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 which 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.
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.
|