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Highmark Residential, LLC Privacy Policy
Last Updated: October 1, 2019This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) of Highmark Residential, LLC (collectively, with its agents, subsidiaries, parents, and affiliates, “Highmark,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) describes our privacy practices regarding information we collect from persons or entities in the United States (“you” or “your”) who access our websites or our related applications that we may make available from time to time (collectively the “Site”), and further, applies to information, products and services provided by Highmark in the U.S. We follow all federal and state laws regarding the protection of your information.
Purpose
Highmark recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy of individual-specific information (“Personal Information”) collected from and about our users, or you. This Privacy Policy describes what Personal Information we gather, how we use it and how you can correct, change and limit our use of it. It is our intention to give you as much control over your Personal Information as possible to preserve your privacy, while still allowing us to utilize that Personal Information to provide you a valuable service and to, hopefully, have you as a resident in one of our communities.This Privacy Policy constitutes an integral part of our website’s Terms of Use and is subject to the provisions thereof, including with respect to Limitation of Liability and governing law. We encourage you to read this Privacy Policy before you send or share Personal Information with us or use our website and to read it again when you return to it.
Your Consent and Policy Changes
Please read the entire Privacy Policy carefully. By using the Site, you expressly consent, without qualification, to the collection, use and disclosure of information, including Personal Information, as described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, you are not authorized to use the Site.Highmark may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. Should the Privacy Policy be modified in any way, the new Privacy Policy will be posted to this webpage. As we may make changes from time to time without notifying you, we suggest that you periodically review the Privacy Policy. By using the Site after the effective date of any modification to the Privacy Policy, you expressly consent, without qualification, to the collection, use and disclosure of information, including Personal Information, as described in the new Privacy Policy.
Types of Information Collected
We collect Personal Information from our Site in order to provide you with information on the Highmark products and services you have expressed an interest in, to provide you with information on other similar Highmark products and services we believe will be of interest to you, and to better understand how we can help prospective residents, current residents and employees.The type of Personal Information we collect will depend upon what we will need in order to provide you with the particular product or service you are interested in. In the case of prospective residents and applicants for employment, the information requested on our registration form includes some or all of the following Personal Information, but not limited to: name and address including previous addresses, age or date of birth, driver’s license or other personal identification numbers, email address, occupation, employment information including income, telephone number, educational background and Social Security/national insurance number.
Those interested in becoming residents may be asked to provide most of the following additional information to help match our available products and services with prospective residents: the kind of product or service you are requesting, the apartment size or number of bedrooms you are looking for, where you want to live, the type of building you prefer, other desired unit characteristics, your proposed rent budget, the number of individuals in your household and their ages, and whether or not you have pets.
During the lease application process, additional information may be collected: proof of income and employment, bank statements, proof of residency, list of recent addresses, and contracted third party service providers may provide additional information in the form of a credit check and/or background check. If the application is approved, supplementary information may be collected, including but not limited to, vehicle make/model/license and proof of renter’s insurance coverage, as specified in the lease. Depending on method of payment chosen, a resident may voluntarily submit and store financial payment information such as bank accounts, routing numbers, and/or credit card numbers to facilitate payment transactions.
For those interested in applying for employment at Highmark, the following additional Personal Information may be requested or obtained: credit checks, background checks and employment verification. Where required, we will obtain your consent before undertaking these checks. Once a candidate accepts a position, the candidate may be asked to complete further online details. This may include an invitation to self-identify ethnicity or race. This information is only collected for meeting government reporting requirements and the provision of this information by candidates is voluntary.
Our residential communities may have their own separate sites, and we may use separate sites for the processing of rental applications and agreements and to assist our residents with other tasks which are required or helpful to them, such as paying rent online. You may move away from this Site when engaging in those activities and those sites will have their own privacy policies, and so please review that privacy policy before using those separate Sites. See also Third-Party Websites below.
How we Collect and Use Information
We may collect information in several ways by your use of this Site, as well as, from forms you submit to us, personal correspondence, such as emails or letters that you send to us, information you include in an application you complete on the Site, information you provide when scheduling a property visit through the Site, or any other activity through which you identify yourself to us, by and through online services, property visits and offline interactions, customer care centers, owners and franchisees, authorized licensees, strategic business partners, other sources, internet connected devices and physical and mobile location based devices. When you visit the Site, our servers may log your IP address, the URL of your request and other information that is provided in the HTTP header. We may also ask you to voluntarily provide us with personal information on this Site: for example, while many of the features of the Site are available without registering, you may be asked to create an account on the Site if you desire to access certain features. Further, in some instances, we may ask you to provide personal information in order to perform screening services for property managers or owners. Although you may decline to voluntarily provide Personal Information when asked, some features, products and services will be unavailable to you as a result.In addition, our third-party service providers may ask you voluntarily to provide personal information through our Site or on their websites and may share such personal information with us, as governed by their respective privacy policies. Our use of information received from a service provider will be dictated by the service provider's privacy policies and not this Privacy Policy.
If you choose to use the Refer a Friend email link to tell a friend about our Site or a property listed on our Site, we will ask for your friend’s name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the Site. Highmark stores this information for the purposes of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program only.
Although we do not link online Non-Personally Identifiable Information with Personally Identifiable Information as a current business practice, we may if required to do so by law enforcement agencies, court order, law or if we deem it necessary to improve our online service and product offerings in the future. We may also link information collected online with information collected online by third parties.
Highmark may use the information collected from you to provide services which you have requested from us: including, without limitation, sending your contact information to properties that you are interested in; sending your rental application to properties that you have selected; and enabling you to use the Resident Portal. We may also use your personal information to send you targeted messages, publications, news, and information about events, special offers, promotions and benefits. Highmark may use third-party service providers to send and distribute email and to perform other marketing and support functions. We may use information we collect from you to improve the content of this Site, to enhance users’ experiences when visiting this Site, to analyze trends, administer the Site, gather demographic information the Site’s users, track user movements and to customize the content and layout of this Site for each individual user.
Use of Cookies and Other Technologies
Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to an individual for recordkeeping purposes. Cookies make web surfing easier for you by saving your preferences while you are at our Site. The use of cookies is an industry standard, and as such, you will find them at most major websites. By showing how and when users use a Site, cookies help us see which areas are popular and which are not. Many improvements and updates to the Site are based on such data as total number of visitors and pages viewed. This information is most easily tracked with cookies. We use the information from cookies only to provide services better tailored to your needs and for the protection of our website and users from potential harm. We never save passwords or credit card information in cookies.We use persistent tracking cookies on our website which are cookies that stay in your web browser between visits. These cookies can also be used to show us which Sites you have visited before entering our Site and which Sites you may go to if you leave, especially if you access the registered user parts of this Site by using your social media log-in credentials. We use these to capture analytical information about our visitors that helps us to improve the performance of our website and create a better experience. These cookies allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors, to provide content related to a prior visit to the website, to see how visitors move around the Site and the products and services they are interested in when they are using it and to see what other types of products and services they may be interested in. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example by making sure users are finding what they need easily.
We may also use cookies which allow us or third parties to advertise our products and services on websites that you access after you have visited our Site. You may also see advertisements from us if other websites you visit capture through a cookie that you have been on our Site. These ad preference cookies are often used by search engine Sites. Our cookies can be disabled as indicated below. To prevent this advertising, you may also need to review the cookies disabling information on the other Sites you visit.
Most browsers are set up to accept cookies. If you want to change your cookie preferences, you can do so through your browser settings or refuse the cookies when you enter the website. You may also limit the information we gain from certain cookies by logging directly into the registered areas of this Site rather than by logging in by using your social media log-in credentials. Please remember that our cookies are often used to give you certain functionality and without them you may not be able to use some of our website e.g. save properties from our listings.
You can also remove cookies that have already been set in your browser via your browser settings.
An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Internet. Web servers, the main computers that transmit web pages, automatically identify your computer by its IP address. As permitted under applicable law, Highmark collects IP addresses for the purposes of system administration, gathering and analyzing aggregated information, creating a better experience for users and auditing the use of our Site.
We do not normally link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable, which means that your session will be logged, but you remain anonymous to us. We will seek to link your IP address when we are required to do so by law enforcement, court order, law, and/or feel it is necessary to protect this Site and other users from harm and to prevent criminal misconduct.
Children’s Privacy
We do not collect or maintain information at our Site from those we know are under 13, and we do not permit children under 13 years of age to become registered users of our Site. No part of our Site is structured to attract anyone under 13. By using our Site, you represent that you are not under 13 years of age. If you are a parent or guardian and you believe that your child under age 13 may have provided personally identifiable information through the Website, please contact us using the information in the “Contact Information” section.Type of Information Shared or Disclosed
As a general rule, Highmark will not disclose Personal Information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe, in good faith, that the law requires our disclosure. We may also disclose Personal Information for business operations as described below.We do not commercialize or share your Personal Information with third parties, unless:
- Such information is shared and/or commercialized following receipt of a specific request and/or permission from users;
- Such information is shared with affiliated companies and/or potential investors (in any form of business transaction, including purchase or merger) pursuant to an agreement which contains reasonable confidentiality arrangements;
- Such information is shared with contractors who work with us pursuant to an agreement which contains reasonable confidentiality arrangements;
- Such information is shared in order to comply with or in accordance with any applicable law and/or court orders and/or in order to prevent suspected illegal acts, frauds, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, or as otherwise required by law. This includes responding to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements;
- Such information is shared in order to help Highmark defend against claims and/or establish or exercise any legal right that Highmark may have;
- Such information is shared in order to help Highmark prevent violations of the Highmark Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy or to otherwise protect the rights, property, or safety of Highmark employees, residents and other persons others, including exchanging information with third parties for fraud protection and credit risk reduction;
- Or such information is necessary for third parties to perform contracted actions on behalf of the property. These actions may include marketing of goods and/or services common to multifamily properties that may be beneficial to applicants and/or current or past residents. The contracted third-party vendors will have appropriate personal information policies and opt-out functionality where needed.
Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, we will not disclose any information we gather from you on our Site. We may share your personal information with the Property Managers that list apartments on the Site. We also may share your personal information with our third-party service providers (including payment processors and screening companies, amongst others) or with other select third parties who offer goods or services we think may be of interest to you. From time to time, we may partner with other organizations or companies to provide co-sponsored or co-branded promotions, services or events and may share your personal information with our co-sponsor. We also may provide your personal information to service providers or contractors to perform functions on our behalf, such as, but not limited to, companies or individuals hired to: communicate news, deliver Highmark’s promotional materials via e-mail and direct mail, to develop, enhance, market or provide any of Highmark’s products, to process credit card payments and to assist Highmark with sending communications and performing other marketing and support functions. These third parties may use technologies to measure the effectiveness of ads and emails and use information about your visits to our Site so that we may provide you with a better experience on our Site. Highmark also may use third-party social media platforms, including third-party social media websites, to communicate with you.
Resident information shared with third parties that are considered part of our core business practices, such as credit screening and background screening, is required to conduct business and cannot be exempted from these services. Information shared with select third parties for promotional or marketing purposes will have opt-out provisions in compliance with all applicable laws.
We also may share with third parties, including, without limitation, our corporate partners, aggregated demographic and statistical information that is not personally identifiable (including, for example, the number of users who searched for certain types of housing, the daily number of unique visitors to the Site, how many users clicked on a particular advertisement and how many users were using a certain internet service provider).
Highmark also may disclose an individual’s personal information:
- to a person who in the reasonable judgment of Highmark is seeking the information as an agent of the individual;
- in situations where sharing or disclosing your information is required in order to offer you products or services you may desire;
- to a third party or parties, where disclosure is required or permitted by law, a judicial proceeding, a criminal investigation, a court order, or legal process; if, in the reasonable judgment of Highmark, it is necessary to enforce compliance with our internal policies or the Terms of Use, to prevent illegal activity or suspected fraud, or to protect our Site, customers, or others; and
- to any other entity that acquires all or a portion of our organization by merger, reorganization, operation of law, or a sale of some or all of Highmark’s assets.
Through the Site, Highmark may make available areas that allow for user interaction, including blogs, forums, bulletin board services, chat areas, or other message and communications features. Some of these forums may require registration. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information, and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.
How We Store Information
Highmark is committed to protecting the security of any personal information you provide to us. We maintain commercially reasonable safeguards to maintain the security and privacy of personal information that you provide to us. In spite of these protections, Highmark cannot guarantee the security of any data submitted over the Internet. After your information reaches Highmark, however, it is stored on servers (or in the case of information received from you in person, in writing or over the phone, in physical storage areas as well as servers where data may be entered or physical items scanned) protected by procedures and technology designed to block reasonably foreseeable intrusions by unauthorized third parties. We may store and process your personal information in the United States or any other country in which we or our agents maintain facilities. By using the Site, you consent to the transfer of your information among these facilities, including those located outside your home country.Business Transitions
In the event that Highmark goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling all or part of its assets, users' Personal Information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred. By using this website and providing your Personal Information, you consent to this transfer, provided use of the Personal Information will remain in accordance with the Privacy Policy in place at the time of the transfer.Securing Information
Highmark takes reasonable technical and organizational measures in accordance with applicable laws to safeguard users' Personal Information. While Highmark strives to protect your Personal information and therein your privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any Personal Information you disclose online and you therefore disclose such Personal Information at your own risk.We limit access to Personal Information to employees who we believe reasonably need to receive such information to provide our services or in order to do their jobs, and we take the precautions we deem reasonable to protect the security of users' Personal Information. We also work very hard to ensure that our employees are aware of the sensitivity of the data submitted to us and that they handle it with care, being careful not to allow any improper access by third parties. However, as in many computer systems, internet applications and software programs, unauthorized use, failure of hardware or software, etc. may be injurious to the confidentiality of users' Personal Information.
If users have any questions about security, please contact us using the information in the "Contact Information" section.
Encryption
Because the security of all Personal Information associated with our users is of utmost concern to us, we periodically review and improve our security and this Privacy Policy as necessary when new technology becomes available. We make use of industry standard AES 256-bit encryption during the transmission of any data, and where possible, all data is stored in a similar encrypted format.E-Mail Consent and Opt-Out
Your provision of Personal Information through any of our registration forms on this Site constitutes your affirmative consent that we may contact you by email to provide you with information and notices relating to the property where you reside, on various similar services available to you at or through that property and on various other properties that may be available and of interest to you in the future. It also means we may email you regarding updates to this Privacy Policy.You may choose to opt out of receiving future commercial email messages from us as a result of your use of this Site. Each bulk email sent by us contains a link with instructions on how to remove yourself from our email list. Please note that if you are a resident of a Highmark community and you use this Site and your community Site, each may have a distribution list that requires a separate o-out provision. You will also need to opt-out separately from any bulk e-mail sent by a third party on behalf of Highmark or any third-party Sites you have registered with. Please see the section on Third-Party Websites.
Third-Party Websites
You should be aware that when you are on the Highmark website you could be directed to other third-party Sites that are beyond our control. There are links to other Sites from Highmark, which take you outside our service. For example, if you "click" on a banner, an advertisement or a search result, the "click" may take you off the Highmark Site. These other Sites may include Sites of other advertisers, sponsors and partners that may use their logo with ours as part of a co-branding agreement. These other Sites may send their own cookies to visitors to collect data or solicit information. Highmark does not control these Sites and therefore is not responsible for their content. The inclusion of hyperlinks to any other Sites by Highmark does not imply any endorsement of the material on such Sites, nor any association with their operators.Highmark policies do not extend to anything that is inherent in the operation of the Internet, which is beyond our control. Remember that whenever you give out Information online, that information may be collected and used by people you do not know. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by Highmark. This Privacy Policy does not apply to other websites that are accessible through this Site, including but not limited to any third-party websites that process payments or perform screenings on behalf of Highmark or any property website. Please be aware that third-party websites that process payments or perform screenings for Highmark and websites for our advertisers, sponsors, affiliated entities and other third parties that are accessible through this Site may have their own privacy and data collection policies and practices. Highmark is not responsible for the privacy practices of such Sites and will not be responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave the Site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that you visit.
Retention and Destruction of Personal Information
In order to provide you with the products and services you request, answer questions you may have about the products and services provided, and for our own accountability to external regulatory bodies, we retain your information for a period during which Highmark has an ongoing business relationship with you. After said time that Highmark has completed providing products and services, some information may be retained for a reasonable period of time to resolve any outstanding business matters that exist or may arise. We remove information periodically when it appears we will no longer have a need to contact you and the potential business concerns have passed. However, we will promptly remove such information upon your written request. Paper files containing personal information are destroyed by shredding, and we destroy electronic information by deleting it. When we discard hardware that was used to store data, we ensure that the data is deleted and erased to a reasonable business standard or that the hardware is physically destroyed.Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will advise users of those changes through a general description at the top of this Privacy Policy and may also post these details to other places we deem appropriate so our users are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We may also email you.Contact Information
You may contact us by mail at Highmark, Attn.: Information Systems, 5429 LBJ, Suite 800, Dallas, Texas 75240. If you contact us by mail, your communication should clearly be marked as a data protection query and as being time-sensitive.Acceptance of these Terms
By using this Site, or providing information to us, you acknowledge your awareness of the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you are not happy with its terms or any amended terms that are made in accordance with this Privacy Policy, you are not authorized by Highmark to use this Site.Disclaimer
The Site and the content provided thereon is provided on an “As Is” basis, without representations or warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to, warranties or title and implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.Limitation of Liability
In no event shall Highmark, or their respective affiliates, agents, representatives, parents, or licensors be liable to you for any loss or injury or any damages, either direct, indirect, punitive, special, incidental, consequential, or otherwise (including, but not limited to, lost profits or lost savings) resulting from or in any way connected to the Site or these terms and conditions, even if you have been advised of the possibility of such damages.