Privacy policy

Welcome to the HandholdMA.org website. Your privacy is one of our top priorities. The following policy applies only to the use of HandholdMA.org and all its subdomains. As you navigate HandholdMA.org, you will see links that, when clicked, will take you to other websites operated by state agencies (the “Other Commonwealth Websites”) or to other websites external to Massachusetts state government. The Other Commonwealth Websites have individual privacy policies tailored to the interactions available through each site. You may also see links that will take you to websites external to Massachusetts state government. The DMH does not control such websites and is not responsible for the content and operation of such sites. Links to other websites are provided solely as a courtesy and references in the links are not sponsored by the DMH.

A privacy partnership

Your privacy with respect to the use of HandholdMA.org results from a partnership between Handhold and you, the user. At HandholdMA.org, we attempt to protect your privacy to the maximum extent possible. However, because some of the information that we receive through this site 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 HandholdMA.org 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 HandholdMA.org, what we do with it, to whom it may be disseminated, and how you can access it. Based on this information, you can make an informed decision about your use of HandholdMA.org. You can maximize the benefits of your privacy partnership by making informed decisions about whether to share personally identifiable information with us through HandholdMA.org.

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, telephone number, email 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

HandholdMA.org may obtain voluntary information from you through surveys, online forms, any emails sent to HandholdMA.org and comments posted on pages hosted by HandholdMA.org (such as blogs or wikis). All such information, including comments and emails sent by you to HandholdMA.org may contain personally identifiable information.

While HandholdMA.org is intended as a medium for disseminating information from state agencies, non-profit organizations, and private businesses, if you need to contact any entity that is referenced by HandholdMA.org, you should use the contact information for that entity posted on its website.

Information automatically collected and stored by HandholdMA.org

HandholdMA.org employs the use of "Persistent Cookies." The purpose of these Persistent Cookies is to collect and aggregate data regarding HandholdMA.org’s visitor activity in order for us or our service providers to continuously evaluate and improve its website services, including on HandholdMA.org. You may elect to disable the Persistent Cookies. Please be advised that disabling the Persistent Cookies may affect your ability to view or interact with HandholdMA.org.

HandholdMA.org does collect and store your “Internet Protocol (“IP”) address,” (which does not identify you as an individual) indefinitely, 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 HandholdMA.org. We use your IP address to assess the frequency of visits to HandholdMA.org 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. The one exception is that when you fill out information in a form on HandholdMA.org, we do receive your IP address along with this submission. We do not use this form-related IP address information unless it may be relevant and material to a criminal investigation.

Usage data and known persistent cookies

HandholdMA.org uses (or may use) the following tools (each a “Tool” and collectively, the “Tools”):

Tool name: Squarespace

Purpose: This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit The cookies Squarespace uses.

Privacy Policy: https://www.squarespace.com/privacy

Terms of Use: https://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service

Express opt out: You may disable the collection and use of your data through browser-, operating system- or device-level settings.

Additional general information related to tools

We use the information we get from the Tools only to improve the Offerings. The Tools may also collect data such as browser information, operating system, and page views through the implementation of session cookies or persistent cookies. Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy (e.g., possibly in response to a public records request), we do not combine the information collected through the use of any Tool with personally identifiable information. Although each of the Tools plants a persistent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit HandholdMA.org, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but and/or the software publisher of the respective Tool (the “Software Publisher”). The Software Publisher’s ability to use and share information collected by the Software Publisher about your visits to HandholdMA.org is restricted by the Software Publisher’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, links to which have been provided above. You may prevent the Tools from using persistent cookies by disabling cookies on your browser. Some of the Tools permit you to opt-out of the Tool by allowing that Tool to plant a persistent cookie on your web browser indicating that you have opted out. If you disable cookies on your browser or use a different browser, different computer, different user account, etc., you will need to opt-out again. If you allow persistent cookies in your web browser, Software Publishers have the technical ability to track your activity, even if you change your IP address, so long as you are using the web browser where the persistent cookie was planted. You should refer to the Software Publisher’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use to determine whether they do, in fact, track you via the persistent cookie.

Website Hosting with Squarespace

We use Squarespace to host HandholdMA.org. Our website collects personal data to power our site analytics, including:

  • Information about your browser, network, and device

  • Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website

  • Your IP address

This information may also include details about your use of this website, including:

  • Clicks

  • Internal links

  • Pages visited

  • Scrolling

  • Searches

  • Timestamps

We share this information with Squarespace, our website analytics provider, to learn about site traffic and activity. The information and content of our website are stored on Squarespace cloud infrastructure, which you can learn more about here. 

Dissemination of your personally identifiable information

We do not sell any personally identifiable information collected through HandholdMA.org or submitted to the Commonwealth in conjunction with using functions on HandholdMA.org, and there is no direct or online public access to the information. However, once you voluntarily submit personally identifiable information to us related to your use of HandholdMA.org, its dissemination is governed by the “Public Records Law,” the “Fair Information Practices Act” (Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66A), Executive Order 504, and other applicable laws and regulations. For this reason, part or all of the information you send us may be provided to a member of the public in response to a public records request. There are pieces of information, such as credit card numbers, TIN, username, or password that are not considered public for the purposes of a public records request. For more information on types of data exempted from disclosure under the Public Records Law, please read the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Public Records Law.

In addition, the information that you voluntarily submit will be disclosed only to Commonwealth employees or officials, or those under contract with the Commonwealth, with a “need to know” for purposes of fulfilling their job responsibilities. The information will be used for such purposes as; answering your questions, responding to any requests for assistance, generating summary statistics about usage, auditing applications and detecting fraud, aiding in the planning, design and development of HandholdMA.org, and fulfilling the Commonwealth's legal obligations.

We will collect and aggregate the information you provide through surveys and through HandholdMA.org’s collection of non-personally identifying analytics data for purposes of market research to improve the Offerings by making them more responsive to customer needs. Where appropriate, we may provide the information you submitted voluntarily through an email 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.

Your access and opportunity to correct

The “Public Records Law” and the “Fair Information Practices Act” provide you certain rights to get information about you that is in our records. To learn more about the circumstances under which you can get and correct this information, please click on the above references to these laws.

Security

Because information sent to the Commonwealth is not encrypted, you should not send messages containing information that you consider highly sensitive to HandholdMA.org. We use standard security measures to ensure that information provided by you, including your personally identifiable information, is not lost, misused, altered, or unintentionally destroyed. We also use software to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits.

Policy changes

We will post substantive changes to this policy at least one business day 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.

Contact Information

For questions about your privacy while using HandholdMA.org, please use the feedback form found here.

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.

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.

 Last updated 9/18/20