Findigs Privacy Policy (Archived)

Published on February 28, 2024

You are viewing an outdated version of the Findigs Privacy Policy. Click here to see the latest Privacy Policy.

Findigs promise

Our mission of bettering the lives of millions of Applicants can only be achieved by winning the unwavering trust of our users. In today's environment that starts here. Too many companies claim to "care about protecting your information" only to give themselves free rein with legal jargon in an unreadable Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy describes how we treat your Personal Information when you use Findigs, Inc. website(s) or apps (e.g., app.findigs.com) that link to this Privacy Policy (“Site”). The Site and Services are provided by Findigs ("Findigs," "we," "our," or "us").

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully before using the Site or any of our Services. We designed it to be readable, and we want you to have every bit of confidence that we genuinely do care.

BY USING THE SITE OR SERVICE, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY.

Remember that your use of Findigs’ Site or Services is at all times subject to: (1) our Terms of Use, if you are an Applicant or Visitor (each as defined below) or (2) our Master Services Agreement or similar agreement, if you are a Property Manager, both of which incorporate this Privacy Policy (as applicable, the “Agreement”). Any terms we use in this Privacy Policy without defining them have the definitions given to them in the applicable Agreement.

If you would like to print this document, please CTRL+P for windows, or CMD+P for Mac

To Whom this Privacy Policy Applies

This Privacy Policy applies to the following users:

Applicants:  You are an Applicant if You are using our Services or our Site for Your personal use, such as to apply for lease or rent an apartment. You will be asked to provide information about Yourself and Your co-Applicants.

Visitors:  You are a Visitor if You are just browsing our Site.

Property Managers:  You are a Property Manager if You are a property manager using our Services or our Site for a commercial use, such as to assist with screening rental or lease applications.

IF YOU ARE AN APPLICANT, PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE A SERVICE PROVIDER TO THE PROPERTY MANAGER AND DO NOT MAKE ANY DECISIONS ABOUT YOUR ELIGIBILITY FOR HOUSING. THIS PRIVACY POLICY DOES NOT ESTABLISH HOW THE PROPERTY MANAGER MAY COLLECT OR USE YOUR INFORMATION, INCLUDING INFORMATION THAT YOU PROVIDE ON AN APPLICATION FOR HOUSING OR INFORMATION OBTAINED THROUGH FINDIGS TO ASSESS YOUR APPLICATION. YOU SHOULD ALSO REVIEW THE PROPERTY MANAGER’S PRIVACY POLICY WHICH MAY ANSWER ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how Findigs handles your Personal Information, please contact us at: support@findigs.com or write to:

Findigs, Inc.
636 Broadway
Suite 1200
New York, NY 10012

When this Privacy Policy Applies

We provide this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, protect, and disclose your information when you use the Site, any Findigs application programming interfaces, other services offered by Findigs, and any other time you interact with Findigs.

This Privacy Policy only applies to information that is reasonably capable of being associated with you, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly to you (“Personal Information”). This Privacy Policy also explains your choices for managing your information preferences, including opting out of certain of our uses of your Personal Information (defined below).

This Privacy Policy does not apply to information that is aggregated or cannot reasonably identify or link to you. This Privacy Policy also does not apply to any information collected by our Property Managers (e.g., property manager that allows you to complete an application for housing through our Site, any interactions you may have with our Property Manager). To understand how our Property Managers use your information, please refer to the privacy policy provided by the property manager or landlord’s privacy policy.

Information We Collect

We collect different types of Personal Information depending on how you interact with us, your relationship with us, and whether you are simply browsing our Site or using a Service. We have collected the following information in the past 12 months about you:

  • Your profile and contact information. For example, we collect your first and last name, mailing address, email address, and phone number.
  • Identifiers. Your Social Security number and government-issued identification.
  • Sensory information. Photos, videos, or audio or visual recordings of you and/or of your environment.
  • Biometric information. Faceprints or other scans of face geometry used to identify you.
  • Commercial information. Your purchase and/or application history or rentals viewed on our Site or through the Services.
  • Payment information. Your payment card type, last 4 digits of payment card, and billing address, phone number, and email.
  • Demographic information. Your gender, date of birth, zip code, and age.
  • Household information. Information about your pet, vehicle, co-Applicants, and other members of your household.
  • Application information. Information you provide on an application for housing, such as income and asset information.
  • Housing history. Information about where you have lived for the past 24 months, whether you have ever been evicted, broken a lease, or been sued for non-payment of rent or other housing violation.
  • Employment history. Information about where you have worked, including your employer name, job title, and contact information.
  • Geolocation information. The geolocation information for your city, state and region, including IP-address-based location information and precise geolocation information.
  • Device, internet or other information about your electronic activity. Information about your device such as IP address, device ID, domain server, browser type and version operating system type and version, device type, referring webpage/source through which you accessed the Services, non-identifiable request IDs, and statistics associated with the interaction between device or browser and the Services, browsing and click history including information about how you navigate within our Site and Services and which elements of our Site and Services you use the most.
  • Passwords and other log-in information. This information includes the log-in information you use to access the Services, and other security information for authentication and access the Services.
  • Applicant Screening Report information. Information we collect under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), which includes information about your tenant and credit history, any public records about you which includes criminal history and any civil records.
  • Inferences drawn from other Personal Information collected. Inferences regarding your attributes, user behavior, and predispositions.
  • Any other identifying information you provide when you voluntarily communicate with us, such as emails, letters, texts, or other communications you send us.
  • Sending emails and other communications according to your preferences or that display content that we think will interest you
  • Any feedback you provide to us or content you post through the Services.

How We Use Personal Information

We use your Personal Information to:

  • Receive, process, and confirm your request for Services.
  • Create and maintain your Findigs account. When you no longer have a Findigs account we will continue to retain and disclose your information as described in this Privacy Policy.
  • Provide the Services you have requested to you, including providing support and assistance for the Services.
  • Communicate with you about the Services.
  • Receive, process, and confirm any other request you make of us through our Services.
  • Marketing and promotional purposes, unless you have requested that we do not send you marketing or promotional communications, which includes providing you with targeted advertising, personalized marketing communications, information about new products, services or offers.
  • Verify your identity and accuracy of application documentation you have provided.
  • Help us diagnose technical and service problems, to improve the Services, and to conduct research, development and improve security of the Site or the Services.
  • Administer the Site and the Services.
  • Enable reviews of our products and to display content that you have created and allowed us to display on the Site and Services and on social media.
  • To protect the Site and Services, Findigs, and others and to prevent fraud, theft and misconduct
  • Analyze preferences, trends and statistics.
  • Improving the Services, including testing, research, internal analytics and product development.
  • Personalizing the Services, website content and communications based on your preferences.
  • To create inferences about you.
  • To process payments made through the Services.
  • For other permitted purposes for processing Personal Information. We may collect, use, and disclose the Personal Information we collect about you with the government, including law enforcement, or other parties to meet certain legal requirements and enforcing legal terms including: fulfilling our legal obligations under applicable law, regulation, court order or other legal process, such as preventing, detecting and investigating security incidents and potentially illegal or prohibited activities; protecting the rights, property or safety of you, Findigs or another party; enforcing any agreements with you; responding to claims that any posting or other content violates third-party rights; and resolving disputes.
  • 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.

Categories of Sources of Personal Information

We collect Personal Information about you from the following categories of sources:

You

  • When you provide such information directly to us.
    • When you create an account or use our interactive tools and Services.
    • When you voluntarily provide information in free-form text boxes through the Site or Services or through responses to surveys or questionnaires.
    • When you send us an email or otherwise contact us.
  • When you use the Services and such information is collected automatically.
    • Through Cookies (as described in the “Cookies” section below).
    • If you use a location-enabled browser, we may receive information about your location and mobile device, as applicable.
    • If you download and install certain applications and software we make available, we may receive and collect information transmitted from your computing device for the purpose of providing you the relevant Services, such as information regarding when you are logged on and available to receive updates or alert notices.

Public Records

  • From the government, identity verification providers, Applicant reporting agencies, or other sources.

Third Parties

  • Property Managers
    • We may receive some information about you directly from the Property Manager whose property you are applying to rent.
  • Vendors
    • We may use analytics providers to analyze how you interact and engage with the Services, or third parties may help us provide you with customer support.
    • We may use vendors to obtain information to generate leads and create user profiles.
  • Advertising Partners
    • We receive information about you from some of our vendors who assist us with marketing or promotional services related to how you interact with our websites, applications, products, Services, advertisements or communications.

How We Disclose Personal Information

We disclose Personal Information as follows:

Property Managers and Other Applicants

At your direction, we will disclose your Personal Information with the Property Manager to whom you request to submit your application to rent or lease a property owned or managed by the property manager. We may also disclose your Personal Information with the Property Manager’s portfolio owners and managers. You may also choose to disclose your Personal Information, such as contact and identity information, with another Applicant or co-Applicant through our Sites or Services.

Service Providers

From time to time, we may establish a business relationship with other businesses to help us provide the Services to you ("Service Providers"). For example, we may contract with Service Providers to provide certain services, such as identity verification, bank account verification, hosting and maintenance, data storage and management, and marketing and promotional communications. We only provide our Service Providers with the information necessary for them to perform these services on our behalf. Some additional Service Providers include:

Identity Verification Providers and Applicant Reporting Agencies

  • We may disclose Personal Information to identity verification providers and Applicant reporting agencies in order to verify your application documentation against fraud risk and provide the Property Manager with information about your rental, credit, and public records history for the purpose of completing your transaction.
  • We use a third-party Service Provider to verify your identity using your biometric information. This Service Provider may scan your facial features and compare these features to your photo identification. You will be prompted by the Service Provider to consent to this service and the Service Provider’s collection, processing and use will be subject to their privacy policy. We will provide the Service Provider’s results to the applicable Property Manager if you consent to this identify service. If you do not consent to service, then you will be asked to upload a copy of your photo identification document to assist the Property Manager with verifying your identity.

Business Partners

We may disclose your Personal Information to certain companies that you have a relationship with or that partner with us in offering various services. For example, with your prior consent, we may provide your information to partners such as Property Managers, insurance companies, or other companies that provide services to renters for purposes of marketing their products or services to you.

Payment Processor

You will be asked to provide information about your financial accounts and to pay an application fee to our payment processing partner, [Stripe, Inc. (“Stripe”)]. Stripe collects your voluntarily-provided payment card information necessary to process your payment. You will be redirected to the third-party itself to provide this information, should you choose to verify your financial accounts electronically or pay an application fee. Please see Stripe’s terms of service and privacy policy for information on its use and storage of your Personal Information.

Advertising Partners

These parties help us market our services and provide you with other offers that may be of interest to you. They include:

  • Ad networks.
  • Data brokers.
  • Marketing providers.

Analytics Partners

These parties provide analytics on web traffic or usage of the Services. They include: Companies that track how users found or were referred to the Services. Companies that track how users interact with the Services.

Our Affiliates

We may disclose Personal Information with businesses controlling, controlled by, or under common control with Findigs.

Corporate Transactions

If Findigs is merged, acquired, or sold, or in the event of a transfer of some or all of our assets, we may disclose or transfer Personal Information in connection with such transaction. You will have the opportunity to opt out of any such transfer if, in our discretion, it will result in the handling of your Personal Information in a way that differs materially from this Privacy Policy.

Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement

We may disclose any Personal Information that we collect with third parties in conjunction with any of the activities set forth under “How We Use Personal Information” section above.

Data that is Not Personal Information

We may create aggregated, de-identified or anonymized data from the Personal Information we collect, including by removing information that makes the data personally identifiable to a particular user. We may use such aggregated, de-identified or anonymized data and disclose it to third parties for our lawful business purposes, including to analyze, build and improve the Services and promote our business, provided that we will not disclose such data in a manner that could identify you.

Cookies

We use cookies (a small text file placed on your computer or similar device to recognize your web browser, tell us how and when you visit and use our Site or Services, analyze trends, learn about our user base and operate and improve our Site or Services) and may use anonymous identifiers (a random string of characters that is used for the same purposes as a cookie). We use cookies and other similar technologies to analyze use of and improve the Site and Services and as described in the “advertising and online tracking” section of this Privacy Policy. We may also supplement the information we collect from you with information received from third parties, including third parties that have placed their own Cookies on your device(s).

Most web browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your web browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent, however, certain features of the Site or Services may not work if you delete or disable cookies. Some of our Service Providers (defined above) may use their own cookies, anonymous identifiers, or other tracking technologies in connection with the services they perform on our behalf.

We use the following types of Cookies:

  • Essential Cookies. Essential Cookies are required for providing you with features or services that you have requested. For example, certain Cookies enable you to log into secure areas of our Services. Disabling these Cookies may make certain features and services unavailable.
  • Functional Cookies. Functional Cookies are used to record your choices and settings regarding our Services, maintain your preferences over time and recognize you when you return to our Services. These Cookies help us to personalize our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
  • Performance/Analytical Cookies. Performance/Analytical Cookies allow us to understand how visitors use our Services. They do this by collecting information about the number of visitors to the Services, what pages visitors view on our Services and how long visitors are viewing pages on the Services. Performance/Analytical Cookies also help us measure the performance of our advertising campaigns in order to help us improve our campaigns and the Services’ content for those who engage with our advertising. For example, Google LLC (“Google”) uses cookies in connection with its Google Analytics services. Google’s ability to use and disclose information collected by Google Analytics about your visits to the Services is subject to the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy. You have the option to opt-out of Google’s use of Cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page at www.google.com/privacy_ads.html or the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
  • Retargeting/Advertising Cookies. Retargeting/Advertising Cookies collect data about your online activity and identify your interests so that we can provide advertising that we believe is relevant to you. For more information about this, please see the section below titled “Advertising and Online Tracking.”

Advertising and Online Tracking

We may allow third-party companies, including third-party ad servers, ad agencies, ad technology vendors and research firms, to serve ads and collect certain information when you visit the Site and Services. These companies may use certain information (e.g., click stream information, web browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visits to the Site and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of interest to you. These advertisements may be targeted to users who fit certain general profile categories or display certain preferences or behaviors (“Interest-Based Ads”). Information for Interest-Based Ads (including Personal Information) may be provided to us by you, or derived from the usage patterns of particular users on the Site, Services, and/or services of third parties. Such information may be gathered through tracking users’ activities across time and unaffiliated properties, including when you leave the Services. To accomplish this, we or our Service Providers may deliver cookies, including a file (known as a “web beacon”) from an ad network to you through the Services. Web beacons allow ad networks to provide anonymized, aggregated auditing, research and reporting for us and for advertisers. Web beacons also enable ad networks to serve targeted advertisements to you when you visit other websites. Web beacons allow ad networks to view, edit or set their own cookies on your browser, just as if you had requested a web page from their site. Our systems do not recognize browser "Do Not Track" signals, but several of our Service Providers who utilize these cookies on our site enable you to opt out of targeted advertising practices.

We comply with the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. Through the DAA and Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”), several media and marketing associations have developed an industry self-regulatory program to give consumers a better understanding of, and greater control over, ads that are customized based a consumer’s online behavior across different websites and properties. To learn more about these advertising practices or to make choices about Interest-Based Ads from participating third parties, including to opt-out of receiving behaviorally targeted advertisements from participating organizations, you can visit www.networkadvertising.org or www.aboutads.info/choices/. We also provide you with additional tools to opt out of marketing from us. You can learn about this in the "Managing your Information Preferences" section of this Privacy Policy.

Managing your Information Preferences

If you request Services from us, within your profile, you can review and update some of your Personal Information.

You can opt out of receiving certain e-mails by changing the relevant settings in your Findigs account or by e-mailing us at support@findigs.com. Or, you can opt out of receiving marketing e-mails from us by following the link provided at the bottom of all marketing e-mails you receive from us. You can opt out of receiving marketing e-mails from us, however, you cannot opt out of receiving all e-mails from us, such as e-mails about the status of the Services you requested from us. If you have questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, please e-mail us at support@findigs.com

To opt out of sharing your Personal Information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, please e-mail us at support@findigs.com and clearly state your request, including your name, mailing address, e-mail address and phone number.

Security

We maintain appropriate physical, technical, organizational and administrative safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of information transmitted to us based on the type of Personal Information and how we are processing that data. These safeguards include the implementation of access controls designed to only allow access to your Personal Information to the extent necessary to accomplish the purpose for which the access is allowed and the use of security software to monitor for unauthorized access to your Personal Information. You should also help protect your data by appropriately selecting and protecting your password and/or other sign-on mechanism; limiting access to your computer or device and browser; and signing off after you have finished accessing your account. Although we work to protect the security of your account and other data that we hold in our records, please be aware that no method of transmitting data over the internet or storing data is completely secure.

Retention

We retain Personal Information about you for as long as necessary to provide you with our Services or to perform our business or commercial purposes for collecting your Personal Information. When establishing a retention period for specific categories of data, we consider who we collected the data from, our need for the Personal Information, why we collected the Personal Information, and the sensitivity of the Personal Information. In some cases we retain Personal Information for longer, if doing so is necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes or collect fees owed, or is otherwise permitted or required by applicable law, rule or regulation. We may further retain information in an anonymous or aggregated form where that information would not identify you personally.

For example:

  • We retain your profile information and credentials for as long as you have an account with us.
  • We retain your payment data for as long as we need to process your purchase or subscription.
  • We retain your device/IP data for as long as we need it to ensure that our systems are working appropriately, effectively and efficiently.

Links

Our Site and Services may contain links to other websites or allow others to send you such links. A link to a third-party's website does not mean that we endorse it or that we are affiliated with it. We do not exercise control over third-party websites. You access such third-party websites or content at your own risk and the third-party’s privacy policy and any related legal terms will apply to your interaction with the third-party. You should always read the privacy policy of a third-party website before providing any information to the website.

Children's Privacy

As noted in the Terms of Use, the Site and Services are intended for users who are 13 years old or older. We do not knowingly collect or solicit Personal Information directly from children under the age of 13; if you are a child under the age of 13, please do not attempt to register for or otherwise use the Services or send us any Personal Information. If we become aware that we have inadvertently received Personal Information directly from a child under the age of 13, we will delete such information from our records as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 13 years of age may have provided Personal Information to us, please contact us at support@findigs.com.

California users under the age of 18 may request the removal of their content or information publicly posted on the Site or Services by e-mailing us at support@findigs.com.

California Resident Rights

Under California Civil Code Sections 1798.83-1798.84, California residents are entitled to contact us to prevent disclosure of Personal Information to third parties for such third parties’ direct marketing purposes; in order to submit such a request, please contact us at support@findigs.com.

“Personal Information Disclosure: United States or Overseas” – California Civil Code 1786.20 Disclosure

Personal Information disclosed with Findigs may be transferred to third parties outside the United States or its territories.

In the event of a compromise of a covered California Applicant’s information involving Findigs, Findigs representatives at the following contact information can assist the Applicant with additional information regarding Findigs’ privacy practices or policies:

Findigs
636 Broadway
Suite 1200
New York, NY 10012
support@findigs.com
(332) 278-4711

Nevada Resident Rights

If you are a resident of Nevada, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of certain Personal Information to third parties. Please note that we do not currently sell your Personal Information as sales are defined in Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A.

Privacy Policy Changes

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we decide to materially change this privacy policy, we will inform you by posting the revised Privacy Policy on the Site. Those changes will go into effect on the "Revised" date shown in the revised Privacy Policy. By continuing to use the Site or Services, you are consenting to the revised Privacy Policy.