The City of South Bend and its subsidiaries are committed to respecting and protecting your privacy. The Web site is structured so that you can visit the City of South Bend on the Web without identifying yourself or revealing any personal information.
Once you choose to provide personally identifiable information (any information by which you can be identified), you can be assured that it will only be used for the intended purposes.
This statement regarding the privacy of the personally identifiable information you provide online covers the four foundation principles of fair information: Awareness, Access, Security, and Oversight.
Awareness
The City of South Bend provides this Online Privacy Statement to make you aware of the privacy policy, practices and of the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. To make this notice easy to find, it is available in the footer on most of the pages.
What information is collected?
On some City of South Bend pages, you can submit personal information through forms or via e-mail links. The types of personal information collected at these pages are name, home address, e-mail address and/or telephone.
In order to tailor subsequent communications to you and continuously improve services, you may also be asked you to provide information regarding your personal or professional interests, demographics, experience with city services and more detailed contact preferences.
Cookies & Google Analytics
Cookies are locally stored tracking information used to identify users as new or returning. Cookies are not required for site functionality and you are not required to accept any cookies in order to use this website. This website uses Google Analytics to collect information to improve the site. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect the user’s IP address, as well as information on users age, gender, and general interests. We do not collect any personally identifiable information, such as name or phone number, through Google Analytics. We use this information to drive continuous improvements to the website by tailoring information and design to our users.
You can opt out of Google Analytics here.
Microsoft Clarity
In addition to Google Analytics, the City of South Bend uses Microsoft Clarity to better understand how visitors use our website. Clarity provides anonymized behavioral metrics such as clicks, scrolls, and general interactions to help us improve website usability and accessibility. Website usage data is collected through cookies and other tracking technologies and does not include personally identifiable information. By using our website, you consent to this data collection and use by the City of South Bend and Microsoft. For more information on how Microsoft collects and uses this data.
Visit the Microsoft Privacy Statement here.
How will this information be used?
The City of South Bend uses your information to better understand your needs and provide you with better service. Specifically, your information is used to communicate back to you, to update you on services and benefits and personalize the City Web site for you.
Will this information be shared?
The City of South Bend will not sell, rent or lease your personally identifiable information to others. Unless required by law, the city will only share the personal data you provide online with other City of South Bend entities and/or business partners who are acting on behalf of the city for the uses described in “How will this information be used?”. Such entities and/or business partners are governed by privacy policies with respect to the use of this data and are bound by the appropriate confidentiality agreements. The information collected or submitted may be subject to the Indiana Public Records Act. We will not share your information unless required by law.
Access
Links to third party Web sites on the site are provided solely as a convenience to you. If you use these links, you will leave the the City of South Bend site. The City of South Bend has not reviewed all of these third party sites and does not control or is not responsible for any of these sites, their content or their privacy policy. Thus, the City of South Bend does not endorse or make any representations about them, or any information, software or products or materials found there. If you decide to access any of the third party sites linked to this site, you do so at your own risk.
Security
The City of South Bend is committed to ensuring the security of your information. To prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, maintain data accuracy and ensure the appropriate use of information, appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures have been put into place to safeguard and secure the information collected online.
Furthermore, this site takes reasonable measures to maintain the confidentiality of all personal information collected. Additionally, it takes similar measures to protect email addresses that you provide through the website.
Oversight
If you have comments or questions about our privacy policy, please e-mail the site’s administrator.