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Privacy

Challenge.Gov does not collect personal information when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information. Outlined below is the Challenge.Gov online privacy policy. If you have questions about this policy, contact the Challenge.Gov team at team@challenge.gov.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

When you visit Challenge.Gov, we may store some or all of the following: the Internet protocol (IP) address from which you access the site, date and time, the Internet address of the website from which you linked to Challenge.Gov, the name of the file or words you searched, items clicked on a page, and the browser and operating system used.

This information is used to measure the number of visitors to the various sections of our site and to identify system performance or problem areas. We also use this information to help us develop the site, analyze patterns of usage, and to make the site more useful. This information is not used for associating search terms or patterns of site navigation with individual users. Challenge.Gov periodically deletes its web logs. On occasion, Challenge.Gov may provide this information to third party entities it contracts with for the purposes of research analysis that will not be associated with individual users.

Use of Cookies

When you visit a website, it sends a small piece of information called a cookie along with the webpage. The main purpose of a cookie is to identify and customize web pages for you.

There are two kinds of cookies:

  1. A session cookie is a line of text that is stored temporarily in your computer’s random access memory, or RAM. A session cookie is never written to a drive, and it is destroyed as soon as you close your browser. GSA creates a session cookie when you visit, and destroys it as soon as you close your browser.
  2. A persistent cookie from a website is saved to a file on your hard drive and is called up the next time you visit that website. This lets the website remember what you were interested in the last time you visited. Google Analytics, as configured on GSA websites, also uses first-party (persistent) cookies to: Distinguish unique users (last for up to 2 years if you never clear your cookies) Throttle the request rate (last for up to 1 minute)

If you do not wish to accept cookies, you can edit your browser’s options to stop accepting persistent cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. See additional information on disabling cookies and/or Google demographic and interests reports.

Note: Although using persistent cookies allows us to deliver a better experience for you, this site will also work without them.

Personal Information

Users are NOT required to provide any information to search, retrieve, download, filter and otherwise use the data available on Challenge.Gov. If you choose to provide us with personal information—like sending an email to Challenge.Gov to ask questions—we use that information to respond to your message, and to help get you the information you requested. We only share the information you give us with another government agency to assist in answering your questions and to better understand user needs for Challenge.Gov, or as otherwise required by law. Any email address provided in connection with your question or suggestion will not be publicly viewable on the website. Challenge.Gov never collects information or creates individual profiles for commercial marketing.

In contacting Challenge.Gov with your questions and comments, you should NOT include additional personal information, especially Social Security numbers. Challenge.Gov is NOT a Privacy Act System of Record.

Security

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, GSA web servers use industry-standard methods to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on GSA servers are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

While Challenge.Gov uses social media including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, no personally identifiable information (PII) is sought or provided to GSA as a result of our use of these platforms.

The pages on Challenge.Gov may include hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. Check the linking policy for more information.

For more information on privacy and security: