XII. CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you make contact us at:

Email: compliance@forwardfinancing.com

Phone: 888-244-9099

Mailing Address: 53 State Street, 20th Floor, Boston, MA 02109

 

California Privacy Policy

Forward Financing Privacy Policy for California Residents

Effective Date: 01/01/2020

Last Revised on December 22, 2022

This Privacy Policy for California Residents (“California Privacy Policy”) supplements the information contained in Forward Financing LLC’s and its affiliates’ (collectively, “Company”) general Privacy Policy (available at https://www.forwardfinancing.com/privacy-policy/), and applies solely to all visitors, users, business-to-business contacts, and other consumers who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). The Company has adopted this California Privacy Policy to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, including as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CCPA”). Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Notice.

This California Privacy Policy does not apply to workforce-related Personal Information collected from California-based employees, job applicants, contractors, or similar individuals. California-based employees, job applicants, contractors, and similar individuals are subject to our separate California Employee Privacy Policy.

I. Information the Company Collects

As part of providing funding to small and medium-sized businesses, the Company collects information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household (“Personal Information”). Personal Information includes information collected by the Company via any medium, including online and offline.

Personal Information does not include:

• Publicly available information, which includes information made available from government records; information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully available to the general public, either through widely distributed media, or by the consumer; and information that is made available by a person to whom the consumer has disclosed the information if the consumer has not restricted the information to a specific audience.
• Deidentified or aggregated consumer information.
• Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, including but not limited to:
  • Health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA), clinical trial data, or other qualifying research data;
  • Personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

In particular, the Company has collected the following categories of Personal Information from consumers, in relation to commercial financing, within the past twelve (12) months:

 

Categories of Personal Information We Collect	Examples of Types of Personal Information We Collect in Each Category
Identifiers	First and last name; postal address; email address; telephone number; Social Security number; account name and password; Internet Protocol (IP) address and similar online or device identifiers
Personal information as described in California Civil Code Section 1798.80(e)	First and last name; residential address; signature; bank account number and related bank account information; payment card information
Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law	Gender or gender identity; age and date of birth; income level and related information; marital status; military or veteran status; and/or national origin; criminal records
Commercial information	Products and services that you have purchased, obtained, or considered; account balances and activity; and/or other purchasing or consumer histories, tendencies, and preferences
Internet or other electronic network activity information	Cookie identifiers; pixel tags; browser type; Internet Service Provider (“ISP”); referring/exit pages; operating system; date/time stamp; clickstream data; device platform; device version; browsing history; search history; other device characteristics, including preferred language and choice of settings like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth; as well as the information disclosed in Sections II and V of our Privacy Policy
Geolocation data	Global Positioning System (“GPS”) data based on your IP address
Sensory information	Recordings of calls to or from our customer service centers; photographs
Professional or employment-related information	Business or employer name, address, and other contact information; job title or role
Inferences about you	Inferences based on information about an individual to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the individual’s characteristics, predispositions, and behavior.

Please note that because of the overlapping nature of certain of the categories of Personal Information identified above, which are required by state law, some of the Personal Information we collect may be reasonably classified under multiple categories.

Sensitive personal information. Certain of the personal information that we collect, as described above, may constitute “Sensitive Personal Information” as defined by California law, including:

• Social Security number, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number;
• Account log-in and/or financial account number combined with required security or access codes, passwords, or other credentials allowing access to an account; and
• Precise geolocation.

II. Sources of Personal Information

The Company obtains the categories of Personal Information listed above from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from you or your agent(s). For example, from information that you provide on an electronic financing application on the Company’s website (https://www.forwardfinancing.com/ and its sub-domains).
• Indirectly from you or your agent(s). For example, through website usage details collected automatically when you browse the Company’s website, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address or browser type.
• From third parties that interact with the Company in connection with the services the Company provides to you. For example, from a broker or independent sales organization (ISO) that facilitates the funding process or presents a funding deal to the Company on your behalf.
• From third parties that may provide your information based upon your interest in our products and services.

III. How We Use Your Personal Information

The Company may collect, use, or disclose Personal Information about California residents for purposes listed in Section III of our Privacy Policy. In addition, the Company may use Personal Information regarding business-to-business contacts – for the following purposes:

• Identify and communicate with employees and other representatives of the businesses that engage the Company in connection with receiving its products and services;
• Maintain and improve the Company’s ability to serve those individuals and the businesses that they represent; and
• Negotiate, execute, and perform on contracts and other arrangements to receive the Company’s products and services.

The Sensitive Personal Information that we collect as described in Section I above may be used for any of the above purposes.

The Company will not collect additional categories of Personal Information or use the Personal Information it collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

IV. Disclosure of Personal Information

The Company may disclose your Personal Information to certain third-party service providers or contractors for one or more business purposes. The Company only makes these business purpose disclosures pursuant to written contracts that describe the purposes, require the recipient to keep the Personal Information confidential, and prohibit using the disclosed information for any purpose except performing the contract.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, the Company has disclosed all categories of Personal Information disclosed in Section I of this California Privacy Policy with the following categories of third-party service providers and contractors:

• Affiliate, parent, or subsidiary organizations.
• Service providers, which may include Internet service providers, analytics providers, social networks, fraud prevention providers, customer relationship management (CRM) providers, professional services providers, and other businesses that may provide the Company with various services.
• Government entities in connection with our legal obligations.
• Business partners, such as brokers or ISOs that facilitated the funding process with the Company on your behalf, and consistent with your notice and direction.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, the Company has “sold” and/or “shared” Personal Information as those terms are defined by the CCPA only to the extent that the Company for purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising. Specifically, as with many online companies, the Company partners with third parties, such as Google, to manage our marketing on other platforms, where such advertising is based on your past visits to our Website. These third-party partners may use technologies, such as cookies and other trackers, to gather information about your activities on the Website to deliver such advertising to you when you visit their platforms.

The CCPA requires us to identify the categories of Personal Information that we have “sold” or “shared” under the CCPA in the preceding twelve (12) months.

In the last twelve (12) months, we have “shared” the following categories of Personal Information to advertising partners for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes:

• Identifiers
• Internet or other electronic network activity information

Other than as disclosed above, the Company does not and will not sell Personal Information.

V. Your Rights and Choices

The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their Personal Information. This Section V describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Right to Know and Data Portability

You have the right to request that the Company disclose certain information to you about its collection and use of your Personal Information (the “right to know”). Once the Company receives your request and confirms your identity (see Exercising Your Rights below), the Company will disclose to you:

• The categories of Personal Information the Company collected about you.
• The categories of sources for the Personal Information the Company collected about you.
• The Company’s business or commercial purpose for collecting that Personal Information.
• The categories of third parties with whom the Company shares that Personal Information.
• The specific pieces of Personal Information the Company collected about you (also called a “data portability” request).
• If the Company disclosed your Personal Information for a business purpose, a list of such disclosures identifying the Personal Information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

Right to Delete

You have the right to request that the Company delete any of your Personal Information that the Company collected about you and retained, subject to certain exceptions (the “right to delete”). Once the Company receives your request and confirms your identity (see Exercising Your Rights below), the Company will review your request to see if an exception allowing the Company to retain the Personal Information applies.

Right to Opt-Out of “Sales” and/or “Sharing”

You have the right to opt-out of the sale or sharing of your personal information as those terms are defined under California law.  Please review our “Notice of Right to Opt-Out” below.

Right to Correct

You have the right to request the correction of Personal Information that you believe is inaccurate.

Right to Limit Use and Disclosure

You have the right to limit the use or disclosure of your Sensitive Personal Information to only the uses necessary for us to provide goods or services to you or for certain other purposes authorized by California law. We will not use or disclose your Sensitive Personal Information after you have exercised your right unless you subsequently provide consent for the use of your Sensitive Personal Information for additional purposes.

Nondiscrimination Rights

You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for the exercise of the privacy rights described above. However, the Company may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive the Company offers will reasonably relate to your Personal Information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program requires your prior opt-in consent, which you may revoke at any time. The Company does not currently offer a financial incentive program.

Exercising Your Rights to Know or Delete

To exercise your rights to know or delete described above, please submit a request to the Company in any of the following ways:

• Emailing compliance@forwardfinancing.com
• Calling 1-888-244-9099
• Mailing a request to:

Forward Financing LLC

Attn: Compliance

53 State Street

20th Floor

Boston, MA 02109

• Via our webform, here.

Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request. To designate an authorized agent, or if you are an authorized agent seeking to exercise CCPA rights on behalf of another person, you must contact the Company by one of the methods listed above and provide the Company with the agent’s name, contact information, and other relevant information and documentation, such as a Power of Attorney or letter of conservatorship, that will help the Company identify the authorized agent. You may also make a request on behalf of your minor child.

Your request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows the Company to reasonably verify that you are the person about whom the Company collected Personal Information or that person’s authorized representative, which may include name, email address, phone number, proof of your identity, residency verification, and last four digits of your Social Security number in order to match the identifying information you provide to the Personal Information of the consumer already maintained by the Company.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows the Company to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

The Company cannot respond to your request or provide you with Personal Information if the Company cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the Personal Information relates to you. You do not need to create an account with the Company in order to submit a request. The Company will only use Personal Information provided in the request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Response Timing and Format

The Company will confirm receipt of your request within ten (10) business days. If you do not receive confirmation within the 10-day timeframe, please contact compliance@forwardfinancing.com. The Company endeavors to substantively respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If the Company requires more time (up to another 45 days), the Company will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. If you have an account with the Company, the Company will deliver its written response to that account.  If you do not have an account with the Company, the Company will deliver its written response by mail or electronically, at your option. The response the Company provides will also explain the reasons that the Company cannot comply with a request, if applicable.  For data portability requests, the Company will select a format to provide your Personal Information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the Personal Information from one entity to another entity without hindrance, typically by email or first-class mail (based on how the request was submitted), but the Company does not guarantee that all formats are useable in all media.

The Company does not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If the Company determines that the request warrants a fee, the Company will tell you why it made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Household Data

We currently do not collect household data. If we receive a request submitted by all members of a household, we will individually respond to each request. We will not be able to comply with any request by a member of a household under the age of 13, as we do not collect Personal Information from any person under the age of 13.

VI. Notice of Right to Opt-Out

If you wish to opt-out of the “sales” and/or “sharing” of Personal Information for purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in Section IV above, please utilize our webform available here or contact us using the information in the “Contact Information” section below.

We also encourage you to visit the Network Advertising Initiative and/or the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising for more information about opting out of seeing targeted digital advertisements. You may also visit these websites for more information on how you can opt back in to the sharing of data.

VII. Other California Privacy Rights

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of the Company’s website that are California residents to request certain information regarding the Company’s disclosure of personal information, if any, to third parties for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes. The disclosure requirements apply only if the Company shares consumers’ personal information with third parties for them to directly market their own products to those consumers, instead of assisting the Company with the Company’s own business. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please email compliance@forwardfinancing.com or write us at: Forward Financing LLC, Attn: Compliance, 53 State Street, 20th Floor, Boston, MA 02109.

VIII. Changes to This Policy

The Company may amend this California Privacy Policy at its discretion and at any time. When the Company makes changes to this California Privacy Policy, the Company will notify you by posting the updated California Privacy Policy on its website homepage and updating the California Privacy Policy’s “Last Revised on” date.