Privacy Policy

1. Scope

This policy applies to county-appraisal-district.org/. It does not apply to the Texas Central Appraisal Districts, the Texas Comptroller PTAD, TDLR, or any other state, federal, or third-party site we link to — those sites have their own privacy practices governed by Texas open-records and applicable laws.

2. Information We Collect

3. Why We Collect It

• Operate the site — load pages, secure forms, remember your cookie preferences
• Understand which guides are useful — aggregate, anonymised analytics
• Respond to you — when you email us a correction, accessibility issue, privacy request, or other inquiry
• Display non-personalised or personalised advertising — depending on your consent
• Detect and prevent abuse — fraud, scraping, attacks
• Comply with law — for example, retaining contact records for response to lawful requests

4. Legal Bases & Applicable Frameworks

For Texas residents, the primary applicable framework is the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA) codified at Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ch. 541. For residents of other U.S. states with comprehensive consumer privacy laws, those state laws apply in addition: California (CCPA/CPRA at Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.100 et seq.), Virginia (VCDPA at Va. Code § 59.1-575), Colorado (CPA at C.R.S. § 6-1-1301), Connecticut (CTDPA at Conn. Gen. Stat. § 42-515), Utah (UCPA at Utah Code § 13-61), Florida (FDBR at Fla. Stat. § 501.701), Oregon (OCPA at ORS Ch. 646A), plus the comparable laws of Iowa, Tennessee, Indiana, Montana, New Jersey, Delaware, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Rhode Island.

We process personal information for the limited purposes set out above, consistent with the controller/processor framework of TDPSA and the parallel frameworks in other state laws.

5. Who We Share With

• Service providers — hosting, CDN/security (Cloudflare), analytics (Google Analytics 4), advertising (Google AdSense), email — all under written contracts that limit them to processing data on our instructions
• Authorities — only when required by law, valid legal process, or to protect rights and safety
• Successors — in a merger, acquisition, or sale of the publication

We do not “sell” personal information for monetary consideration within the meaning of TDPSA, CCPA/CPRA, or any comparable state law. We use Google AdSense, which may be considered “sharing” for cross-context behavioural advertising under some state laws — see Section 6.

6. “Sale” & “Sharing” of Personal Information

We do not sell personal information. Through our advertising partner (Google AdSense), advertising cookies may be set that could constitute “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising under TDPSA, CCPA/CPRA, and similar laws.

You can opt out of this sharing by: (a) sending a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal — we honour it automatically; (b) using the “Cookie settings” link in the footer; (c) emailing us with subject line “Do Not Share” or “Opt out”; (d) using the industry opt-outs at optout.aboutads.info and optout.networkadvertising.org.

7. How Long We Keep Information

8. Your Rights

Depending on your state of residence, you may have the following rights:

• Right to know / access — what personal information we hold about you
• Right to deletion / erasure — request we delete it
• Right to correction / rectification — fix inaccurate information
• Right to data portability — receive your data in a usable format
• Right to opt out of “sale” or “sharing” — including via GPC
• Right to opt out of targeted advertising
• Right to opt out of profiling that produces significant decisions
• Right to non-discrimination for exercising rights
• Right to appeal a denied request (Texas, Virginia, Colorado, and several other states)

9. How to Exercise Your Rights

Email info@county-appraisal-district.org with subject line “Privacy rights request.” Include your state, the right you’re exercising, and enough information to identify you in our limited records (typically the email address you previously used). We will respond within 45 days, with one 45-day extension if reasonably necessary.

Authorised agents. You may use an authorised agent to submit a request. We may verify both your identity and the agent’s authority.

Appeals (Texas, Virginia, Colorado, and several other states). If we deny your request, you may appeal by emailing us with subject line “Privacy rights appeal” within 60 days. We respond within 45 days. If we deny the appeal, in Texas you may complain to the Texas Office of the Attorney General; in other states, to that state’s attorney general or comparable enforcement authority.

10. Children’s Privacy (COPPA)

The site is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have, we delete it. Parents who believe a child has provided information may contact us with subject line “COPPA request.” The federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act is codified at 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506.

11. Security

We use technical and organisational measures appropriate to the limited categories of personal information we process — HTTPS in transit, encryption at rest where applicable, access controls, vendor due diligence, and breach response procedures. No security measure is perfect; we cannot guarantee that personal information will never be exposed by a security incident. We will notify affected users and authorities of breaches as required by applicable law, including under the Texas Identity Theft Enforcement and Protection Act.

12. Changes to This Policy

We update this policy when our practices change or when applicable laws change. The “Last reviewed” date at the top reflects the current version. Material changes are flagged on the site for 30 days.

13. Contact

For any privacy question or rights request: info@county-appraisal-district.org