Terms of use and privacy policy
Understand how we expect you to appropriately use our website. You can also learn how we protect user privacy, link externally without endorsements, and share factual information throughout our website.
Terms of use
By visiting our website, you agree that you won’t use it for any unlawful activity or in any way that would violate the following terms and conditions.
This website follows the laws of Washington state. Any use of the website must follow all City of SeaTac, King County, Washington state, and federal laws and regulations.
Linking to other websites
We link to other websites to help users find information that relates to our city.
Because we cannot control those sites, we aren’t responsible for their content. Our city does not endorse the content on any other website we link to.
Use of communication forums
Our website has or will have places where users can communicate with each other. By participating in any of these, you agree to send and receive messages that are both proper and that relate to the discussion topic. You may not:
- Defame, harass, threaten, or otherwise violate the legal rights of others, including their privacy
- Misrepresent someone's person, background, or character
- Post any defamatory, infringing, obscene, false, or unlawful material
- Sell, advertise, or exchange any goods or services unless we allow this
- Post any copyrighted material that a third party owns
Also, you agree to use any of our discussion areas at your own risk. While we promote the proper use of these discussion areas, we cannot guarantee that violations of the above rules won’t happen.
Privacy policy
Types of information we collect and what we do with it
Like most websites, we may collect two types of information: anonymous information and personally identifiable information.
Anonymous information is data that can’t be linked to specific individuals. We collect information like user hits, visits, and sessions, but only save information about a user’s service provider. This information helps us create a better overall experience for website users.
We use statistics to create website traffic reports, which help us understand, prepare for, and respond to user behavior. If we learn, for example, that there’s a high interest in domestic violence resources, we’re likely to highlight that information on our homepage.
Cookies are another type of anonymous information. A website cookie is a small text file that a web server (such as ours) places on a user’s computer. When accessing a cookie, a web server reads a number associated with a browser but can’t determine any data about a user. The server can’t do anything else with a cookie, harmful or otherwise. With that number, a web server can customize its information to the needs of the specific browser. We rarely use cookies.
Personally identifiable information is data about specific individuals who have provided information on some of our webpages. Data could include names, physical addresses, email addresses, credit card numbers, etc. Providing that information to us is purely voluntary, and we use it to serve you better. For example, when you fill in our comment form and give us your email address, we can respond to your question personally.
We only use personally identifiable information on a need-to-know basis. We won’t make it accessible to employees who don’t have permission to see it at any time.
Who collects information
We collect anonymous and personal information, and may occasionally contract with partners who collect information on our behalf. We and our partners will always follow the privacy policy you’re reading now.
How we protect information
We and partner web servers use advanced security that prevents anyone from stealing or improperly using personal information. If you submit a credit card number, secure server software (SSL) will protect that information SSLs encrypt all information before securely sending it over the internet.
When we can and can’t share information
Unless you consent, we won’t sell, lease, or give away personally identifiable information to other governments, organizations, or private businesses within the limits of the law.
It’s important to know the law, as state and federal laws create special requirements for public entities such as our city to guarantee the public’s right to access public records and information. Unlike private information, public information involves information about an activity that is regulated. For example, if you buy a birth certificate online, the person’s name and birthdate is public information (because the state regulates births). However, the fact that you bought it with a credit card isn’t public information (because payment methods aren’t regulated).
Public information includes communication with us, including emails and website comments about our processes, policies, activities, and other types of communications. However, certain subjects are exempt under the state's public disclosure act, including employee benefit questions, welfare information, and other client-specific data.
For details, see:
We have the right to release private information in rare cases that we believe are emergencies. For example, if we received information from somebody considering suicide in a neighboring city, we might contact that city’s officials to help that person.
Outside of legal requirements and extreme emergencies, we won’t release personal information on our website without that user’s consent.