California Privacy Notice

CALIFORNIA PRIVACY NOTICE

 

Updated: January 1, 2023

 

 

This California Privacy Notice (“California Notice”) supplements the Privacy Notice located at https://agws.com/privacy-policy/ and applies solely to visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). American Guardian Warranty Services, Inc. (“we” or “us”) adopted this California Notice to comply with California privacy laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”). Any terms defined in the CPRA and not defined here have the same meaning when used in this California Notice.

 

1.   Notice of Collection and Use of Personal Information

 

We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household (“Personal Information”). In addition, we may collect data that is not identifiable to you or otherwise associated with you, such as aggregated data, and is not Personal Information. To the extent this data is stored or associated with Personal Information, it will be treated as Personal Information; otherwise, the data is not subject to this notice.

 

Categories of Personal Information

 

Within the last 12 months, we have collected the following categories of Personal Information:

 

1. Identifiers that you have provided to conduct business with us, such as name, email address, social media account handle, phone number, account name, IP address, device identifiers, vehicle identification numbers, or other similar identifiers.
2. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code 1798.80(e)), including signature, billing address, shipping address.
3. Commercial information, including records of products or services purchased with us, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies, including transaction history and order number.
4. Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, and information regarding how our users use, interact with, and navigate the Services (such as website activity, clickstream information, browser information, reference site domain name).
5. Professional or employment-related information.

 

We will not collect additional categories of Personal Information other than those categories listed above. If we intend to collect additional categories of Personal Information, we will provide you with a new notice at or before the time of collection. We do not collect any Sensitive Personal Information as defined by the CPRA.

 

Use of Personal Information

 

• We collect and process your Personal Information for the following business and commercial purposes:
• Providing, predicting, or performing, including creating, maintaining, or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing, or fulfilling orders and transactions, verifying customer information, and processing payments.
• Marketing our products and services to you if you have a business to business relationship with us, including sending you messages about the products and services we offer, which may include contests, rewards, sweepstakes, loyalty programs, events, and special offers for products and services. These communications may be tailored based on the communications preferences you select when providing us with your information or your activity on the Services, and will only occur with your prior consent, if such consent is required in accordance with applicable laws.
• Communicating with you by email mail, text message (SMS, MMS), telephone, push notification, and other methods of communication, about products, services, new website features, order status, and information tailored to your requests, comments, suggestions, or inquiries.
• Facilitating your engagement with the Services, including to enable you to post comments and reviews, to engage with other customers, and to post on social media.
• Auditing related to a current interaction with the consumer and concurrent transactions.
• Detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity.
• Debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of the services or devices owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by us, and to improve, upgrade, or enhance the services or devices owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by us.
• Complying with applicable laws, regulations, rules, and requests of relevant law enforcement and/or other governmental agencies, or for other purposes, as permitted or required by law.
• As necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, health, and safety of our users, us, and other third parties.

 

We will not use the Personal Information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you with notice.

 

Sources of Personal Information

 

We collect Personal Information from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from you. When you provide it to us directly whether online, by email, phone, or in-person, for example, when you create an account, sign-up to receive emails from us, or contact us.
• Automatically or indirectly from you. For example, through analytics tools, cookies, pixel tags (such as Google Analytics), or through your interactions with us on social media websites.
• Operating Systems and Platforms. For example, we automatically collect information relating to the device used to access our Services, such as IP address, device identifiers, and browser information.
• Social Networks. For example, from social media networks (such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), including if you contact us for customer service support through our social media pages.
• Data Analytics Providers. For example, through technology and analytics providers (such as Google Analytics). These providers use cookies, pixel tags, and other tracking technologies to collect information about your online activity. In order for Google Analytics to function, when you use our Services, Google will place cookies on your device. Google Analytics may also collect information through other methods in addition to cookies. Information collected by Google Analytics when you use our Services, and the way it is used, is described in the applicable Google Privacy Policy and Google Terms of Service.

 

Retention of Personal Information

 

We retain your Personal Information for no longer than is needed or permitted considering the purpose(s) for which it was obtained. The criteria used to determine retention periods include: (i) the length of time we have on an ongoing relationship with you and provide the Services to you; (ii) whether there is a legal obligation to which we are subject; and (iii) whether retention is advisable in light of compliance with laws (such as, in regard to applicable statutes of limitations, litigation or regulatory investigations).

 

II. Your California Privacy Rights

 

California’s “Shine the Light” law permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us a list of what personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes in the previous calendar year and the names and addresses of those third parties. Requests may be made only once per year per person, must be sent to [Insert Hyperlink], and are free of charge. However, we do not disclose Personal Information protected under the “Shine the Light” law to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

 

The CPRA provides California residents with the following rights:

 

1.  Right to Know: You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about the Personal Information we collected, used, disclosed, sold, and shared about you. This includes a request to know any or all the following:

• The categories of Personal Information collected about you;
• The categories of sources from which we collected your Personal Information;
• The categories of Personal Information that we have sold, shared or disclosed about you for a business purpose;
• The categories of third parties to whom your Personal Information was sold, shared or disclosed for a business purpose and the categories of persons to whom it was disclosed for a business purpose;
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling, or sharing your Personal Information; and
• The specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you.

 

2.  Data Portability: You have the right to request a copy of Personal Information we have collected and maintained about you.

 

3.  Right to Deletion: You have the right to request that we delete the Personal Information we collected from you and maintained, subject to certain exceptions. Please note that if you request deletion of your Personal Information, we may deny your request or may retain certain elements of your Personal Information if it is necessary for us or our service providers to:

 

• Complete the transaction for which the Personal Information was collected, provide a good or service requested by you, or reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform a contract between our business and you.
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; or prosecute those responsible for that activity.
• Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise his or her right of free speech, or exercise another right provided for by law.
• Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act pursuant to Chapter 3.6 (commencing with Section 1546) of Title 12 of Part 2 of the Penal Code.
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the deletion of the information is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of such research, if you have provided informed consent.
• To enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with your expectations based on your relationship with us.
• Comply with a legal obligation.
• Otherwise use the Personal Information, internally, in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in which you provided the information.

 

4.  Right to Opt-In to Financial Incentives: You have the right to opt-in to financial incentives. You also have the right to opt-out at any time. However, we do not offer any financial incentives.

 

5.  Right to Opt-Out/In: You have the right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of your Personal Information. You also have the right to opt-in to the sale of Personal Information.

 

6.  Right to Non-Discrimination: You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment by us for the exercise of your CPRA privacy rights. Unless permitted by the CPRA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

 

7.  Right to Correct:  You have the right to correct inaccurate Personal Information about you. Once we receive and verify your request, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to correct the inaccurate Personal Information about you.

 

8.  Right to Opt-Out of Automated Decision Making: You have the right to opt-out of the use of automated decision making technology, including profiling. However, we do not perform any automated decision making.

 

9.  Right to Access Information about Automated Decision Making: You have the right to request access to and information about how automated decision technologies work and what their likely outcomes are. However, we do not perform any automated decision making.

 

10.  Right to Restrict or Limit: You have the right to restrict the use and disclosure of Sensitive Personal Information to certain purposes related to the offering of goods or services as listed in the CPRA, other than those that are commercially necessary or as otherwise authorized by the CPRA. However, we do not handle any Sensitive Personal Information.

 

Some of our products and services, however, may require your Personal Information. If you choose not to provide your Personal Information that is necessary to provide any aspect of our products or services, you may not be able to use those products or services. In addition, as described in the section captioned “Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information” in the Privacy Notice located at https://agws.com/privacy-policy/, it is possible to change your browser settings to block the automatic collection of certain information.

 

III.  Submitting a Verified Consumer Request

 

To exercise your rights outlined above, you must provide us with sufficient information to allow us to verify your identity and describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it. Once we receive the information you provide to us, we will review it and determine if more information is necessary to verify your identity as required by law, and we may request additional information in order to do so.

To exercise your California privacy rights described above, please submit a verifiable request to us by:

 

• Calling us at 1-800-579-2233 EXT. 4310.
• Emailing us at PRIVACY@AGWS.COM.

 

Only you, or a person authorized by you to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your Personal Information. The verifiable consumer request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected Personal Information or an authorized representative. We will need to verify your identity with at least two (2) pieces of information, such as name and email address.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

 

We may deny your request if we are unable to verify your identity or have reason to believe that the request is fraudulent.

 

Consumer Request by an Authorized Agent

 

If any authorized agent submits a consumer request on your behalf, in order to confirm that person or entity’s authority to act on your behalf and verify the authorized agent’s identity, we require an email be sent to privacy@agws.com, along with all of the below items:

 

• To verify your authorization to request on behalf of a California resident, provide one or more of the following: (1) California Secretary of State authorization, (2) written permission from the California resident, or (3) power of attorney.
• Sufficient information to verify the authorized agent’s identity, depending on the nature of the request.
• To verify the identity of the California resident for whom the request is being made, provide the information set forth above for verification of the consumer request.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with Personal Information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the Personal Information relates to you. We will only use Personal Information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the request’s identity or authority to make the request.

 

We will acknowledge receipt of a request pertaining to the Right to Know, Right to Portability, Right to Correct, or Right to Deletion, within ten business days of its receipt. We will respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. We will respond to a request pertaining to the Right to Opt-out or a Right to Restrict or Limit as soon as possible, but no later than 15 business days from the date we receive such a request. We will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For Data Portability requests, we will provide the responsive information in a portable and, to the extent technically feasible, in a readily useable format that allows you to transmit the information to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

 

IV.  Sale or Sharing of Personal Information

 

We do not sell or share your Personal Information to third parties for money. However, the CPRA defines “sale” or “share” broadly, and that definition could include information that we have shared with certain technology providers that provide certain services to us.

 

During the past 12 months, we may “sell” or “share” (as defined under the CPRA) your Personal Information for the following business or commercial purposes:

 

• Category 1: Data Analytics Providers such as Google Analytics.
• Category 4: Data Analytics Providers such as Google Analytics.

To the extent “sale” or “sharing” under the CPRA are interpreted to include advertising technology activities such as those disclosed here and in our Privacy Policy as a “sale” or “sharing,” we will comply with applicable law, including the CPRA, as to such activities. As described below, you have the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your personal information. Additionally, you should know that the CPRA prohibits third parties to whom we “sell” or “share” personal information from reselling or resharing it unless you have received explicit notice and an opportunity to opt-out of further sales or sharing.

 

Minors: We do not and will not knowingly sell or share the Personal Information of minors under the age of 16.

 

Notice of Right to Opt-Out

You have the right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of your Personal Information. Please see Section V. Submitting a Verified Consumer Request to submit an opt-out request.

Do Not Track

 

We use analytics systems and providers and participate in ad networks that process Personal Information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or online services, and these systems and providers may provide some of this information to us. We do not currently process or comply with any web browser’s “do not track” signal or similar mechanisms.

 

Promotional Messages

 

Generally, we do not assign monetary or other value to Personal Information. However, in the event we are required by law to assign such value in the context of financial incentives or price or service differences that we offer, we have valued the Personal Information collected and used as being equal to the value of the discount code or financial incentive offered, and the calculation of the value is based upon a reasonable and good-faith estimate often involving the consideration of (i) the categories of Personal Information collected (e.g., email address and phone number), (ii) the value of the discount offered, and (iii) the value of the total purchase (excluding taxes and fees). The disclosure of the value described herein is not intended to waive, nor should be interpreted as a waiver to, our proprietary or business confidential information, including trade secrets, and does not constitute any representation with regard to generally accepted accounting principles or financial accounting standards.

 

V.  Modifications and Updates to this California Notice

 

This California Notice replaces all previous disclosures we may have provided to you about our information practices with respect to the Services. We reserve the right, at any time, to modify, alter, and/or update this California Notice, and any such modifications, alterations, or updates will be effective upon our posting of the revised California Notice. We will use reasonable efforts to notify you in the event material changes are made to our processing activities and/or this California Notice, such as by posting a notice on the Services or sending you an email. Your continued use of the Services following our posting of any revised California Notice will constitute your acknowledgement of the amended California Notice.

 

If you have any questions or concerns about this California Notice and/or how we process Personal Information, please contact us at:

AGWS – LEGAL DEPARTMENT

P.O. BOX 768

WARRENVILLE, IL 60555

PRIVACY@AGWS.COM

800-579-2233 EXT. 4310

 

If you have a disability and need a copy of the Policy in an alternative format, you may contact us at the contact information listed above.