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Privacy Policy

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This policy explains what NJ Programs does and does not collect when you read a guide or use a tool on this site, and what rights you have over that information.

The short version:there are no accounts and no logins. Our calculators and checkers run entirely inside your browser and send nothing anywhere. We measure readership with Vercel’s cookie-free analytics and with Google Analytics, which uses cookies to count visits and does not tell us who you are. The only information you can ever deliberately give us is an email address, voluntarily, for the newsletter or to contact us. We never ask for your Social Security number, banking details, or application information, and we never sell personal information.

What we do not collect

  • Nothing you type into a guide or tool. Site search, the eligibility checker, the relief calculator, and the PAS-1 checklist all run entirely in your browser. Income figures, ages, and answers you enter are never transmitted to us or to anyone else, are never stored on a server, and disappear when you close the page.
  • No accounts. There is nothing to sign up for to read this site, no profile, and no password.
  • No personal or application data. We do not ask for, receive, or store Social Security numbers, bank account details, dates of birth, or anything else from a benefit application. Any site or message requesting these in our name is fraudulent — see our scam guide.
  • No selling of personal information. We do not sell or share personal information, and we never have.

What is collected

  • Standard server logs. Like virtually every website, our hosting infrastructure records basic request data — IP address, browser user agent, requested URL, referring page, and timestamp — for security, abuse prevention, and reliability. These logs are used to operate the site and are not used to build profiles of readers.
  • Preferences stored in your own browser.Your theme choice (light/dark) and your “was this helpful” votes are saved in your browser’s localStorage. They never leave your device, we cannot read them, and you can clear them at any time through your browser settings.
  • Your email address, only if you give it to us. See the newsletter and contact sections below.

Cookies and similar technologies

NJ Programs uses no session cookies and no login cookies, and we run no fingerprinting. The preferences described above use localStorage, not cookies, and stay on your device.

Two kinds of third-party service may set cookies in your browser when you visit:

  • Google Analytics sets first-party cookies (named _ga and _ga_<ID>) so it can tell a returning visit from a new one. They are described in the next section.
  • Advertising, including Google AdSense, may set cookies or similar identifiers to serve and measure ads. See the advertising section below.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser at any time. Nothing on this site needs cookies to work.

Analytics

We use two analytics services to understand which guides people read, so we know what to improve and what to write next.

Vercel Web Analytics and Vercel Speed Insights count page views and measure how quickly pages load. Both are cookie-free: they store nothing on your device, assign you no persistent identifier, and report aggregate figures only — which pages are read, which referrer or country a visit came from, and real-world loading speed.

Google Analytics, a service of Google LLC, measures how visitors find and use the site: pages viewed, time on page, the site or search engine that referred you, approximate location (city or country), and device, browser, and operating system. To do that it sets the cookies listed above and assigns your browser a random identifier. Google Analytics does not log or store IP addresses, and the reports we see are aggregated; we cannot identify an individual reader from them. We never send Google Analytics anything you type into a tool or a search box — the only interaction we record is which application year you choose on a status page.

Google processes this data under its own terms. You can read how Google uses information from sites that use its services, and you can stop Google Analytics from measuring your visits on every site by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on or by blocking cookies in your browser. Either way, every page and tool here works exactly the same.

Advertising

This site is free to read and plans to cover its costs through display advertising, including Google AdSense. Where such advertising runs, the ad network — not NJ Programs — handles ad selection and delivery.

  • Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
  • Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
  • Ad networks may also use device identifiers or similar technologies to measure ads and to limit how often you see the same one.

We do not give advertising networks any personal information about you. We have none to give: we hold no accounts, no profiles, and nothing you enter into our tools. What an ad network observes, it observes directly from your browser, under its own privacy policy.

Your choices. You can opt out of personalised advertising without losing access to anything on this site:

  • Opt out of personalised advertising from Google at Google Ads Settings.
  • Opt out of other vendors’ use of cookies for personalised advertising at optout.aboutads.info (Digital Advertising Alliance) or optout.networkadvertising.org (Network Advertising Initiative).
  • In the EU, the UK, and Switzerland, use youronlinechoices.eu.
  • Block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or use its private browsing mode. Nothing on this site requires cookies to work.

Newsletter

Joining the newsletter is entirely voluntary and requires only an email address. The signup form submits your address directly to our external newsletter provider — or, if no provider is configured, opens a pre-filled email from you to us. We do not run a mailing server and do not store subscriber lists on this site. Your address is used only to send the updates you asked for. Every email includes one-click unsubscribe, unsubscribing removes you at the provider level, and we never sell, rent, or share the list.

Email and correspondence

If you write to us via the contact page, we use your address and message only to reply and, where you report an error, to correct the guide. We ask that you not send personal information — Social Security numbers, application details, or financial documents. If you do, we delete the message rather than act on it, for your protection. We never sell or share correspondence.

How long information is kept

  • Server logs: retained only as long as needed for security and reliability — in the ordinary course, a matter of weeks — then discarded by our hosting provider.
  • Newsletter subscriptions: held by the provider until you unsubscribe, after which your address is removed from the list.
  • Email you send us: kept only as long as needed to resolve what you wrote about. Messages containing personal information are deleted on receipt.
  • Vercel analytics: retained by Vercel as aggregate counts only, on their standard retention schedule. There is no per-reader record to delete, because none is created.
  • Google Analytics: visit-level data is kept by Google for the retention period set in our Google Analytics account, at most 14 months, then deleted automatically. The _ga cookies in your browser expire after up to two years, or sooner if you clear them.
  • Browser preferences: stored on your device until you clear them. We never hold a copy.

Your rights

Because we hold so little, most requests are simple to answer — and often the honest answer is that we have nothing about you on file.

If you are in the EU, UK, or another GDPR jurisdiction, you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time (for the newsletter, one-click unsubscribe does exactly that). Where we process personal data, we rely on your consent for the newsletter, and on our legitimate interest in operating and securing the site for server logs and in understanding how the site is read for analytics. You also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority.

Google Analytics data is held by Google against a random browser identifier, not your name or email address, so we cannot look up an individual reader’s visits. Clearing your cookies discards that identifier, and the opt-out add-on described above stops new data being collected.

If you are a California resident, the CCPA/CPRA gives you the right to know what personal information is collected and how it is used, to request deletion or correction, to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA, and we do not process sensitive personal information. To use the advertising opt-outs described above, see optout.aboutads.info.

To exercise any of these rights, email contact@njprograms.com. We respond within the timeframes the applicable law requires. We may ask you to identify the correspondence or subscription concerned — we have no account to look you up by.

Third-party links

Our guides link to official government sites (nj.gov and federal resources). Their privacy practices are their own; state application portals in particular run their own identity-verification processes governed by state policy. We are not responsible for the content or practices of any site we link to.

Children

This site is general-audience informational content about tax programs. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, email us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

Material changes will be reflected on this page with an updated date at the top. If we ever begin collecting something we do not collect today, this policy will say so before that collection starts.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about privacy generally: contact@njprograms.com. NJ Programs is an independent publication and is not affiliated with the State of New Jersey — see our disclaimer.