Privacy Policy

1. The Hearing Center of Excellence (HCE) provides this Web site as a public service.
2. The information on this Web site is considered public information, and users may distribute or copy unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.
3. Privacy Act Statement — If you choose to provide us with personal information — like filling out a Contact Us form with e-mail and/or postal addresses — we only use that information to respond to your message or request. We will only share the information you give us with another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency, or as otherwise required by law. We never create individual profiles or give it to any private organizations. HCE never collects information for commercial marketing. While you must provide an e-mail address or postal address for a response other than those generated automatically in response to questions or comments that you may submit, we recommend that you not include any other personal information, especially Social Security numbers. The Social Security Administration offers additional guidance on sharing your Social Security number.
4. For site management, HCE collects information for statistical purposes. This government computer system uses software programs to create summary statistics, which are used for assessing the information of most and least interest, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas.
5. For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
6. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, HCE makes no other attempts to identify individual users or their usage habits. HCE uses raw data logs for no other purposes and schedules regular destruction of the data logs in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration guidelines.
7. 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.
8. If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please forward them to us using the Contact Us page.
9. This Web site uses measurement and customization technology known as a “cookies.” Cookies are used to remember a user's online interactions with a Web site or online application in order to conduct measurement and analysis of usage or to customize the user's experience.
   
   There are two kinds of cookies used on this Web site. A single-session cookie (Tier 1) is a line of text that is stored temporarily on a user's computer and deleted as soon as the browser is closed. A persistent or multi-session cookie (Tier 2) is saved to a file on a user's hard drive and is called up the next time that user visits a Web site. Use of these cookies does not involve the collection of a visitor's personally identifiable information (PII).
   
   The Department of Defense does not use the information associated with cookies to track individual user activity on the Internet outside of Defense Department Web sites, nor does it share the data obtained through such technologies, without the user's explicit consent, with other departments or agencies. The Department of Defense does not keep a database of information obtained from the use of cookies.
   
   Cookies are enabled by default to optimize Web site functionality and customize user experience. Users can choose not to accept the use of these cookies by changing the settings on their local computer's Web browser.