Site Policies

At the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), we’re committed to protecting your privacy and civil liberties. We will not collect personal information about you unless you choose to provide that information to us.

To learn more about our procedures for protecting Americans’ personal information, including an explanation of the authorizations and limitations regarding such information, visit the Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties page.

If You Simply Browse Our Website:

When you visit our website to browse information, you do so anonymously unless you choose to provide us information about yourself. If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website—like reading pages or downloading information—we will automatically gather and store certain limited information about your visit. This information does not identify you personally.

This gathering and storing of information is separate from the activity described as monitoring in our Security Notice.

Information gathered automatically is used for, among other things, site management, compiling reports of usage statistics, and, in the case of suspected unauthorized activity, for law enforcement and possible criminal prosecution, such as cyber crimes.

Information about your visit that is automatically collected and stored may include:

If You Apply for a Job Online:

The resume and application data you submit will be used for employment consideration only and will be stored in an internal application tracking system for one year. Your data is only available internally to a limited number of hiring officials and, unless you authorize us to share it with other federal hiring officials by answering ‘yes’ to the relevant question on the resume form, it will not be shared with any other people or organizations internally or externally. Resume and application data is protected by the Privacy Act of 1974. The only exception to this policy is described in our Security Notice.

The authority for soliciting your Social Security Number (SSN) is Executive Order 9397. Since other people may have the same name and birth date, your SSN will be used to identify you precisely. Although disclosure of your SSN is not mandatory, your failure to do so will impede completion of your application and security processing.

If You Send Us an Email Using Our Online Form:

Except as otherwise indicated, if you choose to submit a question or comment using our Online Form and provide us your name and email or postal address, we will use that information only to respond to your question or comment.

We will not share your name, email, or postal address with any third party, other than as described below in our Security Notice and consistent with the Privacy Act of 1974.

We will not create individual profiles with the information that you have provided. Under no circumstances will we give your name, email, or postal address to any private organization—commercial or otherwise.

If you choose to offer information or assistance to the CIA in the pursuit of our mission by using the Online Form, we will make appropriate inquiries to determine the accuracy of your information. In addition, we may share the information you provide with other appropriate entities to enable us to carry out our legally authorized responsibilities. By providing information or assistance to us through the Online Form, you expressly consent to our use of whatever information you provide via our website.

A cookie is a text file placed on the hard drive of a computer by some webpages or web servers. Cookies cannot run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. They are uniquely assigned to a visitor and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie. Visitors can accept cookies or decline them through their browser settings. Persistent cookies remain on a computer’s hard drive until the visitor deletes them. Session cookies are deleted automatically when the visitor closes their browser.

Except as otherwise stated, our website does not set persistent cookies on visitors’ computers. However, our website does set session cookies on visitors’ computers as follows:

A session cookie is set when a visitor first visits our homepage.

ForeSee Results conducts a visitor survey to help our recruiters evaluate the usefulness of our Careers page to visitors. ForeSee Results’ survey mechanism uses a session cookie to track how many Careers’ pages each visitor views. A percentage of visitors are offered an opportunity to complete a survey after viewing several pages. ForeSee Results uses the session cookie to track how many pages a visitor views and to ensure the visitor is presented the survey only once during a browser session. Neither our Agency nor ForeSee Results collects personal information from visitors completing the survey nor will either track any visitor once they have left the CIA.gov Careers website.

Session cookies are set when a visitor visits the World Factbook. These cookies maintain the appearance of expandable sections on country pages, reference pages, and the FAQ page.

Session cookies are set when a visitor visits the CIA Career Application Center. These cookies maintain the visitor’s session status while completing their resume.

For videos that are embedded on CIA.gov, a third party may be setting persistent cookies upon playback of the audio and audiovisual content and related metadata and materials.

This system and related software and equipment are intended solely for the communication, transmission, processing, and storage of U.S. government information. For site security purposes and to ensure that this website remains available to all visitors, we monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information or to otherwise cause damage to the site. Anyone using this website expressly consents to such monitoring.

Unauthorized attempts to modify any information stored on this system, to defeat or circumvent security features, or to utilize this system for other than its intended purposes are prohibited and may result in criminal prosecution.

If monitoring reveals evidence of possible criminal activity, such evidence may be provided to law enforcement personnel. In addition, if you send us information about a threat or comments that or might constitute a threat, or your comments contain information about criminal activities, we may provide that and associated information to law enforcement and/or other appropriate authorities.

Information presented on this website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied freely unless identified as being subject to copyright protection. In return, we request only that our Agency be cited as the source of any information, photos, and images copied from this site and that any photo credits or bylines be similarly credited to the photographer or author.

We strongly recommend that our data be acquired directly from this website and not through other sources that may change the information in some way or exclude material crucial to the understanding of that information. An actual example of the latter is a commercial website that copied the CIA World Factbook to its website but excluded 17 pages of Notes and Definitions that provide a framework for understanding the content of the Factbook. While we make every effort to provide accurate and complete information, some information may change between site updates.

This website and the documents posted on this website may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors’ convenience. Neither the U.S. government nor our Agency controls or guarantees the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to websites other than our Agency-managed website is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise.

Reference in this website to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm, or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site’s visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the U.S. government or our Agency.

The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the U.S. government or our Agency and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

Every effort is made to provide accurate and complete information. However, with the thousands of documents available, often uploaded within short deadlines, we cannot guarantee that there will be no errors. We make no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the contents of this website and expressly disclaim liability for errors and omissions in the contents of this website.

With respect to the content of our website, neither the U.S. government, nor our Agency, nor their employees and contractors make any warranty, expressed or implied or statutory, including but not limited to the warranties of noninfringement of third party rights, title, and the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose with respect to content available from our website or other Internet resources linked from it. Additionally, neither the U.S. government nor our Agency assumes any legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, product, or process disclosed herein nor freedom from computer virus, and do not represent that use of such information, product, or process would not infringe on privately owned rights.

You may freely link to our website or any of its content. We ask only that you identify that the link is to an Agency resource.

Our official Agency website is CIA.gov. Our website has links to other U.S. government agencies. In a few cases, we link to private organizations, with their permission. We are also pleased to participate on open forums offered by commercial social network sites in an effort to increase government transparency, promote public participation, and encourage collaboration with the Agency. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the disclaimers and security and privacy policies of the new site.

We currently maintain accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Flickr. We use these social network sites to share information in a different format that may be useful or interesting. However, neither the U.S. government nor our Agency controls or guarantees the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of information provided by social network sites or any other linked site. Our use of social network sites does not, and is not intended to, constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or favoring of the sponsors of the site or the information or products presented on the site by the U.S. government or our Agency. CIA’s use of social networks utilizes qualitative and quantitative data to determine the goals and needs of users as we continually strive to ensure that user needs are addressed.

Unless a copyright is indicated, information on our website is in the public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise used without our permission. We request only that our Agency be cited as the source of the information and that any photo credits or bylines be similarly credited to the photographer or author or our Agency, as appropriate.

If a copyright is indicated on a photo, graphic, or any other material, permission to copy these materials must be obtained from the original source.

This copyright notice does not pertain to information at websites other than the CIA.gov website.

Federal law prohibits use of the words “Central Intelligence Agency,” the initials “CIA,” the seal of our Agency, or any colorable imitation of such words, initials, or seal in connection with any merchandise, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial activity in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by CIA.

Unauthorized attempts to upload information and/or change information on our Agency website is strictly prohibited and is subject to prosecution under Title 18 U.S.C., Sections 1001 and 1030.

We established a kids’ page in compliance with President Clinton’s 1997 Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, Subject: Expanding Access to Internet-based Educational Resources for Children, Teachers, and Parents.

We encourage parents and teachers to be involved in children’s internet explorations. CIA Spy Kids provides information about the Nation’s intelligence efforts as well as other fun things for kids to do. We do not ask for nor collect any information regarding children’s visits to Spy Kids other than as stated in the Privacy Notice. The information collected as stated in the Privacy Notice does not differentiate between adults and children.

If you are interested in documents recently declassified by CIA, you can access much of this information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room on this website.

The FOIA Electronic Reading Room offers an internet-based database containing recently declassified documents on a wide variety of issues. Many of the referenced documents are available for viewing as full text images of the original document.

CIA’s Office of Public Affairs (OPA) Web Team manages the overall information content, design, and organization of the website. We also coordinate release of Agency information on the internet.

CIA maintains accounts on several third-party social media sites (including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Glassdoor, and Flickr).

We participate in these open forums in order to increase transparency.

Your activity on third-party websites is governed by the security and privacy policies of the third-party sites. You may wish to review the privacy policies of those sites before using them in order to understand how the information you make available on them will be used.

While we encourage commenting and conversation on our social media profiles, please remember that they are public forums and any information provided will be visible to the public. Please do not include your nor anyone else’s personal details such as a telephone number, home or email address, social security number, or any other personal information that you do not want available to the general public.

Comments or messages that represent criminal activities, intentions, or threats will be turned over to the appropriate law enforcement officials.

Our presence on social media sites is not intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any third-party company or service provider.

Individuals who have applied to, or are interested in applying to, positions with the CIA should not follow us on social media. This includes posting content, following or “friending” accounts, and “liking” or sharing content or commentary. All applicant communication with CIA must be conducted in authorized channels, not via social media.

If you have any questions or comments about the information presented on this page, please contact OPA. For more information, visit the Contact CIA page.