Secret Witness of Shasta County ("we", "us", or "our") operates the website at scsecretwitness.com (the "Site"). This page explains what information we collect when you use the Site, how we use it, and the choices you have. We collect the minimum information necessary to operate a tip line and a public information site.
1. Information you give us
When you submit a tip via /submit-a-tip, we collect:
- The text of your tip and any answers you provide to the form fields.
- An optional email address, only if you choose to provide one. If you do, we use it to send you a confirmation message containing your submission ID so you can reference the tip later.
We do not require a name, account, phone number, or any other identifier to submit a tip. You may submit a tip anonymously.
2. Information we collect automatically
When you visit any page on the Site, our web server logs the request. This includes:
- The IP address you connected from.
- The page you visited and the HTTP status of the response.
- The user-agent string your browser sends.
These logs are kept on the same infrastructure as the Site on a server in California. We do not use third-party analytics, advertising trackers, or marketing pixels on the Site. We do not set any tracking cookies.
3. Cookies and similar technologies
The Site embeds the Cloudflare Turnstile widget on /submit-a-tip to deter automated abuse. Turnstile runs a passive browser-side check and may set its own short-lived cookies or local-storage entries scoped to challenges.cloudflare.com. We do not have access to those entries. Turnstile's privacy practices are governed by Cloudflare's privacy policy.
4. Who can see your tip
Site administrators can read all tip records, including the submitted optional email address, and form contents. Site viewers (read-only role) can search and browse tip records for case coordination but cannot export, delete, or modify them. The two roles are the only access paths.
When a tip is submitted, our system may forward the tip's text fields to a list of law-enforcement and partner-agency email addresses maintained by the Site's administrators. The forwarded email contains only the text fields you filled in; it does not include your IP address or any other metadata.
5. How long we keep your information
Tip records are kept indefinitely. We may delete a tip record on a case-by-case basis (the deletion is performed by a Site administrator and is logged in the audit trail). The associated email-broadcast log entries are kept for the same period. If you want your tip record deleted, contact us at the address on the Contact page; we will honor the request where we are able.
6. Your rights (California / CCPA-CPRA)
If you are a California resident, you have the right to:
- Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
- Request deletion of your personal information.
- Opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of your personal information. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of.
We do not have a self-service portal for these requests because we do not maintain user accounts for tipsters. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at the address on the Contact page.
7. Security
We adhere to modern encryption standards to protect the site and the information submitted.
8. Changes to this policy
If we make material changes to this policy, we will update the "Effective" date below and, where the change is significant, post a notice on the Site's home page. Continued use of the Site after a change indicates acceptance of the updated policy.
9. Contact
Questions about this policy or about how we handle your information can be sent to the address on the Contact page.