Purpose

This policy describes privacy practices regarding information collected from the City of Wilson web site. It contains information about what data is collected and how that information is used. This policy may be updated periodically, so please check back from time to time. 

This policy applies only to the official City of Wilson web site. When you follow a link to another web site, even the site of another governmental agency, you are subject to the privacy policy of that site. You should check the privacy policies of each of these sites you visit if you have questions about how they handle personally identifiable information.

Automatic Collection of Certain Information

No personally identifiable information is collected from visitors who simply browse this site or who download information from it. While our web servers maintain logs of user activity to help us manage the web site, information stored in these logs does not directly identify you personally. The logs store things such as the domain name and IP address from which you access our site, the type of browser and operating system you used, the date and time you accessed our site, the pages visited and the address of the site that you linked to us from (if you linked to our web site from another web site).

We use this information to learn how many visitors we have, where they are coming from, which parts of our web site are of most interest to visitors, and other facts that will help us improve the web site and the services we offer.

Credit Card Policies and Online Bill Payment 

The City of Wilson accepts certain payment cards for online payments of water, sewer, electric, and gas utilities through our Online Bill Pay portal that utilizes the payment processing application Click2Gov. Payment card information is transferred directly to the payment service using encryption technology. At no time is payment card information collected through online transactions stored in a City database. Neither credit card information nor other billing information about utility customers is regarded as public information under North Carolina state law.

If You Send Us Personal Information

Visitors who request services through this site may be required to furnish additional information in order for us to provide the service requested. The additional information collected will be no more specific than if the visitor were requesting the service by any other means, including by telephone or an in-person visit to a City facility. If you participate in a survey, send us an email or submit an online form, your email address and the other information you volunteered will be collected. We may share this information with other governmental agencies or organizations to provide the help you are requesting. We may also use that information to help assess user needs and analyze trends. Certain types of personal information constitute public records, which means that we must provide it to persons making public records requests. However, this does not include the account numbers you use for electronic payment, public enterprise billing information and certain other types of protected information.

If you use this web site for electronic commerce, we may collect, process and disclose your name, address and payment information (if applicable) to the extent necessary to complete the online transaction and for record-keeping activities as billing, permits and licenses.

The City does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. The City of Wilson may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your unique personally identifiable information is not transferred to the third party. In addition, the City may share data with trusted partners to help us perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, arrange for deliveries, etc. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these services to the City, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

Privacy of Email Lists

The City of Wilson may maintain email lists, but only of those individuals or organizations that have specifically opted to receive updates and other information from the City. These lists include members of the media and interested members of the general public who have specifically requested to be kept informed about the City affairs.

Under North Carolina General Statutes §132-1.13 electronic lists of subscribers to local government notification services are open for public inspection but not available for copying. Members of the public, including the media, may hand-copy addresses from a subscriber list, but local governments are not required to provide the list in printed or electronic format.  The City of Wilson has chosen not to provide these lists in printed or electronic format to any requestors, but must allow inspection as required by law. This law applies to all local governments in North Carolina.

Length of Time Data Will Be Stored / How to Unsubscribe

Unless you request that we delete any of the information you submitted when you registered for any electronic updates and/or newsletters we may offer, we may store such information indefinitely. You can "unsubscribe" to any newsletters, notices, schedules, etc., sent to you automatically by email in one of the following ways: 

• Each email sent to you provides an automatic way to unsubscribe to a mailing list;
• You can unsubscribe on the same web page that you used to subscribe; or
• You can unsubscribe by accessing the user profile you created when you initially subscribed

Security

Some information that you submit to us through this web site may be protected by encryption technology, whereas other information may not. Unless a particular web page on this site indicates that encryption technology is being used, you should not assume that information you submit through that web page will be secure. If you submit information to our server through a web page containing visible indicators of active encryption technology, we will take reasonable precautions to safeguard the confidentiality of such information. However, no web site can protect itself against all eventualities. City of Wilson will not be held liable for any injury caused by the disclosure of your information, whether by security breach, accident, inadvertence, or any other act resulting in disclosure.

Use of Cookies

Cookies or other technology may transfer information from this web site to your hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Cookies or similar technology can make the Internet more useful by storing information about your preferences on a particular site. The use of cookies or similar technology is an industry standard, and this web site, like many other web sites, uses them to provide useful features for our users. Cookies in and of themselves do not personally identify you, although they do identify your computer. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. If you prefer, you can set your browser to refuse cookies. However, you may not be able to take full advantage of this web site if you do so.

Public Records

City of Wilson is governed by the North Carolina public records laws. This means that the information we receive online might be disclosed to any person making a public records request. Certain types of information (such as public enterprise billing information, social security numbers, and the account numbers you use for electronic payment) are exempt from disclosure as public records. If you have questions about the North Carolina public records laws, refer to N.C. G.S.§132.1 et. seq. For purposes of determining whether information is a public record, information sent to us through this web site is treated the same as information sent to us by mail or delivered to us in person.

Children

No applications on this web site specifically solicit information from minors or seek to determine whether the visitor is a minor. Consequently, visitors should be aware that the collection of personal information requested from or volunteered by children online or by email will be treated in the same manner as information given by an adult. Among other things, this means that it may become a public record and therefore may be subject to public access. We ask that parents guide their children when children are asked to provide personal information online. We ask that children get their parents' permission before providing any information to us.

Advertising Policy

This website uses 3rd party advertising platforms like Google AdWords, Facebook and Google Adwords Remarketing service to advertise on third party websites (including but not limited to Google, YouTube and Search Network Partners) to visitors who have viewed our website. This could be in the form of an advertisement on the Google search results page, or a site in the Google Display Network.

Third-party vendors, including Google and Facebook, use cookies to serve ads based on the history of visitors to our website. Visitor information collected is not personally identifiable and will be used in accordance with our own privacy policy and Google's privacy policy. You can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Preferences page.

Social Media

The City of Wilson uses social media to interact with residents, businesses and visitors about public issues. Please submit your questions, comments and concerns. Please note this is a moderated online discussion site and subject to North Carolina Public Records Laws, and e-discovery laws and policies.

The City reserves the right to delete unacceptable submissions. The following are examples of unacceptable social networking content and comments. The list is not intended to be all-inclusive.

Examples are: profane or obscene language or content; content that promotes, fosters, or perpetrates discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, age, religion, gender, marital status with regard to public assistance, national origin, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation; solicitations of commerce; infringement on copyrights or trademarks; and, confidential or non-public information.

Please note that the opinions and comments expressed on this social media site do not reflect the opinions and positions of the City of Wilson government, its officers or employees. If you have any questions concerning the online moderated discussions, please contact the City of Wilson’s Communications and Marketing Department directly at (252) 399-2311.

Opting Out

While accessing our site, you may decline participation in any activity that asks for information (i.e. survey, subscription, or email). Your choice not to participate will in no way affect your ability to use any other feature on our site.