Web Site Privacy Statement

The State Department of Assessments and Taxation has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for our web site.

Maryland law mandates that State agencies shall not create personal records unless the need for the information is clearly established and that personal records shall be relevant to the purposes for which they are collected, be accurate and current, and not be obtained by fraudulent means. State officials who request personal data from citizens must notify the citizens regarding the purposes for which the information is collected; consequences to the citizen for refusing to provide the personal information; the citizen's right to inspect and correct personal records; whether the information is generally available for public inspection; and whether the information is made available to other entities. Please refer to the State of Maryland Office of Information Technology for additional information on information technology policies in Maryland. The State of Maryland is committed to providing you with web sites over which you may securely and confidently transact business with the State.

Data Collected on This Site

The only data we automatically collect from visitors to our web site are their IP addresses. An IP address is a number code used to identify a computer that is requesting information from another computer. We track IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our computer equipment and to administer our web site. An IP address generally cannot be used to identify a particular user.

In some cases, we will ask for your name and contact information. In most cases, we request this information so that we may give you a complete response. If you decide not to provide this information, we may not be able to give you a complete response, or we may not be able to respond at all.

When conducting credit card transactions on our web site, you will be asked for the name of the card holder and other information. We are required by the credit card companies to collect this infomation before they will authorize the charge to your account. If you do not provide this information, we will be unable to process the credit card transaction. Your transaction will be cancelled.

This site contains links to other sites. The State Department of Assessments and Taxation is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other web sites.

Security

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. The only information about web site users stored on our web site computers are IP addresses. As a result, any violation of the security barriers in place on our web site cannot result in release of any other information about our web site users.

Credit card numbers and expiration dates are not stored on our system. When you provide credit card information, it is routed to our bank's computer. Once we have received a response from the bank as to whether the charge is authorized or denied, the credit card information is purged from our system.

Choice/Opt-Out

We do not send unsolicited communications to users of our web site. We do not provide lists of our web site users to third parties. For these reasons, we do not have a mechanism where you can elect to not receive unsolicited communication from us.

Correct/Update

The personal information that we collect on our web site is kept for a very short period of time. For this reason, we do not have a mechanism to correct or update these records. If you believe that you have provided incorrect contact information, please resubmit your question or request with the correct information.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information about the user. There are two types of cookies: persistent cookies stay on the user's hard drive until manually deleted; non-persistent cookies are deleted when the browser is closed. Some features of this site, such as map view, Certificate of Status, and documents images will put a non-persistent cookie on your computer that will be used to track your progress through the system. Use of this cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. Once you close your browser, the cookie is deleted. If you reject the cookie, you may not be able to use certain features of this site.

A Word About Public Information and Personal Information

A major part of the Department's work is recording and disseminating information on real property attributes and ownership. This information is used for a wide variety of government and commercial purposes. With some limited exceptions, the Department is required by law to provide this data to anyone that requests it. We realize that some people are uncomfortable having information about their property available, but public availability of this information is necessary to assure that all property is uniformly valued at market value. State law does not permit us to remove individual account information from our public records.

We are equally aware that some users are unhappy that we do not provide owner name searches and other more detailed information through our web site. Within the framework of the law we have attempted to strike a balance between reasonably protecting what some people consider to be personal information and what needs to be disclosed to promote public accountability.

Contacting the Web Site

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this web site, you can contact

     Mary Russell, Webmaster
     State Department of Assessments and Taxation
     301 W. Preston St.
     Baltimore, MD 21201
     inquiry@dat.state.md.us

Privacy and the Internet

These guidelines are based on the model guidelines suggested by TRUSTe, an independent, non-profit privacy organization. For more information on TRUSTe, see their web site at www.TRUSTe.com.