Privacy Policy

Welcome to the PRIM Board’s website. Your privacy is one of our top priorities. The following policy applies only to the use of the PRIM Board’s website. Other websites operated by state agencies may have different policies. We strongly suggest that you read the privacy policies for each Commonwealth website that you visit.

A Privacy Partnership
Your privacy with respect to the use of this website results from a partnership between the Commonwealth and you, the user. At this website, we attempt to protect your privacy to the maximum extent possible. However, because some of the information that we receive through this website is subject to the Public Records Law, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66, Section 10, we cannot ensure absolute privacy. Information that you provide to us through this site may be made available to members of the public under that law. This policy informs you of the information that we collect from you at this site, what we do with it, to whom it may be disseminated, and how you can access it. This information will enable you to make an informed choice about your use of this site. You can maximize the benefits of your privacy partnership with the Commonwealth by making informed choices about whether to share personally identifiable information with us through this site.

Personally Identifiable Information
We use the term “personally identifiable information” to mean any information that could reasonably be used to identify you, including your name, address, e-mail address, Social Security number, birth date, bank account information, credit card information, or any combination of information that could be used to identify you.

Information Voluntarily Provided by You
No personal identifying information, such as your name, address, or phone number, is recorded during your visit to this website unless you voluntarily choose to provide such information. This site collects voluntary information from you only through the forms posted at this website and any e-mails you choose to send to the PRIM Board address. The forms and e-mails will contain personally identifiable information. But such information collected is limited and does not include your Social Security Number or birth date.

Information Automatically Collected and Stored by this Site
This site does not collect “persistent cookies”, but does use server side “session cookies” that close when the session ends. This site does collect and store indefinitely your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, (which does not identify you as an individual), as well as information about the date and time of your visit, whether a file you have requested exists, and how many “bytes” of information were transmitted to you over the Web from this site. We use your IP address to assess the frequency of visits to this site and the popularity of its various pages and functions. We will not attempt to match any personally identifiable information that you provide to us with your IP address, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that doing so would provide information that is relevant and material to a criminal investigation.

Dissemination of Your Personally Identifiable Information
We do not sell any personally identifiable information collected through this website. However, once you voluntarily submit personally identifiable information to us through an e-mail or a form, its dissemination is governed by the Public Records Law, the Fair Information Practices Act (Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66A), and other applicable laws and regulations. For this reason, part or all of the information that you send to us may be provided to a member of the public in response to a public records request.

In addition, the information that you voluntarily submit will be disclosed only to our employees or officials with a “need to know” for purposes of fulfilling their job responsibilities. We retain information that we collect under some of our programs for an indefinite period to help us serve you with notifications of our newer programs and future events. We will only use the information to answer your questions, respond to any requests for assistance, and fulfill the Commonwealth’s legal obligations. Where appropriate, we may provide the information submitted by you to the person or company that is the subject of your inquiry, or to a government agency responsible for the matters referred to in your communication.

Links
This site contains some links to other sites not owned or controlled by the PRIM Board that we think might be useful or of interest to you for your information and convenience. The PRIM Board has no control over the privacy practices or the content of such other websites. Please review the privacy information provided by these sites and use informed judgment when using them. The responsibility for the content and accuracy of information on sites accessed by linking from our website rests with the entities providing the information. This includes any responsibility for updating information upon which visitors may rely.

The inclusion of links from this site to other sites does not imply any endorsement by the PRIM Board of any product, service or vendor. Any mention of products, services or vendors is for informational purposes only.

Policy Changes
The information contained within this privacy policy may expand or change over time without notice. Please check back periodically for updates. We will post changes to this policy at least 30 days before they take effect. Any information we collect under the current privacy policy will remain subject to the terms of this policy. After any changes take effect, all new information we collect, if any, will be subject to the new policy.

For questions about your privacy while using this website, please contact the webmaster: webmaster@mapension.com

Definitions
Cookies are files that a website can place on your computer. A cookie file contains unique information that a website can use to track such things as your password, lists of web pages you have visited, and the date when you last looked at a specific web page, or to identify your session at a particular website. A cookie file allows the website to recognize you as you click through pages on the site and when you later revisit the site. A website can use cookies to “remember” your preferences, and to record your browsing behavior on the Web. Although you can prevent websites from placing cookies on your computer by using your browser’s preference menu, disabling cookies may affect your ability to view or interact with some websites.

Session cookies are used to store state information in RAM only within a session. These cookies cease to exist after the pre-set-time-out period ( usually 20 minutes) or when the browser is closed. Session cookies are used by Active Server Page (ASP) applications unless you have explicitly disabled session state in your application.

Persistent cookies are stored on the user’s hard drive for a length of time that is set by the Web server when it passes the cookie to the browser. These cookies are used to store information between visits to a site.

An “Internet Protocol Address” or “IP Address” is a series of numbers that identifies each computer and machine connected to the Internet. An IP address enables a server on a computer network to send you the file that you have requested on the Internet. The IP address disclosed to us may identify the computer from which you are accessing the Internet, or a server owned by your Internet Service Provider. Because it is machine-specific, rather than person-specific, an IP address is not, in and of itself, personally identifiable information.