Information Received and Retained by CDC Digital Media channels

You do not have to provide any personal information to visit any of the CDC digital media channels with limited exception such as external SharePoint site, special partnership collaboration site, data collection surveillance etc. If you choose to provide us with any personal information such as sending a message to an email address on this website, filling out a form and submitting it through our website, completing a survey, we will use that information to respond to your message or to fulfill the stated purpose of the communication. We will maintain any information you provide in accordance with applicable federal laws. CDC will not disclose, give, sell, or transfer any personal information about visitors to our websites, unless required by law enforcement or by statute.

When browsing any website, certain information about your visit can be collected. When browsing, reading pages, or downloading information from the CDC website directly or via APIs on other websites, specific information is gathered and stored automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and temporarily store only the following information about your visit:

• The Internet domain (for example, “xcompany.com” if a private Internet access account is used, or “yourschool.edu” if connecting from a university’s domain) and IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer when surfing the Web)
• Information about your computer or mobile device (e.g., type and version of web browser, operating system, screen resolution, and connection speed)
• The visit date and time
• The pages or screens accessed or visited on CDC’s digital media
• The number of times CDC’s digital media was accessed
• The amount of data (measured in number of bytes) transmitted from CDC.gov to your computer
• If www.cdc.gov is designated as a home page (in the event your mobile device allows this functionality)
• The internet address or URL of the website visited immediately prior to visiting CDC’s digital media, but only if you connect to CDC.gov via a link from another web page within that website

When you use CDC’s Mobile Applications (Apps), certain information will be gathered and stored about your usage of the App. This information does not identify you personally. View to learn more about CDC’s Mobile Privacy Policy.

Email message subscription services are offered by CDC as a convenience to users who choose to receive information via this channel. All information published via email subscriptions services is available on CDC.gov without the requirement to provide email address.

In order to manage CDC email subscription lists, we retain the email addresses of our email subscribers, logs of emails we send, and automatically generated email data used to improve our email communications. Third party email subscription service provider may collect and provide non-identifying information about the number of messages sent, clicks and open rates. To get more information about current email subscription service providers and their privacy policy, please refer to the current third-party tools/pages list.

The email subscriber information is secured and only available to CDC managers, members of the CDC’s communication and web teams, and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties. If, at any time, you wish to stop receiving our messages, simply click on the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of each email message.

Where CDC provides a public health messaging system that uses short code or a short message service (SMS) option, CDC will provide you information via SMS about how to sign up for the SMS option; how to cancel or unsubscribe from the SMS option; how to rejoin the SMS option; and how to get assistance on the use of the SMS option. Where CDC provides this SMS option, please note that generally message and data rates may apply, and that message frequency may vary. Questions about your text plan or data plan should be directed to your wireless provider.

We retain the phone numbers of our SMS subscribers, logs of messages we send, and automatically generated data used to improve our SMS communications. We use this information to manage CDC SMS subscriptions. Your carrier may collect additional data elements, please see their privacy policies for further details. We will not use your phone number to track, reverse look up, or for any type of commercial marketing. Mobile numbers will not be shared with third parties.

Invitations to CDC surveys are sent via a pop up or external links to a random sampling of visitor. Your acceptance of a survey is completely optional. If you decline any survey, you will still have the same access to the information and resources provided in all the CDC’s digital media channels, as those who opt to take a survey.

CDC uses online surveys to collect opinions and feedback from visitors on all type of digital media channels. Please refer to the current third-party tools/pages list for the current survey service providers. These survey service providers obtain feedback and data on visitor’s satisfaction on behalf of the CDC. Surveys conducted on behalf of the CDC do not collect any Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and the aggregate results are only available to CDC staff (e.g., subject matter experts, health communication staff, and other designated staff) who require this information to perform their duties.

Mobile surveys (i.e., those accessed via your mobile device) may request an email address and a phone number from you to send an external link to the survey. CDC does not receive your personal information, nor will the CDC have access to your information. To get more details on the data collected by any of these survey service providers, please refer to their specific privacy policy.

All official CDC information available on third-party websites is also available on CDC.gov site. The CDC maintains official pages or accounts on third-party websites in order to better engage and communicate with the general public (a current third-party tools/pages list is here). Your activity on those sites is governed by the third-party website’s security and privacy policies. Users of third-party sites often share information with the general public, user communities, and/or the third-party operating the site. Consequently, you should review the privacy policies of third-party sites before using them and ensure that you understand how your information may be shared and used. You should also adjust privacy settings on your account on any third-party site to match your preferences.

For the sole purpose of complying with the Presidential Records Act Externalexternal icon, the CDC archives some information that users submit or publish when engaging with the CDC through official CDC pages or accounts on third-party websites (e.g., by sending a message, posting a comment, “following,” “friending,” or taking similar actions). This information may contain personal information, such as an individual’s username and other public account information, when such information is available based on the user’s privacy settings and the terms of the site. For example:

• On Twitter, the CDC automatically archives “tweets” from official CDC accounts, “direct messages” sent to or from official CDC accounts, and “mentions” (tweets from other users to official CDC accounts; these tweets contain an @ and the username of an official CDC account (e.g., @CDCgov). The CDC also automatically archives any status that official accounts have “favorited.”
• On Facebook, the CDC archives all content created by official CDC pages, content that tags an official CDC page, and any content posted on official CDC pages (for example, the number of likes to the page and comments posted)
• On Instagram, the CDC archives all content created by official CDC profiles, content that tags an official CDC profile, and any content posted on official CDC profiles (for example, the number of likes to the profile and comments posted). The CDC also automatically archives stories posted to official CDC profiles.

For aggregate statistical analysis and to improve the quality of our services, we may integrate web measurement tools with our social media pages. To see current list of web measurement tools, please refer to the current third-party tools/pages list. These tools enable basic analysis of social media traffic (such as the number of people visiting a certain page) and do not collect personally identifiable information.