One agency with an exemplary notice of use, separate from its Privacy Act notice, is the United States Postal Service. The form also clearly designates what requested information is optional and what is required. Another agency with a notable policy is the Department of Defense, which has developed a general privacy and security notice that is prominently linked to the department home page. A detailed example of information collected for statistical purposes and how it is used is also provided. While Defense sometimes fails to provide a notice of use on pages that directly collect personally-identifiable information from the user, the general notice shows that the Department is paying more attention to online privacy concerns than most other agencies.
Several agencies have excellent notices of use as a part of their Privacy Act notice.
However, no names or other personal information will be disclosed without explicit permission. Notices like these, although not always required by law for the collection of personally-identifiable information, help to build public confidence and trust in the government and in its presence on the Internet. Several agencies have pages which collect only personally- identifiable information with no notice of use but collect Privacy Act records elsewhere on the site and have explicit Privacy Act notices, including notice of use, on these collections. Other sites have the beginnings of statements of use, but fail to explain both the primary and secondary uses of the information. However, it does not address secondary uses of the data.