The Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library considers all customer records, including but not limited to, registration information and use information in the form of circulation records, database search records, computer use records, inter-library loan records or reference records, to be confidential. We will not distribute or disclose this information to outside parties unless required to do so by State or Federal laws or pursuant to a customer’s consent as outlined below:
- To a law enforcement officer or authorized agent of the court with appropriate ID:
- presenting a written request for library records in proper legal form
- acting in the scope of the Officer’s law enforcement duties investigating a matter involving public safety in exigent circumstances, or
- responding to the Library’s request for help in maintaining its collections.
- To a library approved recovery agent for the collection of fines, fees, and non-returned library materials.
- To a library cardholder requesting information on his/her own account, or to the parent or guardian of a minor child requesting information on their child’s account.
Library customer records may be used internally for administrative purposes including, but not limited to:
- The establishment and maintenance of a system to manage library records
- The transfer of library records from one records management system to another
- The compilation of statistics and the collection of fines, fees and non-returned library materials.
Online Security
We understand that you're concerned about the security and privacy of your online transactions. This is why we use Comodo to ensure that your valuable data, such as credit card details, are encrypted when you interact with our site.
We employ state-of-the-art SSL data encryption to ensure safe and secure transactions to our site.
Secure Sockets Layer, SSL, is the security technology for encrypting a link between a web server and a browser. All data passed between our web server and your browser remains private and secure.
Whenever you communicate with us on our payment pages, a small yellow padlock appears in the bottom right-hand corner of your browser as a sign that we are now engaging SSL. (Another sign on some browsers is that when you enter the secure area of the site, the background of the address bar turns dark yellow or bright green. You'll also notice that http:// is replaced by https:// (The 's' stands for 'Secure').
To generate an encrypted SSL transmission, a web server requires an SSL Certificate. Checking a website's certificate is good practice that helps you avoid spoof websites, sometimes called "phishing" sites. To check the certificate, click on the padlock. Your browser will show you the name of the owner of the certificate. This name should match the name of the website operator.
Our SSL certificates are issued by a leading certificate authority, Comodo CA. Comodo is Web Trust-compliant, meaning that their business practices and processes have been rigorously audited according to AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) guidelines by an independent approved auditor (Ernst & Young).
Comodo High Assurance certificates enable a high level of encryption. They also confirm that a company is a legally accountable organization.
To receive a High Assurance SSL Certificate from Comodo, we had to demonstrate to them that we are an existing business, along with our control over the domain you are visiting. When you shop online, you deserve to be know who you are interacting with.
Seeing a site with a High Assurance SSL Certificate, confirms two essential factors:
- That you have a secure SSL (encrypted) link with this website
- That this website represents a real organization
Cookies
The Library uses temporary "cookies" to maintain authentication when a customer is logged in to the online catalog. A "cookie" is a small text file that is sent to a user's browser from a website. The cookie itself does not contain any personally identifiable information. Cookies sent by library servers containing authorization information will disappear soon after the user's computer browser is closed and are not shared with third parties.
Refund
If you believe a payment was made in error or was fraudulent, please contact us for a refund. All refunds will be provided as a credit to the credit card used at the time of the payment.
