Privacy Notice

Thank you for visiting the Illinois Department of Natural Resources ("IDNR" or "Department"), web site. This web site collects no personal information about you when you visit our web site unless you voluntarily choose to provide that information to us, for example, by entering information in a voluntary online form, sending us an e-mail, responding to a survey, or choosing to register for a specific service.

Pursuant to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of government, it is declared to be the public policy of the State of Illinois that all persons are entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts and policies of those who represent them as public officials and public employees. The access to this information is not intended to be used to violate individual privacy, nor to further a commercial enterprise, nor to disrupt the duly-undertaken work of any public body independent of the fulfillment of any of rights of the people to access to information.

Information collected and received through the Department web site may become public record and therefore subject to disclosure under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. It is therefore the policy of the Department that no personal information you provide to us, including, but not limited to, your name, address, telephone number, drivers license number, Social Security Number and email address will be sold or rented to any entity or individual or disclose to unauthorized entity or individual. The release of personal information by the Department shall be limited, according to Illinois law, to State of Illinois government agencies and/or to authorized Department contractors or grantees.

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the web site, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. Your web browser software transmits most of this information to us. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

• The numeric IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access the web site;
• The type of browser and operating system used to access the IDNR web site;
• The date and time you access the IDNR web site;
• The pages you visit, including graphics loaded from each page and other documents you download, such as PDF (Portable Document Format) files and word processing documents; and
• If you linked to the web site from another web site, the address of that web site;
• The name of the country in which your server is located.

Your web browser software transmits this information to us, and we use it 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 use. We do not track or record personal information about individuals and their visits.

If you participate in a survey or send us an e-mail during your visit, the following information will be collected:

• The e-mail address and contents of the e-mail; and
• Information volunteered in response to a survey.

The information collected is not limited to text characters and may include audio, video, and graphic information formats you send us. The information is retained in accordance with the State Records Act (5ILCS 160).

We use your e-mail to respond appropriately. This may be to respond to you, to address issues you identify, to further improve our web site, or to forward the e-mail to another agency for appropriate action. Survey information is used only for the purpose designated.

"Personal information" is information about a natural person that is readily identifiable to that specific individual. Personal information includes such things as an individual's name, address, and phone number. A domain name or Internet Protocol address is not considered personal information.

We collect no personal information about you unless you voluntarily participate in an activity that asks for information (i.e. sending an e-mail or participating in a survey). If you choose not to participate in these activities, your choice will in no way effect your ability to use any other feature of the IDNR web site

If personal information is requested on the web site or volunteered by the user, state law and the federal Privacy Act of 1974 may protect it. However, this information is a public record once you provide it, and may be subject to public inspection and copying if not protected by federal or state law.

Users are cautioned that the collection of personal information volunteered by children on-line or by e-mail will be treated the same as information given by an adult, and may be subject to public access.

Illinois laws exist to ensure that government is open and that the public has a right to access appropriate records and information possessed by state government. At the same time, there are exceptions to the public's right to access public records that serve various needs including the privacy of individuals. Exceptions are provided by both state and federal laws. Information collected at this site may become public record and may be subject to inspection and copying by the public, unless covered by such an exemption in law. Exemptions are listed in 5ILCS 140/7.

In the event of a conflict between this Privacy Notice and the Freedom of Information Act or other law governing the disclosure of records, the Freedom of Information Act or other applicable law will control.

You can review any personal information we collect about you. You may recommend changes to your personal information you believe in error by submitting a written request that credibly shows the error. If you believe that your personal information is being used for a purpose other than what was intended when submitted, you may contact us. In all cases, we will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections. See Contact Information section.

We do not use permanent cookies to collect information at this time. We do however use transactional cookies to control security to our applications that require login. Transactional cookies expire after a user logs out and closes their Web browser. Note: A cookie is a file containing unique information a web site can use to track such things as passwords, the date when you last looked at a specific page, or to identify your session at a particular web site. A cookie is often used in commercial sites to identify the items selected for a specific shopping cart application.

The Department of Natural Resources, as developer and manager of this web site, has taken several steps to safeguard the integrity of its communications and computing infrastructure, including but not limited to authentication, monitoring, auditing, and encryption. Security measures have been integrated into the design, implementation and day-to-day practices of the entire IDNR operating environment as part of its continuing commitment to risk management.

This information should not be construed in any way as giving business, legal, or other advice, or warranting as fail proof, the security of information provided via IDNR supported web sites

The State of Illinois analyzes our web site logs to continually improve the value of the materials available on our site. Our web site logs are not personally identifiable.

The Department has links to other websites. These include links to web sites operated by other government agencies, nonprofit organizations and private businesses. When you link to another site, you are no longer on a site covered by this Privacy Notice. When you link to another web site, you are subject to the privacy policy of that new site. All web pages beginning with www.state.il.us/idnr, www.dnr.state.il.us, www.dnr.illinois.gov, www.musuem.state.il.us, and all web pages that end with .idnr.illinois.gov are covered by this privacy policy.

Access to the Department websites is provided subject to the following terms and conditions. Please read these terms carefully as use of these sites constitutes acceptance of all of the following terms and conditions:

The Department is committed to complying fully with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Accordingly, if you are under the age of 13, you are not authorized to provide us with personally identifying information, and we will not use any such information in our database or other data collection activities. We appreciate your cooperation with this federally mandated requirement. Users are cautioned that the collection of personal information volunteered by children on-line or by e-mail will be treated the same as information given by an adult and may be subject to public access.

Neither IDNR nor any of its employees shall be held liable for any improper or incorrect use of the information described and/or contained herein and assumes no responsibility for anyone's use of the information. In no event shall the IDNR web site or its employees be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement or substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this system, even if advised of the possibility of such damage. This disclaimer of liability applies to any damages or injury, including but not limited to those caused by any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus, communication line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, alteration of, or use of record, whether for breach of contract, tortious behavior, negligence or under any other cause of action.

Although the data found using the IDNR access systems has been produced and processed from sources believed to be reliable, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or usefulness of any information. This disclaimer applies to both isolated and aggregate uses of the information. The Department provides this information on an "as is" basis. All warranties of any kind express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, freedom from contamination by computer viruses and non-infringement of proprietary rights are disclaimed. Changes may be periodically made to the information herein; these changes may or may not be incorporated in any new version of the publication. If you have obtained information from any of the Department's web pages from a source other than the Department pages, be aware that electronic data can be altered subsequent to original distribution. Data can also quickly become out of date. It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data associated with a file, and that the originator of the data or information be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, we encourage you to report them to dnr.webmaster@illinois.gov via email.

The Department is a distributor of content sometimes supplied by third parties and users. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including information provided by users, or others, are those of the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and do not necessarily state or reflect those of the Department and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. Reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the Department.

The Department is not responsible for the contents of any off-site pages referenced. The user specifically acknowledges that the Department is not liable for the defamatory, offensive, or illegal conduct of other users, links, or third parties and that the risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with the user. Links from the Department's web pages on the World Wide Web to other sites do not constitute an endorsement from the Department. These links are provided as an information service only. It is the responsibility of the web surfer to evaluate the content and usefulness of information obtained from other sites. The Department's web site contains links to other related World Wide Web Internet sites and resources. Since the Department's web site is not responsible for the availability of these outside resources or their contents, you should direct any concerns regarding any external link to its site administrator or webmaster.

Due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, resources that are free and publicly available one day may require a fee or restricted access the next, and the location of items may change as menus, homepages, and files are reorganized. The user expressly agrees that use of the Department's web site is at the user's sole risk. The Department does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error free. The documents and related graphics published on this server could contain technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically added to the information herein. The Department and/or its respective agencies and programs may make improvements and/or changes in the information and/or programs described herein at any time.

The Department, as developer and manager of this web site, has taken several steps to safeguard the integrity of its communications and computing infrastructure, including but not limited to authentication, monitoring, auditing, and encryption. Security measures have been integrated into the design, implementation and day-to-day practices of the entire Department operating environment as part of its continuing commitment to risk management.

This information should not be construed in any way as giving business, legal, or other advice, or warranting as fail proof, the security of information provided via the Department supported web sites

Construction of the disclaimers above and resolution of disputes thereof are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois. The laws of the State of Illinois, U.S.A., shall apply to all uses of this data and this system. By use of this system and any data contained therein, the user agrees that use shall conform to all applicable laws and regulations and user shall not violate the rights of any third parties.

The Department of Natural Resources can be contacted about any of the information above, at:

dnr.webmaster@illinois.gov​​