggregate data, such as email open rates and total clicks on links. The GovDelivery/Granicus privacy policy is available at https://granicus.com/privacy-policy/.

OneReach: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use OneReach, a conversational AI platforms. The data is only available to Information Gateway staff. The OneReach privacy policy is available at https://onereach.ai/terms/.

Qualtrics: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use the Qualtrics survey tool to collect feedback from website visitors. Our staff use survey results to measure visitor satisfaction with Information Gateway and/or its affiliate websites. This survey tool does not require users to submit personally identifiable information. The survey reports are available only to our staff. The Qualtrics privacy policy is available at https://www.qualtrics.com/privacy-statement/.

Tableau: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Tableau, a software that produces interactive data visualization. Our staff only conduct analysis on the aggregated data from Tableau. The Tableau privacy policy is available at https://www.tableau.com/privacy.

ServiceNow Community: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates uses ServiceNow Community SaaS platform for its Peer Communities subscription-based communications platform. Only Service Now, Information Gateway and/or its affiliates and the Children’s Bureau authorized members have access to the subscriber lists. ServiceNow never allows access to subscriber lists to anyone outside of Information Gateway and/or its affiliates and the Children’s Bureau for any purpose. ServiceNow also tracks and analyzes usage of Peer Communities for improving the SaaS platform and experience. All analyses and reports are in aggregated form and will not be accessible to anyone outside of Information Gateway and/or its affiliates and the Children’s Bureau. The ServiceNow privacy statement is available at https://www.servicenow.com/privacy-statement.html.

Siteimprove: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use the cloud-based software Siteimprove to increase content quality, work towards accessibility compliance, and measure website performance. Our staff use the data to measure visitors’ engagement with Information Gateway and/or its affiliate websites. This software does not require users to submit personally identifiable information. The data is available only to our staff. The Siteimprove privacy policy is available at https://siteimprove.com/en/privacy/.

SoundCloud: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use SoundCloud to host podcasts. The aggregated data from SoundCloud is available only to our staff. The SoundCloud privacy policy is available at https://soundcloud.com/pages/privacy. 

USA.gov: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use USA.gov to shorten URLs for our .gov websites. The USA.gov privacy policy is available at https://www.usa.gov/policies.

Velaro: Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use Velaro as an online communication tool to engage with website users and connect them to reliable resources in real-time. If you choose to provide your name and email address to access the chat, that personal information is kept confidential. The Velaro privacy policy is available at https://velaro.com/privacy-policy/.

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Cookies

Websites can automatically place small text files, known as cookies, on visitors’ computers. So long as they do not expire or are deleted, cookies identify the unique browser used by visitors. On each subsequent visit to the website, the visitor’s browser will retrieve the cookie, allowing us to aggregate the number of return visitors. Information Gateway and/or its affiliates use cookies to test and optimize our website design and content. We use two types of cookies on our websites.

We use session cookies to gather data for technical purposes, such as improving website navigation and generating statistics about how the website is used. Session cookies are temporary text files that expire when you leave our website. When cookies expire, they are automatically deleted from your computer. We do not use session cookies to collect personal information, and we do not share data collected from session cookies.

We use multisession cookies, or persistent cookies, to customize our website for frequent visitors and to test variations of website design and content. Multisession cookies are cookies that are stored over more than a single session on your computer. We do not use multisession cookies to collect personal information, and we do not share data collected from multisession cookies. Our multisession cookies are set to expire no more than 2 years after your last visit to our website. After 2 years, they are automatically deleted from your computer. Information Gateway and/or its affiliates is unable to identify an individual by using such technologies.

You can take actions to block cookies by opting out. Blocking session cookies from your computer will not affect your access to the content and tools on our website. Blocking multisession or persistent cookies may affect the personalization of the information on those sites.

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Website security

Information Gateway and its affiliate websites are maintained by the U.S. Government. It is protected by Federal laws. You can be arrested and prosecuted for violating these laws.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, we use software programs to monitor traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information or otherwise cause damage. In the event of law enforcement investigations and as part of any required legal process, information from these sources may be used to help identify an individual.

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See also:

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