Updated: January 2020
Intero Real Estate Services, Inc. values you as our customer and we want to address any privacy concerns you may have. To that end, we have set forth our privacy policy for handling the information you share with us online and through any documentation submitted as part of a real estate transaction with Intero Real Estate Services, Inc. We want your decision to do business with us to be an informed one. We have adopted this Privacy Policy to explain what information may be collected when you utilize our applications and services, how we use this information, and under what circumstances we may disclose the information to affiliates and third parties. You should review this Privacy Policy frequently, as it may change from time to time without notice. Any changes will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy.
1. Scope of Our Privacy Notice
This privacy notice applies to our collection, use disclosure and other processing of personal information related to:
All collection, use, disclosure, and processing of personal information by Intero about individuals will vary depending upon use of our Sites and Services. This policy is intended to provide our general practices and procedures. In some cases, different or additional notices about our data collection and processing may be provided and apply to certain personal information.
This policy does not apply to job applicants or candidates who apply for employment with Intero or to our employees and independent agents.
2. Collecting Information
When you visit our consumer applications or purchase and/or sell real estate with Intero, we may collect information about you that you share with us. We typically collect two kinds of information about you through our applications and real estate services: (a) information that you provide that personally identifies you; and (b) information that does not personally identify you, which we automatically collect when you visit our applications or that you provide to us.
When visiting our consumer-facing applications, you may be directed, through hyperlinks, to other consumer applications that are beyond our control. This Privacy Policy does not cover the collection of information by those other companies and consumer applications. Although we encourage third parties to provide their own privacy policies, we are not responsible for their activities, such as how they handle the information they collect online.
You can manage how your preferences regarding third party ad company cookies set by this Site or Service by reading the cookie discussion above.
Please also see the cookie discussion above for information about the third parties we may work with to display targeted ads on third-party sites and to measure the success of our marketing and campaigns. You may also obtain more information about targeted or “interest-based advertising” and opt-out of many ad networks at the industry websites below:
3. Basis for Processing of Personal Information
Certain laws, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), requires that we inform applicable individuals of the legal basis for our use and other processing of personal information.
We process personal information for the follow bases:
In addition, we may process your personal information where necessary to protect the vital interests of any individual.
4. How We Use & Share Information Collected
You may opt-out from receiving future promotional or marketing information from us, our affiliated companies, and our third-party vendors, or direct that we not share your information with any affiliated companies or third-party vendors, as set forth below in Section 10. Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, or as set forth when you submit the information, your personally identifiable information will not be sold to any third parties or used in any manner outside the scope of this Privacy Policy without your prior approval. We further reserve the right to disclose your information under limited circumstances, such as to cooperate with law enforcement or judicial authorities as required by law or legal process, to protect our own legal rights, or to protect the public good.
We may use your Non-PII by itself or aggregate it with information we have obtained from others. We may share your Non-PII with our affiliated companies and third parties to achieve these objectives and others, but remember that aggregate information is anonymous information that does not personally identify any individual, device, or household.
Whenever you are online or on our applications, you run the risk that the information you provide will fall into the wrong hands. Although we implement and maintain commercially reasonable security procedures and practices to safeguard your privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you provide to us. We accept no responsibility or liability for the activities of third parties. By using our consumer applications and applications, you agree to our Terms of Use.
5. Updating Information
If you would like to review the information about you that we have collected through our consumer applications, or to change that information, you can make that request by following the procedure indicated below in Section 10. We may require that you verify your identity before we process your request.
6. Processing Location
We process your personal information in the United States. For users located outside of the United States, please see Sections 16 titled European Union / European Economic Area for more detailed information.
7. Anti-Fraud Disclosure
Electronic communications such as email, text messages and social media messaging, are neither secure nor confidential. While Intero has adopted policies and procedures to aid in avoiding fraud, even the best security protections can still be bypassed by unauthorized parties. Intero will never send you any electronic communication with instructions to transfer funds or to provide nonpublic personal information, such as credit card or debit numbers or bank account and/or routing numbers.
YOU SHOULD NEVER TRANSMIT NONPUBLIC PERSONAL INFORMATION, SUCH AS CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD NUMBERS OR BANK ACCOUNT OR ROUTING NUMBERS, BY EMAIL OR OTHER UNSECURED ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION. EMAILS ATTEMPTING TO INDUCE FRAUDULENT WIRE TRANSFERS ARE COMMON AND MAY APPEAR TO COME FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE.
If you receive any electronic communication directing you to transfer funds or provide nonpublic personal information, EVEN IF THAT ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION APPEARS TO BE FROM Intero or its affiliates, do not respond to it and immediately contact your real estate agent or title closer. Such requests, even if they may otherwise appear to be from Intero, are likely part of a scheme to defraud you by stealing funds from you or using your identity to commit a crime.
To notify Intero of suspected fraud related to your real estate transaction, send an email to clientservices@interorealestate.com
8. Updating Our Privacy Policy
We may, from time to time, change our Privacy Policy. We will notify you of any changes by posting our updated Privacy Policy on our consumer applications and inserting a new “Effective Date.”
9. Data Retention
We will retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy notice unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. We may retain personal information for longer where required by our legal and regulatory obligations, professional indemnity obligations, or where we believe it is necessary to establish, defend or protect our legal rights and interests or those of others. With respect to the data and files we handle as a processor, we retain this personal information in accordance with our clients’ instructions.
10. Rights and “Opt-Out”
Marketing. You may opt out from receiving marketing-related communications from us on a going-forward basis by contacting us or by using the unsubscribe mechanism contained in each email. We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out of receiving marketing-related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt out.
Cookies and similar technologies. Please review your browser or device settings for certain cookies and see above to exercise certain choices regarding cookies.
Access, amendment and deletion. Under applicable privacy laws, you may have the right to request to review, make amendments, have deleted or otherwise exercise your rights over your personal information that we hold, subject to certain legal limitations and requirements. If you are subject to such a privacy law, you may submit a request to us related to your personal information:
By submitting a request to us at Privacy@intero.com
By contacting us at (866)420-5700 (toll free)
We follow applicable law to take steps to keep your personal information accurate, complete and up-to-date. In your request that is covered by an applicable privacy law, please make clear what personal information you would like to have changed, whether you would like to have your personal information suppressed from our database or otherwise let us know what limitations you would like to put on our use of your personal information. We may only implement requests (a) where required by applicable law and (b) with respect to the personal information associated with the particular email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.
As outlined below, if you are a California resident or if you are in the European Union/European Economic Area, you may have additional rights.
Deactivation. You can deactivate your account at any time by contacting us at the email address at the bottom of this page. However, you will not be able to access many of the services to deactivate your account. Please note that even if you request deactivation of your account, it may take some time to fulfill this request.
Responding to Requests. Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting a change or deletion. There may also be residual information that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed. We may not always be able to fully address your request, for example if it would impact the duty of confidentiality we owe to others, or if we are legally entitled to deal with the request in a different way.
Additional information for certain jurisdictions. We are committed to respecting the privacy rights of individuals under all privacy laws applicable to us. Some privacy laws require that we provide specific information about individual rights to applicable consumers, which we have set forth at the end of this privacy notice:
California: if you are a California resident, you have certain rights, under California privacy laws, regarding your personal information as set forth in Section 15 below.
EU/EEA: if you are in the European Union / European Economic Area, we provide further details about your rights under the GDPR in Section 16 below.
11. Children
The Services are not intended or directed to children under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect any personal information, or knowingly track the use of our Services, from children. If we have actual knowledge that personal information about a child under 18 years old has been collected, then we will take appropriate steps to try and delete such personal information.
12. THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES
The Services may contain links to third-party services. We do not own, operate, or control the websites of third-parties, including those of independently owned and operated franchisees. Accordingly, this Policy does not apply to any services maintained or operated by third-parties. When you click on those links, you will go to a third-party website where you will be subject to that service’s privacy policy or similar statement and terms of use, and we encourage you to read that policy statement. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other services, and we expressly disclaim any liability for their actions, including actions related to the use and disclosure of personal information by those third parties.
13. Effective Date and Changes to this Policy
This Privacy Policy is effective as of January 1, 2020.
14. Contact Information
For questions and concerns about this Policy, our company can be reached at:
Address: 10275 N. De Anza Blvd., Cupertino, Ca 95014
Email Address: Privacy@intero.com
Phone: Toll Free (866) 420-5700
15. California Privacy Rights
California Residents.
In this section, we provide information for California residents, as required under California privacy laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which requires that we provide California residents certain specific information about how we handle their personal information, whether collected online or offline. This section does not address or apply to our handling of publicly available information made lawfully available by state or federal governments or other personal information that is subject to an exemption under the CCPA.
Categories of personal information that we collect. Our collection, use and disclosure of personal information about a California resident will vary depending upon the circumstances and nature of our interactions or relationship with such resident. The table below sets out generally the categories of personal information (as defined by the CCPA) about California residents that we collect, sell, and disclose to others for a business purpose. We collect these categories of personal information from the sources described and for the purposes also detailed below.
Category | Examples | Collected |
---|---|---|
A. Identifiers. | A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver's license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers. | YES |
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)). | A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver's license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories. | YES |
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law | Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information). | YES |
D. Commercial information. | Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies. | YES |
E. Biometric information. | Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data. | NO |
F. Internet or other similar network activity. | Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer's interaction with a website, application, or advertisement. | NO |
G. Geolocation data. | Physical location or movements. | NO |
H. Sensory data. | Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information. | NO |
I. Professional or employment-related information. | Current or past job history or performance evaluations. | YES |
J. Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)). | Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records. | NO |
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information. | Profile reflecting a person’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes. | NO |
Personal information does not include:
We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:
Use of Personal Information. We may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business purposes:
We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.
Sharing Personal Information. We may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. When we disclose personal information for a business purpose, we enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that personal information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract.
In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have disclosed the following categories of personal information for a business purpose:
Category A: Identifiers.
Category B: California Customer Records personal information categories.
Category C: Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.
Category D: Commercial Information
Category I: Professional or employment-related information.
We disclose your personal information for a business purpose to the following categories of third parties:
Categories of Personal Information Sold. The CCPA defines a “sale” as disclosing or making available to a third-party personal information in exchange for monetary or other valuable consideration. While we do not disclose personal information to third parties in exchange for monetary compensation from such third parties, we do disclose or make available the categories of personal information that we collect to our affiliate and subsidiary companies. We also may make certain categories of personal information available to third parties, in order to receive certain services or benefits from them (such as when we allow third party tags to collect browsing history and other information on our Services to improve and measure our ad campaigns), including:
Rights of California residents. California law grants California residents certain rights and imposes restrictions on particular business practices as set forth below.
California residents may make a Request to Know up to twice every 12 months. We will respond to verifiable requests received from California residents as required by law.
Submitting Requests. Do-Not-Sell (Opt-out) Requests, Requests to Know, and Requests to Delete may be submitted:
We will respond to verifiable requests received from California residents as required by law. For more information about our privacy practices, contact us as set forth in the “Contact Us” section above.
You may only make a verifiable consumer request to know information twice within a 12-month period. 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 that the personal information relates to you. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request.
Once we receive your verifiable consumer request, we will send you an acknowledgement letter within 10 days which will describe our verification process. We will respond to your request within 45 days, if we are able to verify your identity. Requests for deletion will require a separate confirmation that you want your information deleted.
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.
Please note we are unable to disclose or provide you with your Social Security Number, Driver's License Number, or other government issued identification number, financial account number, any health insurance or medical identification number, an account password, or security questions and answers.
Rights Under California Shine the Light law. California residents may request from businesses with whom they have an established business relationship (1) a list of categories of personal information , such as name, address, e-mail address, and the type of services provided to the customer, that a business has disclosed to third parties during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties' direct marketing purposes and (2) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To request the above information please contact us by writing to us under the “Contact Us” section above. We will respond to such requests within 30 days of receipt.
Changes to Our Privacy Notice. Intero reserves the right to amend this privacy notice at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this privacy notice, we will post the updated notice on the Website and update the notice's effective date. Your continued use of our Website or Services following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.
16. European Union / European Economic Area
Individuals in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA) have the following rights, under the GDPR, regarding their personal information:
We are not required to comply with your request to erase personal information if the processing of your personal information is necessary for:
We can continue to use your personal information following a request for restriction, where: