Privacy Information
We Are Committed to Safeguarding Customer
Information
In order to better serve your needs now and in
the future, we may ask you to provide us with certain information. We
understand that you may be concerned about what we will do with such
information - particularly any personal or financial information. We agree that
you have a right to know how we will utilize the personal information you
provide to us. Therefore, together with our subsidiaries we have adopted this Privacy
Policy to govern the use and handling of your personal information.
Applicability
This Privacy Policy governs our use of the
information that you provide to us. It does not govern the manner in which we
may use information we have obtained from any other source, such as information
obtained from a public record or from another person or entity. First American
has also adopted broader guidelines that govern our use of personal information
regardless of its source. First American calls these guidelines its Fair
Information Values.
Types of Information
Depending upon which of our services you are
utilizing, the types of nonpublic personal information that we may collect
include:
·
Information we receive
from you on applications, forms and in other communications to us, whether in
writing, in person, by telephone or any other means;
·
Information about your
transactions with us, our affiliated companies, or others; and
·
Information we receive
from a consumer reporting agency.
Use of Information
We request information from you for our own
legitimate business purposes and not for the benefit of any nonaffiliated
party. Therefore, we will not release your information to nonaffiliated parties
except: (1) as necessary for us to provide the product or service you have
requested of us; or (2) as permitted by law. We may, however, store such
information indefinitely, including the period after which any customer
relationship has ceased. Such information may be used for any internal purpose,
such as quality control efforts or customer analysis. We may also provide all
of the types of nonpublic personal information listed above to one or more of
our affiliated companies. Such affiliated companies include financial service
providers, such as title insurers, property and casualty insurers, and trust
and investment advisory companies, or companies involved in real estate
services, such as appraisal companies, home warranty companies and escrow
companies. Furthermore, we may also provide all the information we collect, as described
above, to companies that perform marketing services on our behalf, on behalf of
our affiliated companies or to other financial institutions with whom we or our affiliated companies have joint marketing
agreements.
Former Customers
Even if you are no longer our customer, our
Privacy Policy will continue to apply to you.
Confidentiality and Security
We will use our best efforts to ensure that no
unauthorized parties have access to any of your information. We restrict access
to nonpublic personal information about you to those individuals and entities
who need to know that information to provide products or services to you. We
will use our best efforts to train and oversee our employees and agents to
ensure that your information will be handled responsibly and in accordance with
this Privacy Policy and First American's Fair Information Values. We currently
maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with
federal regulations to guard your nonpublic personal information.
Information Obtained Through Our Web Site
The First American Corporation is sensitive to
privacy issues on the Internet. We believe it is important you know how we
treat the information about you we receive on the Internet.
In general, you can visit First American or
its affiliates Web sites on the World Wide Web without telling us who you are
or revealing any information about yourself. Our Web servers collect the domain
names, not the e-mail addresses, of visitors. This information is aggregated to
measure the number of visits, average time spent on the site, pages viewed and
similar information. First American uses this information to measure the use of
our site and to develop ideas to improve the content of our site.
There are times, however, when we may need information
from you, such as your name and email address. When information is needed, we
will use our best efforts to let you know at the time of collection how we will
use the personal information. Usually, the personal information we collect is
used only by us to respond to your inquiry, process an order or allow you to
access specific account/profile information. If you choose to share any
personal information with us, we will only use it in accordance with the
policies outlined above.
Business Relationships
The First American Corporation's site and its
affiliates' sites may contain links to other Web sites. While we try to link
only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not
responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites.
Cookies
Some of First American's Web sites may make
use of "cookie" technology to measure site activity and to customize
information to your personal tastes. A cookie is an element of data that a Web
site can send to your browser, which may then store the cookie on your hard
drive.
www.firstam.com uses stored cookies only
if you choose the 'Remember Me' option available in the My FirstAm.com feature.
If you do choose the Remember Me option, an encrypted token is stored on your
hard drive to correlate you with the options you've selected. This feature can
be turned on or off at any time in your My FirstAm.com profile. The goal of
this technology is to better serve you when visiting our site, save you time
when you are here and to provide you with a more meaningful and productive Web
site experience.
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Fair Information Values
Fairness We consider
consumer expectations about their privacy in all our businesses. We only offer
products and services that assure a favorable balance between consumer benefits
and consumer privacy.
Public Record We
believe that an open public record creates significant value for society, enhances
consumer choice and creates consumer opportunity. We actively support an open
public record and emphasize its importance and contribution to our economy.
Use We believe we
should behave responsibly when we use information about a consumer in our business.
We will obey the laws governing the collection, use and dissemination of data.
Accuracy We will take
reasonable steps to help assure the accuracy of the data we collect, use and
disseminate. Where possible, we will take reasonable steps to correct inaccurate
information. When, as with the public record, we cannot correct inaccurate
information, we will take all reasonable steps to assist consumers in
identifying the source of the erroneous data so that the consumer can secure
the required corrections.
Education We endeavor
to educate the users of our products and services, our employees and others in
our industry about the importance of consumer privacy. We will instruct our
employees on our fair information values and on the responsible collection and
use of data. We will encourage others in our industry to collect and use
information in a responsible manner.
Security We will
maintain appropriate facilities and systems to protect against unauthorized
access to and corruption of the data we maintain.