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Privacy & Security

The Defense.gov website is provided as a public service by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.

Information presented on this website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.

If you choose to provide us with personal information -- like filling out a Contact Us form with email 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. Defense.gov never collects information for commercial marketing. While you must provide an email 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.

We maintain a variety of physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your personal information. 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.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration guidelines.

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.

If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please forward them to us using our Contact Us page.

Use of Measurement and Customization Technology:

This website uses measurement and customization technology known as a "cookies." Cookies are used to remember a user's online interactions with a website or online application to conduct measurement and analysis of usage or to customize the user's experience.

Two kinds of cookies are used on this website. 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 multisession 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 website. Use of these cookies does not involve the collection of a visitor's personally identifiable information.

The Defense Department does not use the information associated with cookies to track individual user activity on the internet outside DOD websites, nor does it share the data obtained through such technologies, without the user's explicit consent, with other departments or agencies. DOD does not keep a database of information obtained from the use of cookies.

Cookies are enabled by default to optimize website 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. The USA.gov website, https://www.usa.gov/optout-instructions, provides general instructions on how to opt out of cookies and other commonly used web measurement and customization technologies. Opting out of cookies still permits users to access comparable information and services; however, it may take longer to navigate or interact with the website if a user is required to fill out certain information repeatedly.

Specific Technologies/Vendors:

Tier 1 cookies are used for technical purposes to improve a user experience and to allow users to more easily navigate the website.

Akamai speeds the delivery of content and applications for customers through using automatic, intermediate and temporary information storage to make the onward transmission of that information to other recipients more efficient. Temporary storage processes retain information only as long as is reasonably necessary to transmit the data. Intermediate storage processes retain information only so long as is reasonably necessary for continued transmission, to maintain the security of the network and the data, to monitor and improve website performance and for related administrative purposes. Akamai does not collect, use or disclose personally identifiable consumer information.

Foresee Results software measures user satisfaction and assesses website effectiveness through optional surveys presented to website visitors. The information gathered from these surveys is used to identify and prioritize improvements to functional website elements and content for visitors. Survey users provide ratings and feedback related to a series of questions about website performance, aesthetics, usability, user experience, and so forth; however, users are not required to provide any personal information. Tier 2 cookies are used to remember if the user has already been offered the survey and to ensure that users are prompted only once every 60 days.

Urchin software collects aggregate statistics of website visitor characteristics, traffic, and activity. This information is used to assess what content is of most and least interest, determine technical design specifications, and identify system performance or problem areas. The software records a variety of data, including IP addresses (the locations of computers or networks on the internet), unique visits, page views, hits, referring websites and what hyperlinks have been clicked. Tier 2 cookies are used to distinguish between summary statistics for users who have been to the site before and those that are visiting the site the for the first time. The Defense Department does not gather, request, record, require, collect or track any internet users' personally identifiable information through these processes.

Client side opt-out mechanisms allow the user to opt out of web measurement and customization technologies by changing the settings of a specific application or program on the user's local computer. For example, users may be able to disable persistent cookies by changing the settings on commonly used web browsers. For general instructions on how to opt out of some of the most commonly used web measurements and customization technologies, go to https://www.usa.gov/optout-instructions.

Use of Third-Party Websites and Applications

Third-party websites and applications that are not owned, operated, or controlled by the Defense Department are integral to internet-based operations across DOD and used to augment official communication. These capabilities include, but are not limited to, networking services, media sharing services, wikis and data mashups. A list of DOD's authorized pages and uses of these services is available at https://dod.defense.gov/About/Military-Departments/DOD-Websites/. These sites may collect personally identifiable information and may make it available to the DOD and other users; however, the information is not collected on behalf of, nor is it provided specifically for DOD. DOD does not harvest and additionally collect, maintain, share or otherwise use such personally identifiable information for any purpose other than that for which it is made available to all users.