Privacy

General
The City of Warwick's website at www.warwickri.gov is bound by the Code of Federal Regulations at 41 CFR Part 102-173 and the regulations set by the General Services Administration (GSA).  The City of Warwick's website at www.warwickri.gov also adheres to the Rhode Island Computer trespass law § 11-52-4.1 and federal statutes including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

Disclaimer 
This World Wide Web (WWW) site is provided as a public service by the City of Warwick, Rhode Island. This site is intended to be used by the public for viewing and retrieving information only. In providing information on this site, we have attempted to be as accurate as possible. However, the City of Warwick, Rhode Island makes no claims, guarantees or promises about the accuracy, currency, or completeness of the information provided and is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for results obtained from the use of the information. Every possible effort is made to keep the content of this site accurate and current, but that may not always be the case. Distribution of the information does not constitute any warranty. The user assumes the risk of verifying any materials used or relied on.

Warwickri.gov suite of websites
The City of Warwick conisistently develops and operates a number of municipal websites, all of which fall under the parent website www.warwickri.gov.  These sites include www.warwicksewerauthority.com, www.visitwarwickri.com, www.movetowarwickri.com, www.warwickcitycouncil.com, and www.warwickweddings.com.  As an affiliate of warwickri.gov, all sites adhere to the disclaimers and official website policy of the City of Warwick, Rhode Island.

Links
The City of Warwick, Rhode Island's computer resources and materials may contain hypertext or other links to external sites not owned or controlled by the State of Rhode Island or the City of Warwick, Rhode Island. 

Links to external servers do not imply any official City of Warwick, Rhode Island endorsement of the opinions or ideas expressed therein, or guarantee the validity of the information provided.

Links to commercial sites are in no way an endorsement of any vendors' products or services.

Links to other computer systems are not supervised nor regularly reviewed by the City of Warwick, Rhode Island.

Any information, endorsements of products or services, materials or personal opinions appearing on such external sites are not controlled, sponsored nor approved by the City of Warwick, Rhode Island.

Links may be provided to external servers that are managed in a professional manner, that are fully operational, available most of the time and do not serve inaccurate information or obscene information, including graphics. The City of Warwick, Rhode Island will not link to external servers if such link would appear to provide an official endorsement of fundraising efforts or lobbying for a political agenda. In addition, the City of Warwick, Rhode Island will not link to external servers if such link would appear to provide an official endorsement of an individual's candidacy for elected office. 

Copyright
The City of Warwick, Rhode Island makes the content of this WWW site available to the public. Anyone may view information found here without obligation to the City of Warwick, Rhode Island, unless otherwise stated on particular articles of information to which a restriction on fair use may apply. However, the City of Warwick, Rhode Island makes no warranty that materials contained herein are free of copyright claims or other restrictions or limitations on fair use or display. The compiled information presented on this WWW site is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. However, use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.

Privacy
All City of Warwick, Rhode Island computer systems are subject to monitoring at all times to assure proper functioning of the systems, to provide security for the computer systems' operations and the information contained therein, to prevent unauthorized use, and to deter and investigate violations of the law. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the use of this public computer system, save in areas designated and labeled as being presented by our secure server.

We may collect some or all of the following information about visitors who view or download information from our websites:

  • Information Definition
  • Date Date the visit occurred.
  • Time Time the visit occurred.
  • Client IP Unique Internet Protocol (IP) address of the website visitor. IP address recorded is normally that of the visitor's Internet Service Provider, e.g., aol.com if the visitor connects from an America Online account.
  • Server IP Unique Internet Protocol (IP) address of the Rhode Island State Government web server accessed.
  • HTTP Status Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) error code, e.g., "404 Requested Page Not Found."
  • HTTP Request URL Identifies the web page or file requested by the website visitor.
  • Bytes Sent Amount of data sent from the web server to website visitor during that connection.
  • Bytes Received Amount of data sent from website visitor to the web server.
  • User Agent Type of web browser or other client software that made request to the web server.
  • Referrer Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that referred to the requested file.
  • Protocol Version Version of HTTP used by the visitor's web browser software

The information we collect is used to improve the content of our Web services and help us understand how people are using our services. We analyze our web site logs to continually improve the value of the materials available on our site. The information in our web site logs is not personally identifiable, and we make no attempt to link it with the individuals that browse our web site. Some of this statistical information, such as a running count of the number of visitors, may be displayed on the website or shared with other state governments to aid in the provision of better service to the public.

The e-Towne Square is warwickri.gov's real-time chatroom. Real-time chat technology permits users to do such things as provide one-on-one discussions, in "real" time, and to hold online meetings. The Community Bulletin Board is warwickri.gov's online forum by which users may post questions, recommendations, or any other information relevant to the City of Warwick for an extended period. Once the forum has depleted its memory capacity, the oldest posts will be culled from the system.   The City of Warwick also utilizes the social media tools Twitter and Facebook.  Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access.  Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, and school or college.

In order to utilize either the Community Bulletin Board, social media tools, and / or the e-Towne Square, certain information must be collected and maintained. In addition to IP address, browser type, date and time of the visit, and the referring webpage, transcripts of the chats and forum posts are saved for statistical, demographic, and/or customer service purposes. Some information is also collected through chat surveys and forum posts on a volunteer basis.

The users of the Community Bulletin Board, the City of Warwick's official social media tools, and / or the e-Towne Square agree not to post or transmit any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise objectionable material of any kind, including, but not limited to, any material which encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, violate the rights of others, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law. The user will be responsible for, and indemnify and hold harmless the City of Warwick, Rhode Island against, any claim arising from any material that the user posts or transmits. Although the City of Warwick, Rhode Island may from time to time monitor or review discussions, chats, postings, transmissions, and bulletin boards at warwickri.gov, the City of Warwick, Rhode Island is NOT under any obligation to do so. The user acknowledges that the City of Warwick, Rhode Island does not control the information available on Facebook, Twitter, the Community Bulletin Board, and the e-Towne Square and that any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content presented or disseminated on Facebook, Twitter, the Community Bulletin Board or the e-Towne Square are those of their respective authors who are solely liable for their content. Any violation of these rules by the user of the City of Warwick's Facebook page, Twitter pages, Community Bulletin Board or the e-Towne Square, grants the City of Warwick, Rhode Island the right to edit, refuse to post, or remove said material from warwickri.gov and its affiliated websites.

Cookies
Cookies are small text files which a web server may ask your web browser to store, and to send back to the web server when needed. Cookies may be used to store a transaction identifier or other information a user may provide. We use cookies in the following ways:

Complex transactions: Cookies are used to store and retrieve unique transaction identifiers or other server-generated or user-provided information in complex, multi-page web applications. This allows us to distinguish between different users, and to use information provided at one stage of an application at a later time (for instance, items placed in a 'shopping cart' might need to be displayed on a later 'check-out' screen). When we use cookies in this way, the cookie is stored on your web browser only temporarily; the cookie is destroyed at the end of the transaction or at the end of the browser session.

Customized Services: Cookies may also be used to automatically identify a particular user to the system, in order to provide a customized service, such as a personalized web page. In this case, a cookie containing a unique user identifier will be permanently stored on your web browser. We do not store sensitive information in such cookies; only a unique user identifier or generic preference values are stored. Personal information you give us for processing a transaction or using one of our personalization features, may be stored on our secure web server. Personal information that you give us for processing a transaction or using one of our personalization features, may be stored on our secure web server, retained only as long as necessary and properly disposed of by destruction under the City of Warwick, Rhode Island Title 38 Access to Public Records law.

We do not use cookies in order to track your visit to our website. The "help" portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies or how to disable cookies altogether. However, cookies allow you to take full advantage of many City of Warwick, Rhode Island e-government services, and we recommend that you leave them turned on.

The City of Warwick, Rhode Island does use cookies to note new and repeat visitors for statistical purposes. We do not use cookies to keep a database of personally-identifying information about visitors when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. Indeed, we do not maintain any information at all that can personally identify a user of our websites.

No other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purpose than those stated above and are scheduled for frequent and regular destruction. The City of Warwick, Rhode Island makes no guarantee or warranty that servers not managed or controlled by the City of Warwick, Rhode Island that are linked to this WWW site are not using cookies or collecting personally-identifying data.

Security
For site security purposes and to ensure that WWW service remains available to all users, the City of Warwick, Rhode Island computer system employs software programs which can 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 this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act. The City of Warwick, Rhode Island website content materials are provided for public use on computer systems located within the City of Warwick, Rhode Island and for the use and benefit of citizens of Rhode Island and others. Any person choosing to use this system or seeking access to information or materials on this system is subject to Rhode Island jurisdiction. Any dispute arising therefrom shall be decided under the laws and in the courts of Rhode Island.