PRIVACY POLICY

Welcome

Thank you for visiting the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) website and reviewing our privacy policy. This website is provided as a public service and is considered public information, which may be distributed or copied in accordance with applicable law. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.

Privacy Notice

FinCEN's privacy policy is clear: FinCEN respects your privacy. We will collect no personal information about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us.

When you visit our site, for site management purposes, we collect information about your visit on an anonymous, aggregate basis. The information collected includes: the name of the domain from which you accessed the Internet; the Internet address of the web site from which you linked directly to our site; and the date and time you accessed our site. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and FinCEN use this information to monitor site security, measure site activity, and to develop ideas for improving site performance. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits.           

We will not collect information which identifies you (name, email address, Social Security number, or other unique identifiers) when you visit our site, unless you voluntarily choose to provide such information to us in your e-mail or through other means such as an on-line form. In addition, if you are commenting on proposed rulemakings or other regulatory actions, your comment will be available to the general public. Also, if you send us information which identifies you in an electronic message, that information may be forwarded to other Government employees and agencies to more fully respond to your correspondence.            

Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) are performed on computer systems and applications in order to evaluate any risks these systems may pose to personally identifiable information. FinCEN’s PIAs can be accessed via the PIA site: https://www.fincen.gov/privacy-impact-assessments

Google Analytics Collection

When you visit FinCEN.gov, we use Google Analytics, a web measurement service, to collect, combine, and summarize information about your use of the site.  Google Analytics collects and analyzes information regarding your browsing activities using a "cookie" that Google places on your computer.  The Google Analytics software automatically "anonymizes" (i.e., masks the information so it cannot be identified with you) any PII by removing the portion of the Internet Protocol address that could potentially link to your computer or other device to the individual before the information is sent to Google for analysis.  Google does not receive any PII from your visit to FinCEN.gov.  Google automatically receives the anonymized data and immediately combines your data with other FinCEN.gov visitors' data for analysis.  Neither FinCEN.gov nor Google ever have access to information regarding the specifics of your browsing activities on the site.  The cookies expire after you leave FinCEN.gov and they are automatically deleted from your computer.  This use is "Tier 1" according to OMB M-10-22.

If you navigate to FinCEN.gov solely to read or download information, Google Analytics collects and stores only the following information in order to deliver aggregate data to Treasury:

  • The name of your internet domain: (for example, "xcompany.com" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you are connecting from a university's domain);
  • Networking: the full Internet Protocol (IP) address (discussed in more detail below) assigned to the computer or other device (collectively referred to as "device") you used to access the Internet on a particular occasion before you visited FinCEN.gov (as stated above, upon collection, the IP address is automatically "anonymized" (i.e., masked so the information cannot be identified with you) any PII by removing the portion of the Internet Protocol address that could potentially link to your computer or other device to the individual before the information is sent to Google for analysis;
  • Your internet connection speed;
  • Date/Time of Access: the date and time when you accessed FinCEN.gov;
  • Content: the pages you visited and files you downloaded from FinCEN.gov;
  • Referrer: the IP address of a website that may have referred you (i.e., linked you) to FinCEN.gov; and Device/Browser: technical information about the device you used to access FinCEN.gov (e.g., operating system, screen resolution and color, Flash/Java support, and language).

Google Analytics Use

We use information aggregated automatically by Google Analytics to analyze information for statistical purposes and to manage and improve FinCEN.gov content. Google does not maintain PII collected from your computer and the summaries produced by Google do not contain PII.  The summaries contain statistical information that we use to assess what information is of most interest to visitors, to identify system performance or problem areas, and to improve your experience when visiting the site.  For instructions on opting out of cookies, please see Google's Privacy Policy and How to Opt Out of Google Cookies.  Treasury maintains and destroys records consisting of information it collects on FinCEN.gov according to federal records retention policies and National Archives and Records Administration requirements.  For more information on Google's retention practices, please see Google Privacy and Terms.  

If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please forward them to frc@fincen.gov