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You’ve probably been receiving privacy
notices from banks and other financial companies. These notices explain:
- What personal financial information the
company collects
- Whether the company intends to share your
personal financial information with other companies
- What you can do, if the company intends to
share your personal financial information, to limit some of that
sharing
- How the company protects your personal
financial information.
Companies
that May Send Privacy Notices
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Financial companies share information for many
reasons: to offer you more services, to introduce new products, and to profit
from the information they have about you. If you like to know about other
products and services, you may want your financial company to share your
personal financial information; in this case, you don’t need to respond to
the privacy notice. If you prefer to limit the promotions you receive or do not
want marketers and others to have your personal financial information, you must
take some important steps.
First, it is important to read these privacy
notices. They explain how the company handles and shares your personal
financial information. Keep in mind that not all privacy notices are the same.
This guide tells you about the other steps you can take to help protect the
privacy of your personal financial information.
What Can You
Stop--and What Can’t You Stop?
Federal privacy laws give you the right to stop
(opt out of) some sharing of your personal financial information. These
laws balance your right to privacy with financial companies’ need to
provide information for normal business purposes. (For more information on
these laws, see the appendix.) You have the right to
opt out of some information sharing with companies that are:
- Part of the same corporate group as your
financial company (or affiliates)
- Not part of the same corporate group as your
financial company (or non-affiliates).
But you cannot opt out and completely stop the
flow of all your personal financial information. The law permits your
financial companies to share certain information about you without giving you
the right to opt out. Among other things, your financial company can provide to
non-affiliates:
- Information about you to firms that help
promote and market the company’s own products or products offered under a
joint agreement between two financial companies
- Records of your transactions--such as your
loan payments, credit card or debit card purchases, and checking and savings
account statements--to firms that provide data processing and mailing services
for your company
- Information about you in response to a court
order
- Your payment history on loans and credit
cards to credit bureaus.
Your Right to Opt
Out
A privacy notice contains information about the
company’s data collection and information sharing policies. If a financial
company does not plan to share your information except as permitted by law, the
notice will tell you this; in this case, you don’t have a right to opt
out.
Non-affiliates. If you have the right to opt out
(that is, if the company plans to share your information), the privacy notice
will include instructions on how to opt out of sharing some information. Unless
you opt out, your financial company can provide your personal financial
information (for example, information on the kinds of stores you shop at, how
much you borrow, your account balances, or the dollar value of your assets) to
non-affiliates for marketing and other purposes.
Affiliates.
The privacy notice may also give you the right to opt out of certain
information sharing with affiliates. For example, if a company intends to
provide an affiliate with personal information from your credit report or loan
application, you will usually first be given a chance to opt out. Companies,
however, can share information about you with affiliates when the information
is based solely on your transactions with that company (transaction information
includes whether you pay your bills on time, the type of accounts you have with
the company, and so forth). Read your notices carefully to see if this type of
opt out applies.
If you want to opt out of information sharing,
you must follow the directions provided by your financial company. For example,
you may have to call a toll-free number or fill out a form and return the form
to the company.
In some cases, your financial company may give
you the choice to opt out of different types of sharing. For example, you could
opt out of certain categories of information the company provides to other
companies but allow the company to share other kinds of information.
Privacy Notices
You May Receive
Initial Privacy
Notice. You will usually receive a privacy notice when you open an
account or become a customer of a financial company. If you open an account
over the phone, however, and you agree, the company may send you a notice at a
later time.
Annual Privacy
Notices. Each financial company you have an ongoing relationship
with--for example, the bank where you have a checking account, your credit card
company, or a company that services your loan--must give you a notice of its
privacy policy annually.
Notice of Changes in
Privacy Policies. If a company changes its privacy policy, it will
either send you a revised privacy notice or tell you about the changes in the
company’s next annual notice.
A privacy notice may be included as an insert
with your monthly statement or bill, or it may be sent to you in a separate
mailing. If you agree to electronic delivery from an on-line financial company,
the notice may be sent to you by e-mail or it may be made available to you on
the company’s web site.
If you have more than one account with
the same company, the company may send you only one privacy notice for all of
your accounts or it may send you separate notices for each of your
accounts.
If you have a joint account with another
person (for example, a joint checking account or a mortgage loan), the
financial company may send a notice to one of you or to each person listed on
the account. If the company provides an opportunity to opt out, it must let one
of the account holders opt out for all joint account holders.
What to Do When
You Receive Your Notices
- Read all privacy notices.
- Get answers to your questions from your
financial company.
- If applicable, decide whether you want to
opt out.
- If you want to opt out, follow the
instructions in the notice--and, if necessary, shop around for a financial
institution with the privacy policy you want.
Where Else to
Turn for Help
If you have questions or concerns about a
company’s privacy policy, first contact that company directly. If you
still have questions about your privacy rights in dealing with a financial
company, you can contact the federal or state agency that oversees that type of
company:
Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Regulates state-chartered
banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System, bank holding companies,
and branches of foreign banks
Division of Consumer and
Community Affairs, Stop 801
20th and C Streets, NW
Washington, DC
20551
202-452-3693
Commodity
Futures Trading Commission
Regulates commodity brokers,
commodity trading advisors, commodity pools, and introducing
brokers
Privacy Officer, Office of
Chief Counsel
Division of Trading and Markets
Three Lafayette
Center
1155 21st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20581
202-418-5430
Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation
Regulates state-chartered
banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System
Division of Compliance and
Consumer Affairs
550 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20429
877-ASK-FDIC or 877-275-3342
toll-free
Federal
Trade Commission
Regulates any financial
company not covered by the other federal regulators such as mortgage brokers,
tax and investment services, finance companies, credit bureaus, nonbank
lenders, auto dealers, leasing companies, appraisers, real estate settlement
services, credit counseling services, and collection agency
services
Consumer Response
Center
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20580
877-FTC-HELP or 877-382-4357
toll-free
National
Credit Union Administration
Regulates federally chartered
credit unions
Office of Public and
Congressional Affairs
1775 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA
22314-3428
703-518-6330
Office of
the Comptroller of the Currency
Regulates national banks,
District of Columbia banks, federal branches and federal agencies of foreign
banks, and subsidiaries of such entities. These typically include banks with
"national" or "N.A." in their names.
Customer Assistance
Group
1301 McKinney Street
Suite 3710
Houston, TX
77010
800-613-6743
toll-free
Office of
Thrift Supervision
Regulates federal savings and
loan associations and federal savings banks
Consumer Programs
1700
G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20552
800-842-6929
toll-free
Securities
and Exchange Commission
Regulates brokerage firms,
mutual fund companies, and investment advisors
Office of Investor
Education and Assistance
450 5th Street, NW
Washington, DC
20549-0213
202-942-9634 fax
Appendix
More Information About the Laws
Affecting Your Personal Financial
Privacy
Two federal laws cover different aspects of how
companies can share your financial information, as described in this guide: the
Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
The Fair Credit
Reporting Act protects the privacy of certain information
distributed by consumer reporting agencies (CRAs). Most CRAs are credit bureaus
that gather and provide information about you, such as if you pay your bills on
time or have filed for bankruptcy, to creditors and other businesses. Under the
law, credit bureaus and other CRAs can release your information only to those
third parties that have certified that they have a purpose permitted by the law
to obtain your consumer report, such as to evaluate your application for
credit, insurance, or employment, or to rent you an apartment.
When a financial company obtains your credit
report from a credit bureau, it may want to share that information with an
affiliate, meaning a company that owns your financial company, that your
financial company owns, or that is part of the same parent organization or
corporate family. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, however, if the
financial company plans to share certain information--for example, from your
credit report or your credit application--with its affiliates, it will usually
first notify you and give you an opportunity to opt out. This notice is likely
to be included in the privacy notice you receive from the financial company
under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Act requires financial companies to tell you about their policies
regarding the privacy of your personal financial information. With some
exceptions, the law limits the ability of financial companies to share your
personal financial information with certain non-affiliates. A non-affiliate is
a company that is unrelated to your financial company, and may include:
- Service
providers--companies hired by your financial company to perform a
specific service, such as printing your checks
- Joint
marketers--companies that have an agreement with your financial company
to offer you other financial products or services
- Other third-party
non-affiliate--which could include companies that may want access to
your financial company’s mailing list to tell you about other products and
services.
Under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, your
financial company can provide your personal financial information to
non-affiliated service providers including joint marketers. But before it
shares your information with other third-party non-affiliates (outside of these
exceptions), your financial company must tell you about its information sharing
practices and give you the opportunity to opt out. |
