CAPS Privacy & Security Statement

Privacy

CAPS is committed to protecting your privacy. None of your information will be distributed to anybody outside of CAPS, with the exception of circumstances of client confidentiality.

Communicating over the Internet

Important! Please do not use the Internet (email or the Web) to send confidential information or to contact us regarding an emergency requiring immediate action. We cannot ensure that email will be read or answered as quickly as a phone call. In case of an emergency, please call 911.

We strongly discourage using email to send messages of a personal or confidential nature. Email is not secure, and can be read in transit by people other than the recipient. Sending email is like sending a letter in an unsealed envelope; most information you send is probably safe, but an unscrupulous person could read your message, change it, or even impersonate you. Email is copied, archived, and retransmitted continuously as part of normal processing. Because of this, please use email only to request information about our services or communicate about other non-confidential matters.

There are several ways you can communicate with us without having to send information over the Internet:

• in person
• by phone
• by fax
• by mail

See our contact information for details.

What information does this web site gather?

• This site generally stores no information about its visitors, with the exceptions of basic logging for site statistics (using only machine addresses, not personal email addresses), and information provided by visitors who fill out on-line applications, surveys, or requests.
• On certain pages, such as the Outreach Request Form, we give visitors the option of providing us with names, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses, personal information, and various other kinds of details. This more personal information is not gathered without visitors knowing and providing active permission and participation.
• This site does not monitor private communications or make any use of such communications.
• This site does not display or make available visitors' personal information, such as contact information, even if it is already publicly available, to any person except the user himself or herself, except at the request of the user.
• This site does not retrieve personal information from the visitor's computer that was not originally sent to us or by us.
• This site does not use "cookies" (although we don't see anything wrong with them).

How does this web site gather information?

Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) does not collect any personal information from a visitor to its site without explicitly requesting that the visitor provide it. If a visitor is just browsing, we do not gather any personal information about the visitor whatsoever. There are two ways in which a visitor may explicitly provide and consent to CAPS’ collection of personal information.

Email

CAPS uses links throughout its site to provide a visitor with the opportunity to contact us via email to ask questions or provide comments and suggestions. Email is not secure.

Web Forms

Some places on this site allow a visitor to submit an application or other information through the use of web-based forms. As far as possible, these forms are secure. Different forms may request different personal information. For certain applications, we may require name, address, telephone number, email address, and student ID number. Other applications may require different or supplemental information from the applicant.

"Opt Out" Policy

In the future, CAPS may maintain email discussion groups or mailing lists, or notify people who have voluntarily supplied their email addresses of new services, upcoming events, or other updates. If you receive such a message, and you would like to opt out of being notified in this way by Counseling & Psychological Services, please email caps@tamu.edu or call us to let us know.

Information Access

The Texas Public Information Act, with a few exceptions, gives you the right to be informed about the information our web site collects about you. It also gives you the right to request a copy of that information, and to have the university correct any of that information. You may request to receive and review any of this information, or request corrections to it, by contacting the TAMU Public Information Officer or the TAMU Office of Open Records, 1181 TAMU, College Station, Texas, 77843-1181, at 979-862-7777.

Security

When is it safe to send information over the Internet?

Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS) has made every effort to ensure that personal information entered in a web form on this site is secure.

When you use most web forms on this site, our secure server software encrypts all of your personal information, including student ID number, name, and address, so that it cannot be read by others as the information travels over the Internet. Using encryption means that your web browser program translates everything you send into a code that can only be deciphered by our computer on the other end.