Office holiday closure

Our office will be closed December 23-January 3. Open space preserves remain open!

Privacy Policy

Privacy and Confidentiality

The purpose of this privacy policy is to inform you of what kinds of information we may gather from you when you visit www.openspaceauthority.org, the official website for the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority. This statement discloses the privacy practices that apply to the online collection, use, security, and access of information that may be obtained through use of the Authority's website.  Please note that this policy is subject to change without notice.

Though personal information may be required either by law or in order for us to provide a requested service, in doing so we are subject to the privacy requirements set forth in the Information Practices Act of 1977 (California Civil Code Section 1798 et seq.) and the requirements for administering information systems in California Government Code Section 11015.5. Pages that appear after you click on a link may be controlled by a different agency or entity, whose practices are not under the Authority's control.

If any type of personal information is requested on the website or volunteered by the user, state and federal law may protect it. However, this information may be a public record once you provide it, and may be subject to public inspection and copying if not otherwise protected by federal or state law.  We only collect, retain and use personal information where it is essential (and allowed by law) to administer Authority business and to provide products, services and other opportunities requested by our visitors.

We do not sell or rent our visitors' information to any outside company or organization. We do not reveal specific information about visitors or other personally identifiable data to unaffiliated third parties for their independent use, except if required to do so by the Public Records Act (California Government Code Section 6250 et seq.) or other law.

During a visit to the website, we may automatically collect and store the following types of information related to your visit:

  • The Internet Protocol (IP) address and domain name used, but not the e-mail address. The IP address is a numerical identifier assigned either to your internet service provider or directly to your computer. We use the IP address to direct internet traffic to you and generate statistics used in the management of this site;
  • The type of browser and operating system you used;
  • The date and time you visited this site;
  • The web pages or services you accessed at this site; and
  • The website you visited prior to coming to this website.

This information is strictly used for statistical reporting purposes. Please be advised that some software we use to administer our internet site or to provide requested services does use a technology called "cookies". A "cookie" is a tiny element of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then be stored on your hard drive. A cookie cannot read data off a hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. No user information is gathered through cookies except for that needed to run the specific application and it is used for those purposes only. You may set your browser to not allow any cookies to be set on your hard drive or to notify you when you receive a cookie.

Copyrights 

The purpose of the Authority's internet presence is to share information and to improve service to the public. Therefore, we encourage the sharing and dissemination of information found on our site. However, the Open Space Authority does retain copyright on its website design elements, including but not limited to, graphic images, logos, trademarks, photographs and web code.

In instances where there is access to copyrighted materials, users of the Authority's website, must respect all copyrights and may not copy, retrieve, modify or forward copyrighted materials, except where expressly allowed by the copyright law or with expressed written permission from the right owner.