Thank you for visiting the National Germplasm Resources Program (NGRP) website. We are happy that you are reviewing our privacy statement. Our privacy policy is simple: We collect NO personal information about you when you visit our web site other than that information which you may voluntarily choose to provide.

Visitor Information Collected and Stored Automatically

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, search our database(s), and/or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store the following information about your visit:

1. The Internet domain and/or IP address from which you access our website. Your Internet domain is your Internet Service Provider (ISP), such as "xcompany.com" for commercial service providers or "yourschool.edu" for university providers. The IP address is a unique identifier assigned to your computer by your ISP whenever you access the Internet.
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access our website.
3. The date and time of your visit to our site.
4. The page(s) you visit.
5. If you linked to an NGRP web page from another website, the address of that website.

We use this information to help us make our site more useful to visitors - to learn about the number of visitors to our site and the types of technology our visitors are using. We do not track or record information about individuals and their visits.

If You Choose To Provide Us Personal Information

If you choose to provide us personal information, whether by e-mail or by filling out a form which you may encounter on one of our pages, we use that information to respond to your message and/or to facilitate our gathering of information to respond to your request. We treat your e-mail the same way we treat letters sent to the NGRP. We are required to maintain many documents under the Presidential Records Act for historical purposes, but we do not collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to you. We will only share information you give us with another Government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency, or as otherwise required by law. Moreover, we do not create individual profiles with the information you provide or give it to any private organizations. The NGRP DOES NOT collect information for commercial marketing.

Links To Other Sites

Our website may have links to external websites. If you follow a link that we provide to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy in force at that new site.

Website Security

For security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this Federal Government computer system employs software tools designed to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, defeat or circumvent security features or to utilize this system for other than its intended purpose. Unauthorized activities are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and/or the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

Comments or Questions
If you have any comments or questions about the information presented here, please forward them to dbmu@ars-grin.gov.

Note: The NGRP privacy policy is based upon the USDA Privacy Policy.

Last updated: 18 September 2000