This policy addresses collection, use, and security of, and access to information that may be obtained through use of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center’s (CAIC) website.
CAIC fully supports the protection of individual privacy and minimizes the collection of personally identifiable information to the least amount of information required to accomplish CAIC’s mission.
This notice covers the following topics: personal information, the Colorado Open Records Act, and cookies.
Collection and use of personally identifiable information
“Personal Information” or “Personally Identifiable Information” is information about a natural person that is readily identifiable to that specific individual. Personally Identifiable Information includes such things as an individual’s name, address, phone number, or email address.
Personally Identifiable Information on casual visitors is not collected and retained. Visitors do not have to provide personal information to visit the CAIC website to read, download or print information.
We collect no Personally Identifiable Information about you unless you voluntarily participate in an activity or transaction that asks for information, such as submitting an observation or contacting us through the website. If you choose not to participate in these activities, your choice will not affect your ability to use other features of our web site.
We may collect some non-Personally Identifiable Information about your visit to our website. This information may include, but is not limited to:
- The Internet Protocol Address and domain name used but not the email address. The Internet Protocol Address is a numerical identifier assigned either to your Internet Service Provider or directly to your computer. We use the Internet Protocol Address to direct Internet traffic to you.
- The type of browser you used.
- The date and time that you visited this site.
- The web pages or services you accessed at this site.
The information we collect or store is used to improve the content of our Web services and to help us understand how people are using our services. If during your visit to our site you send an email to us, the following information will be collected.
- The email address you enter; and
- The contents of the email.
We use your email to respond appropriately. This may be to respond to you, to address issues you identify, to further improve our website, or to forward the email to another agency for appropriate action.
Public Records
The Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) is applicable to this Privacy Policy and presumes that most state records are disclosable to the public. Information submitted to the CAIC is presumed to be a public record subject to disclosure under CORA. Pursuant to the Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 24, Article 72, Part 2: “It is declared to be the public policy of this state that all public records shall be open for inspection by any person at reasonable times, except as provided in this part 2 or as otherwise specifically provided by law.” A public record is defined here as “all writings made, maintained, or kept by the state, any agency, institution, a nonprofit corporation incorporated pursuant to section 23-5-121 (2), C.R.S., or political subdivision of the state, or that are described in section 29-1-902, C.R.S., and held by any local-government-financed entity for use in the exercise of functions required or authorized by law or administrative rule or involving the receipt or expenditure of public funds.”
Information contained in many kinds of documents filed with CAIC is electronically stored and may be made accessible to the public through the CAIC website.
If personal information is requested on the website or is volunteered by the user, state and federal law may protect that information. However, all information becomes a public record once it is provided and may be subject to public inspection and copying if not protected by federal or state law.
Users are cautioned that the collection of personal information requested from or volunteered by children on-line or by email will be treated the same as information given by an adult and may be subject to public access.
Cookies
To better serve our users we may use “cookies” to customize your browsing experience with us. Cookies are simple text files stored on your computer by your web browser. They provide a method of distinguishing among visitors to our web site.
Cookies created on your computer by using this web site do not contain Personally Identifying Information and do not compromise your privacy or security. We use the cookie feature only to store a randomly generated identifying tag on your computer. You can refuse the cookie or delete the cookie file from your computer by using any of the widely available methods. Our services are provided in such a way that the use of cookies is not mandatory.