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.
