Privacy Policy for “How Social Security Has Made a Difference in My Life” Video Contest

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YouTube is providing hosting services for this contest under an agreement with the Social Security Administration (SSA).  Social Security does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, or applications.  YouTube does not follow the same privacy, security, or accessibility policies of the Social Security Administration. YouTube policies apply to your visit to YouTube’s website. For example, while we do not use persistent or third-party cookies, YouTube does use this technology for the purpose of maintaining your log-in information for future visits.  For more information on cookies and our policies in regards to cookies, please review our privacy policy.

The purpose of the “How Social Security Has Made a Difference in My Life” video contest is to document stories of Social Security’s impact on people’s lives, as part of the agency’s commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Social Security program. Your stories are important to us and we encourage your participation.

Please do not use this contest form to submit inquiries or comments about Social Security claims or benefits.  We ask that you submit your inquiries or comments through normal SSA channels (see Contact Us).  We will not respond to claims or benefits inquiries or comments contained in video submissions, and we will not accept such videos in the contest. In addition, video submissions containing claims or benefits information do not protect benefit filing rights.

You participate in this contest at your own risk, taking personal responsibility for your video responses. The appearance of external, non-Social Security links on this site does not constitute official endorsement by the Social Security Administration.

We recognize that the web is a 24/7 medium, and your comments are welcome at any time. However, given the need to manage federal resources, moderating and posting of video submissions will occur during regular business hours Monday through Friday.  We will review and post video responses submitted after hours or on weekends as soon as possible. We will try to post all qualifying videos within 24 hours (or the next business day) after receipt.
The Social Security Administration does not guarantee or warrant that the information posted by individuals on http://www.youtube.com/socialsecurityonline is correct, and disclaims any liability for any loss or damage resulting from reliance on any such information.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is committed to ensuring the privacy of our users.  This website is hosted by a private company named YouTube, but is administered by SSA.  This privacy policy governs the privacy practices of YouTube and SSA with respect to anyone visiting or participating on this site. SSA worked with YouTube to develop these practices.  You can view and search videos without logging into this site, but in order to submit a video response, vote on a video submission, or comment on a video, you must log in.

You can log in by creating a YouTube account, which requires your: username, location (country), postal code, date of birth, gender, an opt-out selection to let others find your channel on YouTube if they have your email address. YouTube also offers an opt-in selection to receive occasional product-related email communications that YouTube believes would be of interest to you and an acceptance block for terms of use. Only your YouTube profile will be publicly visible (e.g. name, age, subscription information, hometown, occupation, and interests)

We do not verify the information you submit when you establish or edit your YouTube profile. We also do not verify information submitted on our video entry forms. In order to be eligible to enter our video contest, we require that you provide us with your full name, email address, and full web address for your YouTube video entry form (your YouTube URL address). We ask you to provide us with all the information referenced above in case we need to contact you.  Providing your phone number is optional. Your YouTube user account, YouTube profile, and video response will be visible to other visitors to the site. Video responses that people submit to YouTube will not be associated with the “How Social Security Has Made a Difference in My Life” video contest until SSA staff has reviewed it. 

We gather/publish information from you on this Web site in two ways.

1. Information You Enter upon Registration

You do not have to give us personal information to simply browse or search the Social Security and YouTube sites. Participation in our video contest, “How Social Security Has Made a Difference in My Life” is voluntary.

You will also be required to enter your email address when you register with YouTube. YouTube will not display your email address unless you set your YouTube user name as your email address.

Video responses are displayed with the YouTube user name that the visitor provides upon registration.  For example, if the e–mail address you use to register is john doe, your YouTube user name will automatically be set to "john doe." However, you may change this once you are signed in by editing your user profile and choosing a new YouTube user name.

We collect no other personal information about you, other than that which you provided for the “How Social Security Has Made a Difference in My Life” video response entry form (your: full name, email address, your phone number if you provide it, and your YouTube video URL). It is our policy not to make personal information available to anyone unless it is required by law or as otherwise described in this policy. We do not sell, rent, exchange, or otherwise disclose any information about our site visitors, nor do we export data, for any reason other than if required by law or to track down repeated abusive behavior on the site.

The information you submit is for video responses only to the “How Social Security Has Made a Difference in My Life” video contest. Beyond the information you submit for registration, for your own protection, you should not enter any personally identifiable information when you submit video responses. Video responses containing personally identifiable information will be disqualified from the “How Social Security Has Made a Difference in My Life” video contest.  

We do not retrieve or store video responses by your email address or other personal identifiers.  Thus, the data we collect on this site will not technically be stored in a system of records under the Privacy Act of 1974.  While not covered by the Privacy Act, to the extent your video responses are within SSA’s control, that information is covered under our privacy regulation at 20 C.F.R. Part 401.  SSA wrote this regulation to ensure your privacy. 

Please note that all information that you enter as a participant in the SSA contest is stored on servers owned and maintained by the Social Security Administration and YouTube.  Although your e–mail address may be visible to SSA and YouTube personnel who are administering and moderating the video responses, and we may use it to contact you regarding your participation in this engagement, we do not disseminate, or maintain this information.  To the extent we have control over your video responses you will retain full control over your video responses.  Our regulation subsection 401.40 provides information on how you may request information about yourself and subsection 401.65 provides information on how you may correct information about yourself. You should contact YouTube directly with your questions about YouTube’s access and corrections procedures.

2. Cookies

A persistent cookie is a piece of data stored by a user's browser that helps a website or service such as YouTube to recognize that user's unique computer, and thus to "remember" you on return visits. You can remove or block cookies by changing the settings of your browser.

YouTube uses an optional persistent cookie in this tool to recognize returning participants so they do not have to log in each time they visit the site. YouTube uses the cookie to save user login information (the user's login ID) between sessions. The user is given a choice to un-check the box that says, “stay signed in”. Staying signed in is an optional convenience to you if you do not want to have to remember your login information each time you visit the site. 
SSA is allowed to gather other information on participants, such as your IP address (the location of your computer on the internet), for analyzing usage patterns.  However, we have decided not to do so. 

Links to Other Sites

Social Security’s website has links to other government and non–government websites. Once you follow a link to a different website, your actions are no longer subject to our Terms of Participation and Privacy Policy. These outside links are not within our control and may not follow the same privacy, security, or accessibility polices.

Children's Privacy
We are especially concerned about protecting children’s privacy.  Therefore, we comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA).  COPPA, and its accompanying Federal Trade Commission regulations, establishes United States Federal law that protects the privacy of children using the Internet.  We encourage parents and teachers to involve themselves in children’s Internet explorations.  We do not intentionally collect information from children under the age of 13.  Our site is not intended to solicit information of any kind from children under 13. Children under the age of 18 may only participate with written consent from a parent or legal guardian.  

Internet Security

For SSA’s site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this web application employs a number of generally accepted security programs to protect the security of the infrastructure, to monitor network traffic, and to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.  You should direct questions regarding SSA’s security practices to open.government@ssa.gov.

Changes to this Policy

We will revise or update this policy if our practices change, or as we develop better ways to keep you informed about them. You should refer back to this page often for the latest information and the effective date of any changes. If we decide to change this policy, we will post a new policy on our site and change the date at the bottom. Changes to the policy shall not apply retroactively.

Thank you for taking the time to read the Privacy Policy. We encourage your participation in the video contest and look forward to receiving your stories.

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy practices, please contact open.government@ssa.gov.