Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union

The privacy and security of your personal information is important to Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union. We pledge to protect your privacy by adhering to the practices described below. By signing any application or agreement with us, or your use or continued use of any of our services with after receiving this document, you jointly and severally agree to the terms and conditions set forth in this Policy and Agreement. In this Agreement the terms “we,” “our,” or “us” means Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union; and the terms “you” or “your” means all members, consumers, borrowers and guarantors. All Heritage Trust employees and others hired to work for us are held accountable for adhering to strict policies and procedures to prevent any misuse of your information. Our employees are trained in the importance of maintaining confidentiality and member privacy.

Types of Information we collect
We only collect information about our members for lawful business purposes, or as otherwise required by applicable law. We collect information about members from the following sources:

Applications for services, verifications, current and past employers, other forms and any communications you send to us including electronic messages from which we collect your name, address, phone numbers, social security numbers, financial data, birth date, gender and other information;
Transactions involving your accounts or services with us from which we collect information such as your name, account number, balance, payment history, parties to your transactions and credit card usage;
Consumer Credit Reports from which we collect information regarding your creditworthiness, credit history and account activity; and.
Market Research Firms that provide us with a variety of information regarding our members such as the number of individuals in a hosehold, home ownership.

You agree that the telephone numbers, street and e-mail addresses provided in your Membership Application and Signature Card, or any other application or communication sent to us are publicly available and will be used to provide notices, disclosures, statements, other communications (including but not limited to our responses to your e-mail communications) and offers for certain products or services.

Types of Information we disclose:
To benefit our members and former members, we only share the information described in the section above, within the Credit Union, which includes all employees, directors, agents, volunteers, committee members and field agents, and with certain trusted third parties described in this paragraph including other financial institutions with which we have joint marketing agreements, who are obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of your personal information. We use the services of various third parties to assist us in offering financial services to our members. For example, we use the services of third parties for processing or facilitating transactions using credit cards, checks (share drafts), debit cards and other access devices including home-banking; for assistance in making loans, loan underwriting; processing loan applications; appraising collateral; statement printing; bookkeeping and accounting; consulting and business development services; and for processing our outgoing mail. We also work with companies such as CUNA Mutual Insurance Society and Members Financial Services offered through CUNA Brokerage Services, Inc. that may provide financial services such as financial planning, financial counseling, investment services, extended automotive service contracts, personal, property or other insurance, credit counseling, retail automobile sales and travel services to you.

The Credit Union may report information about your account(s) to third parties such as credit reporting agencies/bureaus. Late payments, missed payments, insufficient funds transactions or other defaults on your loan and share/share draft account(s) may be reflected in your credit report. We may also share information when permitted by applicable law.

Security
We are committed to taking every reasonable precaution to protect individual identifying information that you provide to us. We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you. We also maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to guard your nonpublic personal information.

Notices and “Joint Relationships
” Except where expressly required by applicable law, we will provide all notices to the person (member) listed first on any application, agreement or other relevant document with us. The notice will be mailed to the address noted for said person on the application, agreement or other document. If this person (member) has agreed to receive notices and disclosures electronically, then we can send all such notices and notifications, to the e-mail or Internet address provided by said person. All joint owners, borrowers and guarantors agree to the receipt and sufficiency of any notice or notification sent according to this paragraph.

E-mail
When you e-mail us, we may maintain your e-mail address to respond to services requested of you. We may also send information to you regarding our services.

We use your IP address and aggregate log file statistics to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our web site. Your IP address, etc. is used to help identify you.
Cookies are electronic markers that are stored directly on the computer you are using to indicate activity or access to a specific web site or pages contained on a web site. When you return to our web site, your browser will give that information back to our server. We use cookies to maintain the state of your session on our web site and to store your computer's configuration data. This cookie data is tied to your personally identifiable information to enable our service. If you disable cookies on the computer you are using, you will not be able to bank online with us or access HeritageTrust.org. We do not encode your personal identifiable information in our cookies.
Our site's applications and forms require users to give us contact information (such as name and e-mail address) and financial information (e.g. account numbers). The member's contact information is used to contact the visitor for the purposes of account maintenance, customer service or dissemination of product & service information.
We have calculator functions on the site that allow you to calculate different financial scenarios. These are stand-alone functions and are not tied to you or your personal information so when you use these functions, we do not collect, capture or retain your personal information.
This site may contain links to other sites. Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union is not responsible for the collection and use practices of nonaffiliated third parties to which our web site may link or for the content of such web sites.
Our site uses forms for members to request information, products, and services. We collect your financial information and other personal information only as necessary to respond to your request or perform according to your instructions. Financial information that is collected is used to check the user's qualifications.
Our site collects personally identifiable information from you when you perform transactions using our Bill Pay. This information is used exclusively to fulfill the requested transaction.
Our site uses chat functionality to facilitate communication between members and specially trained contact center agents. Chat sessions may be archived as a means of review for customer service quality. Chat sessions are held to the same privacy standards as teller or telephone transactions and certain banking transactions may not be permitted through chat due to the limitations of online authentication.
If you do not interact with us when you browse our web site anonymously, we do not collect your personal information including your e-mail address. We may, however, gather data that is not personally identifiable to you such as length of user visit, number of hits and pages visited to evaluate the usefulness of our web site.
If a user wishes to enroll in our email subscription list for Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union disclosure and communication information, we ask for contact information such as name and email address. Out of respect for our users privacy we provide a way to opt-out of these communications. This information is not shared with any external organizations.

Your privacy choices
You have the right to “opt out” of information sharing. The federal law states financial institutions may not disclose nonpublic personal information to nonaffiliated third parties under certain circumstances. Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union may share information with third parties for normal business reasons. The federal law permits financial institutions to share information under these circumstances; therefore, you may not be able to “opt out” of any of our information sharing activities regarding these conditions.

Protect your account numbers, card numbers, PINs (personal identification numbers) and passwords. Never keep your PIN with your debit card or credit card; that makes you vulnerable in the event you lose your card or your card is stolen.
Use caution in revealing account numbers, social security numbers, etc. to other persons. If a caller tells you he/she is calling you on behalf of the credit union and asks for your account number, you should beware. Legitimate credit union staff would already have access to that information.
If your address or phone number changes, please let us know. It’s important that the credit union has current information about how to reach you. If we detect potential fraudulent use of your account, we will attempt to contact you immediately.

Protecting children’s privacy
We do not knowingly solicit or collect data from children and we do not knowingly market to children online. We recognize that protecting children’s identities and online privacy is important and that responsibility rests with us and with parents.

Phishing Scams
"Phishing" scams may be received as official Email, which appear to have come from a Credit Union, bank, credit card Company, eBay, etc. The Email usually includes that there is something wrong with your account or that they need to verify your information. These messages have been forged and are fraudulent. Your Credit Union, bank, Credit Card Company, etc., will not contact you by Email to verify your information or inform you that you have a problem with your account. You should just delete these messages; never reply to them and never follow their instructions.

Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union
The Credit Union reserves the right to modify, change or amend this Privacy Policy at any time without notice other than as expressly required by applicable law.