Thank you for visiting the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) websites and reviewing our privacy notice. This notice addresses information that we may obtain through your use of our websites. The following policies apply to all websites in the pnnl.gov domain.

Information Collected and How It Is Used

When you browse, read pages in, or download information from websites in the pnnl.gov domain, we automatically gather and store certain technical information about your visit. This information never identifies who you are; rather, it includes the following:

• the internet protocol (IP) address from which you access the internet (e.g., 123.456.789.012), whether yours individually or provided as a proxy by your internet service provider
• the browser (e.g., Firefox or Chrome) and operating system (e.g., Windows or Unix) you used to access our site
• the date and time you accessed our site
• the pages on our site that you visited
• the internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site.

We use summary statistics to help us make our site more useful to visitors (e.g., assessing what information is of most and least interest to visitors) and for other technical purposes (e.g., determining the site's technical design specifications and identifying system performance or problem areas).

Collected information is not shared with anyone beyond the support staff for this website and other appropriate staff at PNNL—except when required by cybersecurity, law enforcement investigation, or other authorized legal purpose—and is customarily used only as a source of anonymous statistical information.

Personal Information and Choice

If you choose to provide us with personal information (e.g., you fill out a Contact Us or registration form and submit it to us through our website), that information will be used only to complete the activity for which it was provided, whether it is a one-time event (e.g., returning the results from a web search, forwarding an email message, or registering for a conference) or a recurring event (e.g., providing a subscription service). This information may also be used for the technical support of the website and its computer system or to enhance, evaluate, or otherwise review the website or service. The information may also be used to contact you in response to a request for information.

If you choose to provide us with personal information (e.g., in an email message containing comments or questions), we would only use this information to improve our service or to respond to your request. In some cases, your message may be forwarded, as email, to other employees who may be better able to help you.

Personal information, collected as noted in this privacy notice, is retained to meet the needs of the stated purpose and discarded after at the earliest time possible.

PNNL does not collect information for commercial marketing. Personal information is shared only with employees of PNNL involved in processing data for the completion of the stated purpose, entities for which PNNL is acting as an agent, and/or entities acting as PNNL’s agent (defined as a third party that processes data only for the completion of the stated purpose), except for authorized law enforcement investigations or as otherwise required by law.

Cookies

Websites in the PNNL domain use only nonpersistent (i.e., per-session) cookies to aid users in setting browsing or navigation preferences. These cookies do not collect personal information and are erased as soon as you leave our website.

Nonpersistent cookies serve technical purposes, such as providing seamless navigation through PNNL websites. These cookies do not permanently record data and are not stored on your computer's hard drive. PNNL cookies are stored your system memory and are only available during an active browser session.

Security

The PNNL website is part of a federal computer system used to accomplish federal functions. The Department of Energy monitors this website for security purposes to make sure it remains available to all users and to protect information in the system. By accessing this website, you are expressly consenting to these monitoring activities.

Unauthorized attempts to defeat or circumvent security features, to use the system for other than intended purposes, to deny service to authorized users, to access, obtain, alter, damage, or destroy information, or otherwise to interfere with the system or its operation are prohibited. Evidence of such acts may be disclosed to law enforcement authorities and result in criminal prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (Pub. L. 99-474); the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-294); 18 U.S.C. 1030, Fraud and related activity in connection with computers; and other applicable criminal laws.

Other Policies

For further information about our website policies, including website accessibility (Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act) and linking policies, please see our Important Notices page.