Privacy and Legal Notices

Privacy Notices

1. Personal Information We May Ask For and Its Uses
2. Personal Information Collected From Children
3. Information Automatically Gathered When You Visit Our Site
4. Our Legal Authority to Ask For Personal Information
5. To Whom We May Release Information
6. No Unsolicited Information Unless You Otherwise Request
7. Information Collected From E-mails and Online Forms.
8. Required Notice Relating to Our Online Forms
9. Cautionary Note About Sending Unencrypted Personal Information Over the Internet

Legal Notices

1. Notice of System Monitoring
2. Prohibition Against Misuse of Treasury Names, Terms, Symbols, Stationery, Etc.
3. Disclaimer of Liability
4. Disclaimer of Endorsement
5. Jurisdictional Issues and Applicable Law
6. Regulations Governing Electronic Transactions

Privacy Notices

Your privacy is of the highest concern to us at the Bureau of the Public Debt. In fact, since 1946, long before the passage of the Privacy Act of 1974, we've protected the privacy of our investors by regulation. Our concern for your privacy is no different in the electronic age. To help protect your privacy, our site often uses data encryption--the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol--to protect certain sensitive web pages. If a web page has an address that begins with "https://" rather than "http://" then the page uses encryption.

1. Personal Information We May Ask For and Its Uses. We generally don't require you to provide any personal information in order to access this web site. In some instances, we'll ask for personal information such as your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, or Social Security number. We may also ask that you provide us your securities account numbers or bond numbers. We use personal information to enable us to issue securities, process transactions, make payments, identify owners and their accounts, and provide required reports to the Internal Revenue Service. We also use this information to give you access to your confidential information and to send you e-mail.

2. Personal Information Collected From Children. We respect the privacy of children, and do not collect any more personal information than reasonably necessary to enable them to participate in the activities we offer at our Web site.

With respect to our online information collection practices, from children under 13 years of age, on the kids' portion of our web site:

We advise children to check with their parents before sending e-mails. Please note that parents may consent to the above collection and use without necessarily consenting to the disclosure of personal information to third parties.

We do not have any agreements with outside organizations to collect personal information at our site. Nor do we share children's personal information with anyone other than those who provide support for the internal operations of the Web site and our agents (e.g., contractors who provide fulfillment services or technical support to the web itself). All third parties with whom we share information have agreed to maintain security and integrity of personal information.

Parents can ask about what information we have collected from their children online, prevent the further use or maintenance of such information or direct the deletion of their children's personal information by:

Calling us at the following telephone number: (304) 480-7230;

E-mailing us at the following address: [email protected]; or

Writing to us at the following address:

3. Information Automatically Gathered When You Visit Our Site. For site security purposes as well as to improve our site, we use software that can monitor network traffic and identify unauthorized attempts to cause damage or upload or change information. Like most web sites, when a page is requested we can obtain some information about the request, such as the type of browser used and the last site visited by the browser. We use this information for statistical purposes to make our site more useful to visitors. Some parts of our site use "cookies," which are very small files placed on your hard drive by a web site. We use cookies to let us know whether you (or at least your computer) have been to our site before, which helps us personalize our service to you. However, we make no attempts to identify individual users or their usage habits, except in cases of authorized investigations by law enforcement agencies.

4. Our Legal Authority To Ask For Personal Information. Our authority to ask for personal information generally comes from 31 U.S.C. chapter 31 and 44 U.S.C. � 3101. We ask for personal information for the purpose of conducting securities transactions. If we request you to disclosure your Social Security number, we do by authority of 26 U.S.C. � 6109, which requires us to include this information on certain documents that we must send to the Internal Revenue Service. A request for you to disclose your personal information also is authorized under 31 U.S.C. � 7701, for the purpose of reporting and collecting amounts that may be owed to the United States. Furnishing personal information is voluntary; however, without the information we may be unable to act upon your requests.

5. To Whom We May Release Information. We can disclose information only as authorized by law. We may disclose information to:

our agents and contractors for purpose of administering the public debt or for analysis related to marketing purposes;
owners or persons entitled to transfer, exchange, distribution of payment of securities, including next-of-kin, guardians, representatives, and successors-in-interest upon death or incapacitation, for the purpose of assuring equitable disposition of principal and interest;
Federal agencies, including through computer matching agreements, for the purposes of collecting taxes or debts, of determining eligibility for Federal benefits, and finding persons with whom we've lost contact to inform them they should contact us for information on returned payments or unredeemed, matured securities;
Federal, State, and local agencies for the purposes of investigations or prosecutions;
consumer reporting agencies for the purpose of obtaining credit reports;
debt collection agencies for the purpose of debt collection;
trustees in bankruptcy and receivers of insolvents' estates for the purpose of carrying out their duties;
the Department of Justice and courts, magistrates, administrative tribunals, opposing counsel, witnesses or in response to a subpoena, for discovery, litigation, and settlement purposes; and
in response to a Congressional inquiry for the purpose of fulfilling a request made by the individual about whom a record pertains.

6. No Unsolicited Information Unless You Otherwise Request. We won't use your personal information to send you unsolicited information without telling you before asking for the personal information or unless you ask us to do so, such as by asking to be placed on an e-mail list.

7. Information Collected from E-Mails and Online Forms. When you contact us electronically, either by e-mail or by filling out an online form, you need to know that the information you provide may be reviewed by various people. If you have a question, for example, the information you provide may be forwarded to more than one office until we find the right person to answer your question. We may also share internally your answers to our questions so that we may serve you better.

8. Required Notice Relating To Our Online Forms. We estimate that it'll take you no more than 30 minutes to fill out any form on this site, though most will take only a few minutes. This includes the time it will take to read any instructions, gather the necessary facts and fill out the form. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it contains a currently valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control number. If you have comments or suggestions regarding the above estimate or ways to simplify any of the forms used on this site, please send your comments or suggestions to the Bureau of the Public Debt, Forms Management Officer, Parkersburg, WV 26106-1328 and the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project 1535, Washington, DC 20503.

9. Caution About Sending Unencrypted Personal Information Over the Internet. Finally, if you choose to send us personal information electronically or request that we send you personal information electronically (such as by e-mail), we cannot guarantee its confidentiality as it travels across the Internet. While not likely, others could eavesdrop. To make this less likely, the Bureau of the Public Debt may use SSL encryption to protect information that you send or view. If a web page has an address that begins with "https://" rather than "http://" then the page uses encryption.

Legal Notices

1. Notice of System Monitoring. You should know that this system is subject to monitoring by security personnel. If you're planning to "hack" or otherwise disrupt this site, consider yourself warned that unauthorized access is prohibited and may lead to criminal and civil action. So don't do it, alright?

2. Prohibition Against Misuse of Treasury Names, Terms, Symbols, Stationery, Etc. Government works generally cannot be copyrighted, though we request the giving of appropriate credit. Also, keep in mind that 31 U.S.C. � 333 prohibits (among other things) the misuse of names, terms, symbols, stationery of the Department of the Treasury, as well as any colorable imitations of these items. This conduct is illegal if done in connection with business activities in a manner that reasonably could be construed as falsely implying that such activities are in any manner approved, endorsed, sponsored, authorized by, or associated with the Department of the Treasury. For instance, linking to or framing this site in a manner designed to falsely imply a relationship with Treasury is forbidden under the statute. Section 333 also provides that the use of disclaimers is irrelevant to a determination of whether the statute has been violated.

3. Disclaimer of Liability. WE DO NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO ANY SOFTWARE, INFORMATION, OR OTHER ITEM LOCATED ON, DERIVED FROM, OR LINKED TO BY THIS WEB SITE. (Sorry for the capital letters, but they're required.) For instance, we don't make any warranties with regard to the Savings Bond Wizard.

Under no circumstances are we liable for any indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages of any character arising out of the use or inability to use these items. EVERYTHING IS PROVIDED "AS IS." For instance, we aren't liable for damages or injury caused by any interruption or delay in service or by a computer virus. We also aren't liable for any item created by a private party, including software products such as savings bond applications. Use of this service and any service derived wholly or in part from this web site is at your own risk.

You assume the entire cost of all necessary servicing, repair, or correction of your property or operations as a result of using this web site. You also accept at your own risk that the Internet and online communications medium may not perform as intended despite our efforts, your Internet service provider, and you.

4. Disclaimer of Endorsement. Finally, any reference to any specific commercial products, process or service, by trade name, trademark, manufacturer or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply our endorsement, recommendation or favoring. For instance, a link to a third party web site doesn't mean we support that web site, and we're in no way responsible for the content of any third party web site.

5. Jurisdictional Issues and Applicable Law. For jurisdiction and venue purposes, the point of transaction for any transaction is Parkersburg, West Virginia, regardless of from where the transaction request is transmitted or where the transaction request is actually processed.

6. Regulations Governing Electronic Transactions. We have regulations governing electronic transactions, which are set out in 31 CFR part 370. These regulations generally apply as a matter of contract law. The regulations require you to exercise ordinary care in protecting the means (account number, password, or digital certificate) that you use to access our site and conduct transactions electronically. If you don't exercise ordinary care and an unauthorized transaction is the result, then under some circumstances you could be held accountable for those transactions. At the very least, these regulations require you to inform us promptly if you believe that another person has improperly obtained your means of accessing our site and conducting transactions electronically.

Notes:

The links to the statutes and regulations on this page will take you away from this site. Also, keep in mind that the online laws are not official texts and may be out of date. The official texts are published by the Government Printing Office.

The provisions of this page extend to Public Debt's auction processing web site and to Public Debt's Administrative Resource Center web site.

Updated March 29, 2026