Thank you for visiting the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s website. This Privacy Statement is to inform you of our Privacy Policy and practices.
Generally, we will not collect personal information about you when you visit our website, unless you voluntarily choose to provide that information to us, for example, by entering information in a voluntary online form, sending us an e-mail, registering for an online subscription or by performing an online service transaction using an assigned user ID and password.
The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County may, from time to time, modify its Privacy Policy to reflect legal, technological and other developments. In that event, this Privacy Policy will have underneath the Privacy Policy title a statement of “Updated and Effective as of [date to be inserted].
Cookies
“Cookies” are text files, or entries in larger files, utilized to distinguish between visitors to a website and to track information during multiple visits to a website. The storage of “cookies” can be either temporary (“Session”) or permanent (“Persistent”). A Session cookie is deleted when you exit your web browser; a Persistent cookie remains on your hard drive until you manually delete it or until the cookie expires. The Clerk of the Circuit Court may use both types of cookies to improve the content and usability of its website.
The use of cookies is a standard practice among Internet websites. Most Internet web browsers may be customized to reject cookies, to only accept or reject cookies by user intervention or to delete cookies. Rejecting and/or removing cookies, however, may lead to loss of functionality on those website pages requiring cookies to function fully.
Information Collected and Stored
To improve the content and usability of our website, the Circuit Court Clerk automatically collects several categories of information from our website users. This includes the following:
- type of browser and operating system used to access our website;
- Internet Protocol (“IP”) address of a user’s Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) and/or computer, if the user’s computer has an IP address directly assigned to it;
- Fully Qualified Domain Name (“Domain Name”) of a user’s ISP and/or computer, if the user’s computer has a domain name directly assigned to it;
- date and time a user accessed our website;
- web pages accessed at our website, as well as any applications, forms and data used; and
- the Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) of the site which a user visited prior to accessing our website (if detectable), if the user did not connect directly to our website or use it as a homepage or “Portal”.
The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County uses this information to identify site performance needs, to ensure the compatibility with the technology used by our website visitors and to generally add and improve services offered on our website. In order to accomplish these goals, from time to time, we may conduct statistical analysis of the data we collect as provided herein.
The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County does not collect data for commercial purposes and does not sell, exchange or otherwise distribute the data it collects for commercial purposes.
During a session on our website, a user may affirmatively submit information by, among other means, electronic mail (“e-mail”), by filling in and submitting an online form, uploading a file or sending our office an e-mail. Such affirmatively submitted information is stored in a secure environment and will be used by our office in furtherance of its governmental purposes.
If a user becomes a registered user on our eFile Portal, the user’s e-mail address may be used by the Circuit Court Clerk's Office for court-related notices. The Circuit Court Clerk’s Office will not share the user’s information (i.e., name, address, phone number, e-mail address among other identifiable user information as a particular person), with a third party or collect the information for commercial marketing without your consent.
A user will always be given the option as to whether or not to perform a transaction on this website because all of the activities are voluntary; however, in order to open an online service account or perform a service transaction, the user will be required to provide some personal information. Please note, that we do not collect credit card information or other financial information.
Personally Identifiable Information Available from Governmental Agencies Over the Web
The Circuit Court Clerk's Office may already have, or may acquire, personally identifiable information through the normal functions of this office such as keeping and maintaining records of proceedings in the Circuit Court of Cook County. In most cases, this information is part of a public record. In the case of public records, the Circuit Court Clerk's Office may make the record available in paper format or electronically, pursuant to the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts’ Electronic Access Policy for Circuit Court Records of the Illinois Courts.
Links to Other Websites and Disclaimer of External Links
The Circuit Court Clerk's Office website contains links to the websites of other government entities and other public sector resources. In a few cases, we link to private organizations with their permission. Once you link to another site, the user is subject to the privacy policy and terms of service of that new website.
The Circuit Court Clerk’s Office is not responsible for the contents or operation of any off-site pages referenced, and the external links are solely provided for the convenience of our users.
Children’s Safety and Privacy
The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s website does not specifically solicit information from minors or seek to determine whether the website visitor is a minor. Consequently, because such information will not be specifically identified as being from minors, users of this website should be aware that personally identifiable information submitted into this website by minors will be subject to being treated in the same manner as information submitted by an adult.
Contacting us
The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County provides this website as a public service. If you have any comments or questions about our privacy policy, you may contact us at the following address:
Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County
Richard J. Daley Center
50 West Washington St., Room 1001
Chicago, IL 60602
312-603-5030
or e-mail us at courtclerk@cookcountycourt.com