Introduction
First Advantage is committed to the responsible use of information and protecting individual privacy rights. First Advantage strives to provide services to businesses, consumers, non-profit organizations and government agencies that help reduce fraud, mitigate risk, facilitate more informed decisions, and make society safer, in ways that centralize data privacy and protection.
Scope of Application
The California Consumer Privacy Act and similar state-level comprehensive data privacy laws such as those found in Oregon, Montana, Utah, Colorado, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and other states (“Data Privacy Law/s”) provide residents with a number of privacy protections. It is important to note that these Data Privacy Laws generally do not apply (or have specific exceptions) to First Advantage lines of business that are governed by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (the “FCRA”), as consumer reporting agency such as employment background screening or resident screening. If you are a U.S. resident, and were the subject of a background screen, and would like to exercise your rights under the FCRA, you can do so here: https://fadv.com/candidates/.
Outside of FCRA-type services, the following First Advantage services may be subject to these Data Privacy Laws, depending on your organization’s use of the services:
- Affordable Care Act Compliance
- Drug Testing
- Road Ready, Driver Services
- Fleet Compliance
- Tax Credits and Incentives
- Fingerprinting
- I9 Services
- Any other administrative services performed by First Advantage that are not related to preparing and delivering consumer reports
This privacy policy is provided by First Advantage and its subsidiaries that either (1) act as a business within the meaning of Data Privacy Laws, or (2) are controlled by First Advantage, and use the First Advantage name. These companies are referred to in this policy as “we” or “us.” Data Privacy Laws requires us to disclose to residents’ certain information regarding the categories of Personal Information we collect. For purposes of this section, “Personal Information” has the meaning provided by the California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”) and may exclude certain information that is publicly available, deidentified, aggregated, subject to GLBA, FCRA, HIPAA, or the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994, or otherwise exempt or excluded from the CCPA.
Use of Personal Information
First Advantages uses the Personal Information about you which is subject to the CCPA and other Data Privacy Laws for the following purposes:
- Providing services to our clients (usually your employer);
- Enhancing and improving the services we provide our clients;
- Developing new functionality to offer to our clients;
- Establishing and maintaining communications with you and the First Advantage client you work with;
- Meeting legal, security, processing and regulatory requirements;
- Ensuring the terms of the Master Service Agreement are complied with;
- Establishing, enforcing, or defending legal claims;
- Protecting against fraud, suspicious or other illegal activities; and
- Compiling statistics for analysis of the Sites and our business.
We may use Personal Information for any of the above purposes, but such use will be necessary and proportionate for such purpose.
Personal Information We Collect
First Advantage collects Personal Information in several different ways. We collect Personal Information from you directly when you interact with our services (“direct data collection”). We collect Personal Information automatically when you interact with our website or mobile applications (“navigational data collection”). Finally, we collect Personal Information from publicly available databases, such as public government records or other data compilers (“third party data collection”).
Direct Data Collection
As part of our direct data collection, we collect the following categories of Personal Information about consumers:
- Personal identifiers (such as first and last name, postal address, telephone number, social security number, driver’s license);
- Sensitive Personal Information (such as physical characteristics, insurance policy number, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, general financial information, medical information, health insurance information, precise geolocation information, race, or gender);
- Commercial or transactional data (such as records of property, products, or services purchased, obtained or considered; vehicle information; insurance claims; insurance underwriting information); and
- Credential information (such as professional or employment-related information, and educational information);
All of this information we will collect directly from you.
Third Party Data Collection
As part of our third-party data collection, we collect the following categories of Personal Information about consumers:
- Personal identifiers (such as first and last name, postal address, telephone number, social security number, driver’s license);
- Sensitive Personal Information (such as physical characteristics, insurance policy number, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, general financial information, medical information, health insurance information, race, or gender);
- Commercial or transactional data (such as records of property, products, or services purchased, obtained or considered; vehicle information; insurance claims; insurance underwriting information); and
- Credential information (such as professional or employment-related information, and educational information);
All of this information we will collect from public sources, or from third parties which are legally permitted to provide such data.
Navigational Data Collection
For visitors to our website or users of our mobile applications (collectively, the “Sites”), we may also collect information through the use of commonly-used information-gathering tools, such as cookies and web beacons (collectively “Navigational Data”). Navigational Data includes standard information from your web browser (such as browser type and browser language), your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, and the actions you take on the Site (such as the web pages viewed and the links clicked), embedded scripts, and entity tags (ETags). Where Navigational Data is attributable to you, directly or indirectly, we will consider it Personal Information.
Cookies
Like many companies, we may use cookies on the Site. Cookies are pieces of information shared between your web browser and a website. Use of cookies enables a faster and easier experience for the user. A cookie cannot read data off your computer’s hard drive. There are different kinds of cookies with different functions:
- Session cookies: These are only stored on your computer during your web session. They are automatically deleted when the browser is closed.
- Persistent cookies: A persistent cookie is one stored as a file on your computer, and it remains there when you close your web browser. The cookie can be read by the website that created it when you visit that website again.
- First-party cookies: The function of this type of cookie is to retain your preferences for a particular website for the entity that owns that website. They are stored and sent between an First Advantage Party’s servers and your computer’s hard drive. They are not used for anything other than for personalization as set by you. These cookies may be either Session or Persistent cookies.
- Third-party cookies: The function of this type of cookie is to retain your interaction with a particular website for an entity that does not own that website. They are stored and sent between the third-party’s server and your computer’s hard drive. These cookies are usually Persistent cookies.
IP Addresses
When you visit our Sites, we collect your IP addresses to track and aggregate visitor behavior. For example, we use IP addresses to monitor the regions from which users navigate the Sites.
Embedded Scripts
An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the Site, such as the links you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded from our web server (or a third party service provider), is active only while you are connected to the Site, and is deactivated or deleted thereafter.
We use the above technologies (or ones we incorporate in the future) for the purposes set out above or as permitted by law.
Automated Preference Signals
Some browsers have attempted to implement the draft “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (“W3C”). As this standard has not been finalized, and is not generally accepted in the industry, the Sites are not compatible with DNT. Additionally, since we do not deploy third party cookies for purposes of cross contextual behavioral advertising, the Site does not respond to Global Privacy Control signals, or similar browser settings.
Disclosure of Personal Information
We do not disclose any Personal Information about you to third parties except as stated in this Privacy Policy, as otherwise permitted by law, or as authorized by you. We may disclose Personal Information for any of the purposes stated in this Policy, or as otherwise permitted by applicable law.
Third parties to whom we generally disclose information are required by law or a contract with us, to keep your Personal Information confidential and secure, to use and disclose such Personal Information for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances, and for purposes described earlier in this Policy.
First Advantage Affiliates
First Advantage is a group of companies, all of which are affiliated through various levels of common ownership. Because we operate services across our affiliates, we may transfer your information from one legal entity to another in order to accomplish purposes listed in this Policy. We will transfer your Personal Information in a manner that is consistent with applicable legal requirements.
Service Providers
We may disclose Personal Information to our Service Providers for any of the purposes stated in this Policy. Because a number of the service providers we use are located in the United States, your Personal Information may be processed and stored inside the United States, and the U.S. government, courts, or law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain disclosure of your Personal Information under US laws. We do not disclose Personal Information to service providers outside the scope of obtaining services from them.
First Advantage Clients
Due to the nature of your relationship with a First Advantage client, we consider your Personal Information a business record of the client affiliated with you. As such, we may disclose your Personal Information to the client affiliated with you. We will do this for any of the purposes specified in this Policy, as well as upon your request, or upon the client’s request.
Other Legally Required Disclosures
First Advantage reserves the right to disclose, without your prior permission, any Personal Information about you or your use of the Site if we have a good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) protect and defend the rights, property or safety of First Advantage, our employee, other users of the Site, or the public; (b) enforce the terms and conditions that apply to use of the Site; (c) as required by a legally valid request from a competent governmental authority; or (d) respond to claims that any content violates the rights of third-parties. We may also disclose Personal Information as we deem necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request.
Should law enforcement contact us with a demand for Personal Information, we will attempt to redirect the law enforcement agency to request that data directly from you. If compelled to disclose Personal Information to law enforcement, we will promptly notify you and provide you a copy of the demand unless legally prohibited from doing so. If we are compelled by law to delete Personal Information, we will promptly comply and, if legally permitted, notify you of such deletion.
Your Rights Regarding Personal Information
Residents in states with Data Privacy Laws have certain rights with respect to the Personal Information collected by businesses. As a resident, you may generally exercise the following rights regarding your Personal Information:
The Right To Know
(a) the categories and specific pieces of Personal Information we collect, use, disclose and sell about you; (b) the categories of sources of the Personal Information; (c) the categories of Personal Information that we have disclosed to third parties for a business purpose, and the categories of recipients to whom this information was disclosed; (d) the categories of Personal Information we have sold and the categories of third parties to whom the information was sold; and (e) the business or commercial purposes for collecting or selling the Personal Information;
- The right to correct Personal Information which may be incorrect;
- The right to request that we delete the Personal Information we have collected from you;
- As any disclosure of your Personal Information to a First Advantage client is at your direction.
- The right not to receive discriminatory treatment for the exercise of the privacy rights conferred by Data Privacy Laws.
Please note that these rights are not absolute, and are subject to a number of exceptions. Should we decline any request to exercise a right noted below, we will provide you an explanation of the reason for our declining such request.
Exercising Your Rights
To exercise any of the above rights, please contact us using the following information and submit the required verifying information, as further described below:
By email at USDataPrivacy@FADV.com
By phone at 1-800-845-6004
By mail to:
First Advantage Consumer Center
P.O. Box 105292
Atlanta, GA 30348-5292
Verification Process and Required Information
Note that we may need to request additional information from you to verify your identity or understand the scope of your request, although you will not be required to create an account with us to submit a request or have it fulfilled. In order to exercise your rights for a copy of the specific pieces of Personal Information we process under Data Privacy Laws, we will require you to provide, at a minimum first name, last name, social security number, and address. For requests submitted by mail, you will need to send copies of two forms of identification that include your first name, last name and current address.
In certain circumstances, we may decline a request to exercise the right to know and/or right to deletion, particularly where we are unable to verify your identity or where the information is subject to exemption, as discussed above.
Authorized Agent
You may designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf through the designated methods set forth in these disclosures where we can verify the authorized agent’s authority to act on your behalf.
For requests to know or delete Personal Information: (i) receiving a power of attorney valid under the laws of California or other states from you or your authorized agent; or (ii) receiving sufficient evidence to show that you have: (a) provided the authorized agent signed permission to act on your behalf; (b) verified your own identity directly with us pursuant to the instructions set forth in these Disclosures; and (c) directly confirmed with us that you provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request on your behalf. This may be done by mailing two forms of identification showing your first name, last name and current address and a signed authorization allowing an agent to request information on your behalf.
Safeguards
We have in place reasonable safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information we maintain. Safeguards will vary depending on the sensitivity, format, location, amount, distribution and storage of the Personal Information. They include physical, technical and managerial measures to keep Personal Information protected from unauthorized access. Note that due to the nature of the Internet and related technology, we cannot absolutely guarantee the security of Personal Information disclosed over the Internet, and First Advantage expressly disclaim any such obligation.
Changes
If there is any material change to your rights under this Policy, First Advantage will provide you with notice of such change 30 calendar days prior to the changes going into effect. As part of this notice, First Advantage may post a notice of the change on the Site in a clear and conspicuous manner for the 30 calendar day notice period. First Advantage may also communicate the change via email or postal mail if this is the way that First Advantage normally corresponds with you. Please note that your continued use of the Site once this 30 calendar day period are over indicates your agreement to the changes which were the subject of the notice.