Our policy discloses the privacy practices for the Financial Partners Portal. But this site provides links to other web sites. When you leave the Financial Partners Portal  to visit a non-governmental (.gov) site, a page will appear saying you are leaving our server. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy and security policies of the new site. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any site you link to from ours, especially if you share any personal information. Be informed. You are the person best qualified to protect your own privacy.

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, or download information, our website's operating system will automatically record some general information about your visit.

During your visit, our web operating system will record:

1. The Internet domain for your Internet service, such as "xcompany.com" or "xcompany.net" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a college or university domain.
2. The type of browser (such as "Netscape version X" or "Internet Explorer version X") that you are using.
3. The type of operating system that you use (such as Macintosh, Unix, or Windows).
4. The date and time you visit our site, and the web pages that you visit on our site.
5. The address of the previous website you were visiting, if you linked to us from another website.

We use this information for statistical analysis, to help us make our site more useful to visitors. This tracking system does not record information about individual visitors.

For security purposes and to make sure this service remains available to all users, we use special software programs for monitoring network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise to cause damage to this government computer system. These programs collect no personally identifiable information, but they do collect information that could help us identify someone attempting to tamper with this website.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, we make no other attempts to identify individual users or their usage habits. We only use raw monitoring data logs for determining trends in usage patterns and in diagnosing system problems.

If you decide to send us an electronic mail message (e-mail), the message will usually contain your return e-mail address. If you include personally-identifying information in your e-mail because you want us to help you with a specific problem, we may use that information in contacting other federal agencies or our partners (such as colleges, lenders, or state agencies) about your student aid. In other limited circumstances, including requests from Congress or limited other parties, we may be required by law to disclose information that you submit.

Also, e-mail is not necessarily secure against interception. If your communication is very sensitive, or includes personal information such as data from your tax return or student loan account, you may prefer to send it by postal mail to:

Office of Federal Student Aid
P.O. Box 84
Washington, DC 20044-0084

On some of our web pages, we offer interactive forms that allow you to estimate your college expenses or loan repayments. We do not collect and store this information, nor can we identify who is filling out the form.

On those web pages where we collect and store information that you submit, such as FAFSA on the web, we will provide a privacy warning before you begin submitting personal information.

Review the System of Records notices which list the authorized disclosures and the safeguards for Office of Federal Student Aid systems under the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended.