For site management, usage information is collected for statistical purposes. The State Department website uses software programs to create summary statistics for such purposes as assessing what information is of most and least interest or identifying system performance or problem areas. The following is the type of information collected about your visit to the web site: the name of the Internet domain from which you access State Department websites and the date and time that you access the site. If you choose to provide us with personal information in an email message, we use it only to respond to your email.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, the State Department uses software programs to 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 subject to prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and Title 18 U.S.C. Sec.1001 and 1030.

Except for the above purposes, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits.