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.
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