Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 08 AUG 23

Thank you for visiting the NavalX website! NavalX operates under the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under the United States Department of the Navy (DON).

Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to safeguarding your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect the information you provide to us through this website or other sites (such as our official profiles on social networking sites – Privacy Policy and Privacy Act Systems of Records | Office of Naval Research (navy.mil))

You do not have to provide NavalX with any personal information or create a user account to access information on this NavalX website(s).

If you choose to provide your personally identifiable information (PII) (such as filling out a form to contact the U.S. Navy), your information will only be used to respond to your message or request. The information you provide will only be shared with another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency, or as otherwise required by law. Individual profiles will not be created nor given to any private organizations that are not affiliated with NavalX.

We may collect the following types of information when you visit our website:

• Personal Information: Some services may require the collection of PII, such as your name, email address, and other contact details. Such collections of information are voluntarily provided to NavalX through forms or other interactions related to the website. For example: We may ask for personal information from people applying to, registering for, or participating in NavalX events or competitions.
• Usage Information: We may collect non-personal information about your interactions with our website, such as your IP address, internet domain/referring name, browser type, operating system (including desktop or mobile platforms), screen resolution, connection speed, amount of data transmitted to your computer/device, and pages visited.

This information helps us improve the website’s functionality and user experience.

NavalX also uses web measurement and customization technologies (such as “cookies”). You can choose not to accept cookies from any website, including NavalX websites, by changing your browser settings.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memo M-10-22: Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies allows Federal Agencies to use sessions and persistent cookies. When you visit any website, its server may generate a piece of text known as a “cookie” to place on your computer. Placing cookie text allows websites to “remember” visitors’ preferences, surfing patterns and behavior while they are connected.

Visitors to NavalX can control aspects of website measurement and customization technologies used on NavalX website(s) and still have access to comparable information and services.

You can choose not to accept cookies from any website, including NavalX, by changing the settings of your browser. You can also delete cookies stored in your browser at any time.

For more information about cookies, including how to delete them from your computer and configure your browser to refuse them from NavalX or any other site, visit the following resource, or refer to your individual browser settings for additional information on disabling cookies: USA.gov

In order to manage NavalX email subscription lists, we retain the names and email addresses of our email subscribers, as well as other information they may have shared with us (e.g., addresses and phone numbers), logs of emails we send, and automatically generated email data used to improve our email communications. This automatically generated email data (generated through simple tools such as “pixel tags” and link redirects) includes:

• The recipient’s email client;
• Whether the email was opened;
• If a link in the message was clicked;
• Whether an email was delivered;
• If the email was forwarded; and
• If the email was printed.
• If, at any time, you wish to stop receiving our messages, simply click on the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of each email message.

NavalX maintains official pages or accounts on third-party websites. Your activity on those sites is governed by the third-party website’s security and privacy policies. Users of third-party sites often share information with the general public, user community, and/or the third-party operating the site. Consequently, you should review the privacy policies of third-party sites before using them and ensure that you understand how your information may be shared and used. You should also adjust privacy settings on your account on any third-party site to match your preferences.

NavalX may archive information that users submit or publish when engaging with NavalX through official NavalX pages or accounts on third-party websites (e.g., by sending a message, posting a comment, “following,” “friending,” or taking similar actions). This information may contain personal information, such as an individual’s username and other public account information, when such information is available based on the user’s privacy settings and the terms of the site.

For aggregate statistical analysis and to improve the quality of our services, we may integrate web measurement tools with our social media pages. These tools enable basic analysis of social media traffic (such as the number of people visiting a certain page) and do not collect PII.

We may use the collected information for the following purposes:

• To respond to your inquiries and provide you with the information you request.
• To improve our website’s content, features, and user experience.
• To send you updates, newsletters, or announcements related to NavalX, ONR, and/or the DON.
• To analyze website usage patterns and trends to enhance our services.

If you choose to provide NavalX with information, we may use that information to contact you, respond to your message, or provide you the information or services you requested. In order to serve you better, we may analyze multiple sources of data you have provided (for example, to look up whether you previously contacted NavalX about the same subject/topic so that we do not send you a duplicative response). We may also use messages or comments collected through NavalX or official social media pages for our own purposes, such as to inform policy decisions or in public advocacy.

We may use data you provide and automatically generated data for statistical analysis to assess, for example, what information is of interest to users, technical design specifications, and system performance. This allows us to make general improvements to our site as well as to offer tailored content to email subscribers (e.g., a follow-up message to subscribers interested in a specific topic based on information they have provided or automatically generated data). We may also use your information in order to detect, prevent, and respond to security issues and other harmful or unlawful activities.

We do not sell, trade, or transfer your personal information to third parties outside NavalX, ONR, or the DON unless required by law or as necessary for the purposes stated above.

Information you choose to share with NavalX (directly and via third party sites) may be treated as public information. We may, for example, publish compilations of messages or comments collected through NavalX or official social media pages and provide them to national leaders, members of the press, or other individuals outside of the Federal Government. However, we exercise discretion to limit such disclosures to protect your privacy (for example, we generally do not publish last names of commenters).

NavalX uses third-party analytics provider(s) (e.g. Google Analytics) to analyze data from cookies. The third-party analytics provider(s) does not receive PII through these cookies. We have also limited the provider ability to see your full IP address (a process known as “IP masking”). Please review Google Analytics’ privacy policy for additional information.

• Google Analytics Cookie Usage on Websites

Within NavalX, we restrict access to PII to employees, contractors, and vendors subject to non-disclosure requirements who require access to this information in order to perform their official duties and exercise controls to limit what data they can view based on the specific needs of their position.

In some cases, we may share information you have provided or automatically generated information with other government agencies in response to lawful law enforcement requests or to protect NavalX from security threats. Additionally, if you seek assistance on a matter within the jurisdiction of a federal agency, we may share your information with that agency for the limited purpose of addressing your request for assistance.

We do not use or share your information for commercial purposes and, except as described above, we do not exchange or otherwise disclose this information.

We take appropriate measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. However, no data transmission over the internet or electronic storage method can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

NavalX uses third-party service providers to facilitate the collection and routing of your voluntarily provided information. Third-party service providers may provide access to your information for analytics and to improve the services they provide to NavalX.

Our website may contain links to external websites. Please note that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of these websites. We encourage you to read their respective privacy policies.

NavalX’s website(s) and other NavalX platforms and pages may link to websites created and maintained by other public and/or private organizations and individuals. When you follow a link to an external site, you are leaving NavalX and are subject to the external site’s privacy and security policies. We do not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of information contained on an external site. We also do not endorse the site’s sponsor, any views they express, or any products or services they offer.

Your activity on third-party website sites is governed by the third-party website’s security and privacy policies.

In some instances, a third-party website may feature embedded NavalX content. The embedded NavalX content automatically generates NavalX server logs and may set a NavalX related cookie.

We take reasonable precautions to protect our site and information automatically collected by NavalX or voluntarily submitted to NavalX or an official NavalX page(s) on a third-party site(s). For example, we restrict access to PII to employees, contractors, and vendors subject to non-disclosure requirements who require access to this information in order to perform their official duties and exercise controls to limit what data they can view based on the specific needs of their position. Access to official NavalX accounts on third-party sites is limited to the individuals who administer those accounts, and all official NavalX accounts are clearly labeled or identified.

We also utilize commonly used practices and technical controls to protect the information in our possession or control, along with NavalX itself. These practices and controls include, but are not limited to: encrypting the transfer of personal information over the internet via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), using high-strength firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDS) to safeguard personal information, and maintaining strict technical controls and procedures to ensure the integrity of all data on NavalX.

We periodically review our processes and systems to verify compliance with industry best practices and to ensure the highest level of security for our website.

Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information on this server are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.