It is important to read the following Chicagopolice.org Website Usage Policies. Your use of this Site constitutes your agreement to abide by these terms:

  1. The Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) Website, Chicagopolice.org is created and designed for the purpose of communicating general information with users of the Internet by electronic means. The CPD does not guarantee the accuracy, reliability or confidentiality of any such communications. The Internet should not be used to transmit any sensitive or confidential information to the CPD as such information may be easily intercepted. Given the unreliable nature of Internet communications, information transmitted to the CPD via electronic means may not be received at all, nor received or reviewed in a timely manner.
  2. The CPD’s Chicagopolice.org Website should not be relied upon for emergency services. If you have emergency or important time-sensitive crime information, you should call 911. For non-emergency service, the appropriate telephone number is call 311.
  3. All materials published on Chicagopolice.org are protected by copyright, and owned or controlled by the CPD, or the party listed as the provider of the content, software or other materials. Commercial use of the materials is prohibited without the written permission of the CPD.
  4. The CPD reserves the right to modify, update or alter these Terms at any time. Your continued use of the Chicagopolice.org Site constitutes your agreement to comply with such modifications.
  5. Communications made through this Website’s e-mail and/or messaging system shall in no way be deemed to constitute legal notice to the CPD or any of its departments, officers, employees, agents or representatives, with respect to any existing or potential claim or cause of action against the CPD or any of its departments, officers, employees, agents, or representatives, where notice to the CPD is required by any federal, state, local ordinances, rules and/or regulations.
  6. Chicagopolice.org is an official CPD government system, which may be used only for authorized purposes. Unauthorized modification of any information stored on this system may result in criminal prosecution under Federal, State, and local ordinance. The CPD and its agents may monitor and audit the usage of this system, and all persons are hereby notified that use of this system constitutes consent to such monitoring and auditing.
  7. Use of the NAME, INITIALS, or STAR of the CPD is restricted by law and may be used only with written permission of the Chicago Police Board.
  8. Unauthorized copying, reproduction, republishing, uploading, downloading, posting, transmitting or duplication any of the material is prohibited. You may download or copy any downloadable materials displayed on Chicagopolice.org for home, noncommercial and personal use only, provided that you maintain all copyright, trademark and other notices contained in such material and you agree to abide by all additional copyright notices, information or restrictions contained in any material accessed through Chicagopolice.org
  9. You shall not restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying any service conducted on the Chicagopolice.org Website, nor shall you upload, transmit, distribute or otherwise publish on Chicagopolice.org (i)any unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane or indecent materials; (ii) any materials which infringe any intellectual property right of any third party or advertise or otherwise solicit funds or is a solicitation for goods and services; or (iii) any materials containing a virus or other harmful component. While the CPD has no obligation to monitor the Chicagopolice.org Site and is not responsible for the content of any messages, information or files transmitted on Chicagopolice.org the CPD reserves the right to delete, move, edit, refuse to post or take other appropriate action with respect to such messages, information or files which the CPD, in its sole discretion, deems objectionable or otherwise in violation of these Policies and Terms of Use.
  10. The information provided on Chicagopolice.org and links to other related Websites, are provided as a courtesy to Chicagopolice.org visitors only, and are in no manner an endorsement, recommendation or approval of any person, any product or any service contained on any other Website.
  11. The CPD is neither responsible nor liable for any viruses or other contamination of your system nor for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions arising out of your use of Chicagopolice.org or with respect to the material contained on Chicagopolice.org including without limitation, any material posted on Chicagopolice.org. Chicagopolice.org and all materials contained on it are distributed and transmitted “as is” without warranties or any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation, warranties of title or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The CPD is not responsible for any special, indirect, incidental or consequential damages that may arise from the use of, or the inability to use, the Chicagopolice.org Site and/or the materials contained on Chicagopolice.org whether the material is provided by the CPD, or a third party.
  12. The CPD operates Chicagopolice.org from its offices in Chicago and makes no representations that materials on this Site are appropriate or available for use in other cities, states or countries. If you access Chicagopolice.org from other locations, you do so at your own risk and are solely responsible for compliance with any and all applicable laws, rules, ordinances and regulations.
  13. This Agreement shall be governed by, construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of Illinois as applied to agreements made and to be performed entirely therein. Any action brought to enforce the Agreement or in connection with the Chicagopolice.org Website shall be brought in either the state or federal courts in Cook County, Illinois.

 

Introduction

The CPD is committed to maintaining your online privacy. The CPD’s online Privacy Policy applies to data collected from CPD’s website. The Privacy Policy also applies to information collected from users of 311 services, including the website and mobile app. This Policy does not apply to the City’s sister agencies, including the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the City Colleges of Chicago, the Chicago Housing Authority and the Metropolitan Exposition and Pier Authority.

In order to improve the content and usability of this website, the CPD automatically collects several categories of information from users. This information includes the following:

  1. The apparent Internet Protocol (“IP”) address of your Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) and/or your computer, if your computer has an IP address assigned directly to it.
  2. The apparent Fully Qualified Domain Name (“Domain Name”) of your Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) and/or your computer, if your computer has a domain name assigned directly to it.
  3. The type of browser (such as, for example Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) used and the operating system resident on a user’s computer.
  4. The date and time a user visited the site.
  5. The web pages accessed at the site, as well as any applications used and forms data.
  6. The Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) of the site which a user visited prior to Chicagopolice.org (if detectable), if such user did not connect directly to Chicagopolice.org, or use it as a homepage or “Portal”.

The City uses this information to identify site performance needs; to ensure compatibility with the technology used by Chicagopolice.org visitors, and to generally add and improve services offered on Chicagopolice.org. In order to accomplish those goals, from time to time, the City may conduct statistical analysis of the data it collects.

The following explains the City’s privacy policy for all visitors to the City of Chicago websites or mobile app.

Information Submitted to CPD
During a session on Chicagopolice.org, a user may affirmatively submit information to the City by, among other means, electronic mail (“e-mail”), filling in and submitting an on-line form, screening for benefits and services, or electing to personalize Chicagopolice.org and use it as a customized portal. Such affirmatively submitted information is stored in a secure environment, and will be used by the City in furtherance of its duties and/or obligations to its citizenry (i.e., “governmental purposes”).

The governmental purposes to which your affirmatively submitted information may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  1. Helping the City respond to a request for information not readily available from Chicagopolice.org
  2. Investigating a problem reported to the City via Chicagopolice.org
  3. Keeping lists of parties interested in some particular issue or facet of Chicago City life about which the CPD anticipates issuing further information in the future.
  4. Sending informational updates and conducting outreach on topics such as, but not limited to, public benefits and services and upcoming CPD events.
  5. Sharing information with other City agencies or offices or other government agencies for the limited purpose of facilitating services and benefits, in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations.
  6. Disclosure of such information pursuant to a request made under Illinois Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) or court order, if such information is not protected by federal, or state, or local law.

Using CPD services

If you send CPD an email, or provide your email to the CPD via CHI 311 or other online Services, to request information or data, submit questions or comments about our programs or services, or to access or obtain such programs or services, we do collect your email address and any other information that you optionally provide [such as address and phone number]. If you visit Chicagopolice.org to read or download information, such as events schedules or building permits, we only capture and store the domain name of your computer (for example, gmail.com) and other related information to speed up the performance of web page delivery. We collect no other personal information. We do this to improve our online services, and occasionally, to customize its content for the individual user. You may choose to login to the relevant website or mobile app and add or update this information at any time.

If you opt to provide your email or phone number to the CPD, with respect to data submitted for the CHI 311 app, we also do so to maintain the information for service responsiveness and records purposes. If provided, we may contact you about that request to obtain additional information if necessary.

You may choose to submit 311 requests anonymously, even if you have signed up for an account via the CHI 311 website or mobile app. If you choose to submit a request anonymously, your personal information is not associated with the service request, and, as such, certain service features may not be available for your service request (such as automatic notifications).

If you have enabled location services on your web browser or mobile app, your geolocation information is solely used to assist with identifying the site where the CPD should perform the service that you are requesting. You will have the opportunity to adjust that location prior to submission, and only the final address that you identify will be transmitted and stored. If you do not enable location services on your web browser or mobile device, you will still be able to search for the correct address to locate your service request. To find out more about the information that your mobile device collects and transmits, and the options available to you to change factory defaults on your mobile device that may affect those transmissions, please consult with your wireless or mobile device provider. For general information about wireless industry laws and regulations, please go to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association website at https://www.ctia.org/consumer-resources/protecting-your-privacy.

If you opt-in to learn more about CPD topics of interest to you via the CHI 311 website or mobile app, CPD will occasionally send you information (such as newsletters) related to that topic, and may need to share your information with the relevant government agency to do so. You may opt-out of those communications at anytime by logging into your account at Chicagopolice.org website. In some cases, when CPD sends an email to a user, it may contain beacons, which help the CPD track, which emails have been opened and which links are clicked by our recipients so that we may continue to improve communications and services.

Data Sharing

The CPD understands the value of personal information and works to protect the personal information we collect from the public. We do not collect personal information without your permission. Any information that you volunteer, or that we send to you in response, is transferred using industry standard encryption technologies. CPD does not collect, rent, sell, exchange or otherwise distribute data, including personally identifiable information (e.g., information such as name, address, phone number, e-mail, etc., or other information that identifies or could lead to the identification of a user as a particular person) for direct mail, advertising or any other commercial purpose. Nor would CPD exchange or trade such information with third-parties without a user’s explicit permission. The CPD does not disclose credit card or other personally identifiable financial information other than as necessary to complete a credit card or other financial transaction, or upon explicit permission from the applicable user.

Never share your username and password with anyone to protect against unauthorized access to your accounts. Never share more information than what is required to complete a transaction. For more information about being safe online, visit the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Stop. Think. Connect. We occasionally will share this information with other nonprofit organizations or governmental entities such as the Chicago Transit Authority, Cook County or the Illinois Secretary of State in order to support the transaction or service.

As a governmental entity in the State of Illinois, CPD is subject to the Local Records Act, which defines how records should be managed. Further, almost all information that government entities, including cities, collect are subject to public disclosure request. This ensures that the public can find out what information has been collected about them and provide a way to know more about how our government operates. The State of Illinois Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) outlines legal requirements that govern requests for government records, and specifies which records are exempt.

Security and Monitoring
1. In certain instances, a user may have the opportunity to receive or create a password to access or submit personally identifiable information. One should not divulge a password to anyone, and CPD will never ask a user for a password in a telephone call, fax, e-mail or other form of unsolicited communication. When a user is finished with an application or applications that are password protected, such user should exit the relevant page(s). If the browser used to access said password protected pages is a publicly-accessible browser, users should close down the entire session and, if applicable or possible, flush any temporary caches or other areas where such a password might be stored subsequent to use, and log out of all applications.

  1. CPD does not collect personal information without your permission. Any information that you volunteer or that we send to you in response is transferred using industry standard encryption technologies or better security measures and systems into the design, implementation and day to day operation of Chicagopolice.org and its underlying servers and networks.  Furthermore, CPD maintains ongoing efforts to identify and/or block unauthorized intrusions into or onto Chicagopolice.org. Unauthorized intrusions into or onto Chicagopolice.org include, but are not limited to attempts to: upload to or change information on or otherwise cause damage to Chicagopolice.org or the information resident hereon or submitted hereto.
  2. The act of using Chicagopolice.org constitutes the user’s express consent to the CPD’s monitoring of all uses of the system. If such monitoring reveals possible evidence of criminal activity or any other unauthorized use, system administration personnel may provide your information to law enforcement or other officials, as authorized or required by law.

Information Gathering and Cookies

 

We may use analytic and security tools hosted by third parties or managed within CPD as part of maintaining our web presence. These tools help us measure traffic and usage trends for our web site and help ensure that this service remains available to all users. We use cookies to deliver website functionality and enhance your experience. For example, cookies allow us to provide you with a secure log-in, maintain continuity during interactions with the website and collect statistics that help us optimize speed and performance. You may see evidence of these tools stored as cookies on your personal computer after visiting the CPD’s website.

Cookies are data, stored in small text files, or entries in larger files, on your computer by a website that you visit. When you return to the website, the cookie is then read by the site’s web server. Cookies are utilized for many things, including, but not limited to: distinguishing between visitors to a website, tracking information during multiple visits to a website, tracking web browsing habits, making websites more personal. CPD uses “temporary cookies” on some parts of Chicagopolice.org, and such temporary cookies expire upon the end of the browsing session. This website and Chicagopolice.org generally, do not use “persistent cookies.” However, if a user registers to use Chicagopolice.org as a customized portal, the City uses a persistent cookie to facilitate such customization. CPD may also use persistent cookies to understand the distribution and patterns of unique and repeat visitors for 311 Online and other sites on Chicagopolice.org to enhance their accessibility.

The use of cookies is a standard practice among Internet websites. Most Internet web browsers may be customized to reject cookies, to only accept or reject cookies by user intervention, or to delete cookies. Rejecting and/or removing cookies, however, may lead to loss of functionality on those Chicagopolice.org pages requiring cookies to function fully. Additionally, if a user has created a customized version of Chicagopolice.org, CPD will create a cookie that contains the user’s unique identifier and indicator for any custom content modules requested and, if a user elected the “remember me” option for signing in to Chicagopolice.org, the cookie will contain a user’s password. Deletion of such a cookie could result in the loss of one’s customized Chicagopolice.org portal settings.

When you visit the Service, we may send one or more cookies — a small text file containing a string of alphanumeric characters — to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser and lets Chicagopolice.org help you log in faster and enhance your navigation through the site. A cookie may also convey information to us about how you use the Service (e.g., the pages you view, the links you click and other actions you take on the Service), and allow us or our business partners to track your usage of the Service over time.

You can control or reset your cookies through your web browser, which will allow you to customize your cookie preferences and to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some features of the Service may not function properly if the ability to accept cookies is disabled.

Google Analytics

CPD uses Google Analytics. Pursuant to the “Privacy” section of the Google Analytics Terms of Service, CPD as a licensee of the Google Analytics, is required to post a Privacy Policy and that Privacy Policy must provide notice of your use of cookies that are used to collect data. You must disclose the use of Google Analytics, and how it collects and processes data. This can be done by displaying a prominent link to the site “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps”, (located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/, or any other URL Google may provide from time to time). You will use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that a Visitor is provided with clear and comprehensive information about, and consents to, the storing and accessing of cookies or other information on the Visitor’s device where such activity occurs in connection with the Service and where providing such information and obtaining such consent is required by law.

Health Care Information
Any agency subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and its regulations (collectively, “HIPAA”) that creates, receives, maintains, or transmits via Chicagopolice.org any Protected Health Information (“PHI”), as that term is defined by HIPAA, must comply with HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules.  The agency must also require its Business Associates, as that term is defined by HIPAA, to comply with HIPAA when, on behalf of the agency, each such Business Associate creates, receives, maintains, or transmits PHI hosted by Chicagopolice.org. Nothing stated herein shall be interpreted to diminish the compliance requirements imposed by any other applicable law or CPD policy.

Third Party Links
Chicagopolice.org provides links to, and may be linked from, local, State and federal government agencies, and from, or to, other websites. The existence and/or provision of those links neither constitutes nor implies endorsement of the destination or departure website(s) or of the content, viewpoint, accuracy, opinions, policy(ies), product(s), accessibility or privacy policy of said destination or departure website(s). Nor does any link between Chicagopolice.org and a third-party website imply sponsorship of such website, or the creator of such website

Some content on portions of Chicagopolice.org resides on servers run by third parties. Each agency providing content for Chicagopolice.org is bound by Chicagopolice.org’s Privacy Policy. Any agency using a third-party host, ISP, ASP or other combination of third-party transport, storage, content or application provision services shall require such third party to comply with Chicagopolice.org’s Privacy Policy.

Intellectual Property
The content of Chicagopolice.org’s webpages is copyrighted, and contains some third party images/graphics that are used with permission. Users are notified, therefore, that one should presume the need to obtain permission from the copyright holder before reproducing or otherwise using images/graphics from this website.
Chicagopolice.org may change this policy from time to time, and expressly reserves the right to do so without notice.

Sending E-mail to Chicago Police Department

We value your feedback. If you send an email to any of the email accounts listed on our Contact page, we do collect your email address and any other information that you volunteer. We do this to improve the content of our website and occasionally, to customize content for the individual user.

If a Chicagopolice.org user has elected not to receive further information from CPD, Chicagopolice.org  will not send such information. If a Chicagopolice.org user has elected to receive further communication from CPD, Chicagopolice.org will only send information in categories that are authorized by the user. If Chicagopolice.org sends e-mail to a user, such e-mail is NOT confidential, and is identical in nature to that information generally available to the public and news media.

Telephone calls

Individuals may contact CPD via phone for certain services, including 311. The phone system automatically logs the phone number and other characteristics of calls to and from City numbers, such as call duration and the extension in the City that received or made a call. It is not possible to opt-out of this collection. During the course of your call to a call center, we may ask for additional information. This information will be used to help provide the requested service as is the case with requests submitted via the website or mobile app. The call taker will inform you about what information may be optionally provided. We will also provide notice if and when a call center records calls for training purposes or to improve the services. We may also request personal information when we call you or notify you of an event via phone or text message, should you opt-in.

Fraudulent Emails

Please be aware that fraudulent email scams called “phishing” have been increasing in frequency. “Phishing” involves a victim receiving an e-mail appearing to be from a legitimate business. The “from” line is often forged and the e-mail usually contains authentic looking graphics making it appear to be legitimate. The email may also contain what appears to be a legitimate link to that organization (e.g., cityofchicago.org or chicago.gov). When the victim clicks on this link, they are then taken to what appears to be a legitimate looking website. Criminals can even make your browser’s address bar contain the address of the legitimate organization despite the fact that the website is a forgery. Victims are then encouraged to enter personal information including credit card numbers and expiration dates. CPD will not request confidential personal or financial information from our customers via an unsolicited email. CPD will also never send you an unsolicited e-mail containing a link to CPD‘s website where confidential personal or financial information is requested. If you receive such an email, purportedly from CPD, you are encouraged to immediately contact [email protected].  For more general information about “phishing” visit the Federal Trade Commission web site.

On-line Transactions

For online government transactions conducted on the CPD’s website, you will be asked to enter certain information about yourself and/or the organization with which you are affiliated. The specifics of this information will vary as required by the type of transaction (e.g., online job applications and online payment of parking fines).

In each case, any information submitted online for these activities is subject to the same safeguards as if you had engaged in these activities in person rather than over the Internet. Information collected in the course of the transaction is used in order to conduct the online transactions with the appropriate CPD departments, to communicate with you about your transaction, or provide information that may be useful to you. Our goal is to collect only enough information as is reasonable to perform our Services and to let you know when providing personal information is optional.

If you sign up for a user account with CPD to support a transaction or regular communications, you may receive an email asking you to confirm that sign up. If you forget your password to an account, we may send you an email in response to your solicited request.

Confidentiality

Neither party will use or disclose the other party’s Confidential Information without the other’s prior written consent except for the purpose of performing its obligations under this Agreement or if required by law, regulation or court order; in which case, the party being compelled to disclose Confidential Information will give the other party as much notice as is reasonably practicable prior to disclosing the Confidential Information.

Severability Clause

“If any provision of this Agreement is held illegal or unenforceable in a judicial proceeding, such provision shall be severed and shall be inoperative, and, provided that the fundamental terms and conditions of this Agreement remain legal and enforceable, the remainder of this Agreement shall remain operative and binding on the Parties.”

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

Your California Privacy Rights. CPD collects information that you provide to us or that we learn about you from your use of our Websites or shopping at our stores, as described in this Privacy Policy. Under California law, once a year, CPD customers who are California residents may request certain information about our disclosure of your personal information to unaffiliated third parties for direct marketing purposes. CPD does not disclose any personal information to unaffiliated third parties for these purposes.

EU RESIDENTS

International Transfers of EU Customers’ Personal Information. The Personal Information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) in reliance on a variety of compliance mechanisms, including data processing agreements based on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the provision of support services. By submitting your Personal Information, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you are from the EEA or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, please note that you are transferring your personal information to the U.S. which does not have the same data protection laws as the EEA and may provide more limited recourse mechanisms, including dissimilar or, at times, weaker data protection rights. With knowledge of these risks, by providing your personal information you consent to: (i) the use of your personal information for the uses identified above in accordance with this Privacy Policy; and (ii) the transfer of your personal information to the U.S. as indicated above.

Additional Information for EEA Users

Users in the European Economic Area have the right to request access to, rectification of, or erasure of their personal data; to data portability in certain circumstances; to request restriction of processing; to object to processing; and to withdraw consent for processing where they have previously provided consent. These rights can be exercised using the information provided under “Your Choices” above or using the contact information provided at the end of this document. EEA users also have the right to lodge a complaint with their local supervisory authority.

As required by applicable law, we collect and process information about individuals in the EEA only where we have legal bases for doing so. Our legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. We process your information on the following legal bases:

You have consented for us to do so for a specific purpose;

We need to process the information to provide you the Services, including to operate the Services, provide customer support and personalized features and to protect the safety and security of the Services;

It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as preventing fraud, ensuring network and information security, enforcing our rules and policies, protecting our legal rights and interests, research and development, and marketing and promoting the Services;

We need to process your information to comply with our legal obligations.

Children’s Privacy. Visitors under 13 years of age are not permitted to use and/or submit their Personal Information at any Site. CPD does not knowingly solicit or collect information from visitors under 13 years of age or seek to determine whether the visitor is a minor. Consequently, because such information will not be specifically identified as being from minors, users of Chicagopolice.org should be aware that personally identifiable information submitted to Chicagopolice.org by minors will be subject to being treated in the same manner as information given by an adult and may become subject to Illinois FOIA. If you are under 13 years of age, please do not submit any information to us. In the event that we learn that a person under the age of 13 has provided us with personal information, we will delete such personal information. We encourage parents and guardians to spend time online with their children and to participate and monitor the interactive activities of their children.

Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to create an account or otherwise use the Services. Additionally, if you are in the EEA, you must be over the age required by the laws of your country to create an account or otherwise use the Services, or we need to have obtained verifiable consent from your parent or legal guardian.

CPD strongly believes that parental supervision is an important factor in Internet use by minors. Therefore, Chicagopolice.org asks parents to guide their minor children when children are asked to provide any personal information online. Chicagopolice.org further asks that children ask for and receive their parent’s permission before providing any information online.

Contacting Us. Our “contact us” page contains e-mail links that allow you to contact us directly with any questions or comments that you may have. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please feel free to contact us at Chicagopolice.org.

Links to Other Websites.

The Sites may contain links to other third party owned and/or operated websites. CPD suggests that users should check the privacy policy of each of these websites if you have concerns about how such websites handle personally identifiable information and contact these third parties directly for information regarding their privacy, security and data collection and distribution policies prior to providing them with any information.

CPD is not responsible for the privacy practices employed by third party owned and/or operated websites. Nor is CPD responsible for the services linked to or from such websites, including the information or content contained therein. Please remember that when you use a link to go from the Service to another website, CPD’s Privacy Policy does not apply to third-party websites or services. Your browsing and interaction on any third-party website or service, including those that have a link or advertisement on our website, are subject to that third party’s own rules and policies. In addition, you agree that we are not responsible for and we do not exercise control over any third-parties that you authorize to access your User Content. If you are using a third-party website or service (like Facebook) and you allow such a third-party access to your User Content you do so at your own risk. This Privacy Policy does not apply to information we collect by other means (including offline) or from other sources other than through the Service.

Blogs and Public Features of Chicagopolice.org

Some of CPD’s Sites offer publicly accessible blogs, community forums, or public comments sections. You should be aware that any Personal Information you submit there can be read and collected by other users of these forums and could be used to send you unsolicited messages and for other purposes. Our blog and comments section of our site is managed by a third party application that may require you to register to post a comment. We do not have access or control of the information posted to the blog. NONE OF THE INFORMATION THAT YOU PROVIDE USING THESE FEATURES IS PROTECTED BY THIS PRIVACY POLICY. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PERSONAL INFORMATION YOU CHOOSE TO SUBMIT IN THESE FORUMS OR THE USE OF THAT INFORMATION BY ANY THIRD PARTY. You will need to contact or log into the third party application if you want the Personal Information that was posted to the comments section removed. To learn how the third party application uses your information, please review their privacy policy.

Social Media Widgets. Our Sites may include social media features, such as the Facebook Like button and widgets such as the share this button or interactive mini-programs that run on our Sites. These features may collect your IP address, which pages you are visiting on our Sites, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Sites. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing them.

Security and Retention. We take commercially reasonable steps to help protect Personal Information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. However, no Internet or e-mail transmission is ever fully secure or error free. In particular, e-mail sent to or from a Site may not be secure, and you should therefore take special care in deciding what information you send to us via e-mail. Please keep this in mind when disclosing any Personal Information to us or to any other party via the Internet. The security of your Personal Information is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms or login credentials (such as username and password) on our platform login, we encrypt the transmission of that information. Your Personal Information will be stored in the United States and will be subject to laws applicable in that country. If you have any questions about security on our Sites, you can contact us at Chicagopolice.org. We may retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements. If we learn of a security systems breach we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. By using the Sites or providing personal information to us, you agree that we can communicate with you electronically regarding security, privacy and administrative issues relating to your use of the Sites. We may post a notice on the Sites if a security breach occurs. We may also send an email to you at the email address you have provided to us in these circumstances. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.

Changes To This Policy

CPD expressly reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we do, we will let you know by revising the date at the top of the policy.  We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you access or use our Services or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy. By continuing to use our Services after Privacy Policy changes go into effect, you agree to be bound by the revised policy.

Disputes, Agreement to Arbitrate, and Choice of Law

By using the Sites, you and CPD agree that, if there is any controversy, claim, action, or dispute arising out of or related to your use of the Sites, or the breach, enforcement, interpretation, or validity of this Privacy Policy or any part of it (“Dispute”), both parties shall first try in good faith to settle such Dispute by providing written notice to the other party describing the facts and circumstances of the Dispute and allowing the receiving party 30 days in which to respond to or settle the Dispute.

Both you and CPD agree that this dispute resolution procedure is a condition precedent that must be satisfied before initiating any litigation or filing any claim against the other party. IF ANY DISPUTE CANNOT BE RESOLVED BY THE ABOVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURE, YOU AGREE THAT THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION FOR SUCH DISPUTE WILL BE DECIDED BY BINDING ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS. ARBITRATION ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS MEANS THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE, AND YOU WAIVE, THE RIGHT FOR A JUDGE OR JURY TO DECIDE YOUR CLAIMS, AND THAT YOU MAY NOT PROCEED IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE CAPACITY. Other rights that you and we would have in court will not be available or will be more limited in arbitration, including discovery and appeal rights. All such Disputes shall be exclusively submitted to JAMS (www.jamsadr.com) for binding arbitration under its rules then in effect before one arbitrator to be mutually agreed upon by both parties

The arbitrator, and not any federal, state, or local court or agency, shall have exclusive authority to resolve any dispute arising under or relating to the interpretation, applicability, enforceability, or formation of this Privacy Policy, including any claim that all or any part of this Privacy Policy is void or voidable.

This Privacy Policy has been made in, and shall be construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of Illinois, without giving effect to any conflict of law principles. The parties acknowledge that this Privacy Policy evidences a transaction involving interstate commerce. Notwithstanding the provision in the preceding paragraph with respect to applicable substantive law, any arbitration conducted pursuant to the terms of this Privacy Policy shall be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. §§ 1-16).