Privacy

Protecting the Privacy of Kids & Teens Online

VPL cares about children and teens and understands that they have unique privacy concerns. Unlike adults they do not fully understand the consequences of giving out personal information online. However, children often understand how to navigate online far better than their parents do. Parents do not always have the knowledge, ability or opportunity to intervene and prevent their child or teen from giving out personal information.

The Privacy Statement outlines VPL’s commitment to protection the privacy and confidentially of personal information. To read the full Privacy Statement please click here.

When your child submits a question online through VPL’s Email Librarian reference service, the only personal information collected is:

1. your child's email address (we need this to return an answer to your child's question).
2. your local branch (we need this so that we can direct your child to resources and books located in your local branch).
3. your child's reading level (we need this to ensure that the answer given to your child is age appropriate).

Other things VPL does to ensure that the privacy and security of your child is protected include:

1. We do not allow access to special online events without written parental or guardian consent. Special events may include live online book chats, bulletin boards, and contests. Participants' personal information is not displayed. When such information is required for special events, users are assigned a user name and password to ensure their privacy. Participation is always limited to those who register in this way.
2. We do not ask children or teens to divulge more information than is needed to participate in any activity or service.
3. We provide links to Web sites that, to the best of our knowledge, are suitable for children in the Homework Zone and Fun Zone.
4. We do not identify or post contest information such as the full name of winners without written parental or guardian consent.
5. We encourage children to get their parent's or guardian's permission before sharing personal information online.
6. We archive Homework Zone questions and answers for a minimum of one month in order to measure the quality of our service. All e-mail addresses and any other personally identifying information will be removed from the database when selected questions and answers are added to the archive.