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FASTSIGNS Franchise Development Privacy Notice

Last Updated: June 4, 2020

FASTSIGNS International Inc. is the franchisor of FASTSIGNS centers which provide custom signs, graphics products and visual communications (“FASTSIGNS International, Inc.,” “FII,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) helps explain how we collect, use, share, store, and protect your information as well as your rights and choices in relation to your information. This Privacy Notice applies to all personal information collected about you by FII when you do any of the following (collectively the “Services”):

  • Use our website located at https://www.fsFASTSIGNS.com, and all corresponding webpages or mobile applications that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Site”);
  • Communicate with us during any written, electronic or oral communications; and
  • Use any other features or content owned or operated by FASTSIGNS.

Please read this Notice carefully along with our Terms and Conditions (“Terms”), which can be viewed at https://www.fsfastsigns.com/terms-and-conditions/, and describes the Terms under which you use our Services. By using the Services, you agree to the collection and use of your personal information in accordance with this Notice. If you do not agree with or you are not comfortable with any aspect of this Notice, you should immediately discontinue access or use.

Our Site may contain links to third-party websites. These third-party websites and services are not related to FASTSIGNS and may have separate privacy policies and data collection practices. We have no responsibility for these websites or their privacy practices and encourage you to read the privacy policies of all websites you visit.

Due to the Internet’s rapidly evolving nature, we may need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. If we make a change that we believe materially affects how we process your personal information, we will provide notice of such change on this Site or via email. After such notice, your continued use of our Services will be subject to the then-current Privacy Notice.

Information We Collect

We receive or collect personal information when you contact us by phone, text, chat, or through a form submission. Personal information is data that can be used to identify you directly or indirectly or to contact you. This Notice does not apply to anonymized information as it cannot be used to identify you. The types of personal information that we may collect about you include, but are not limited to: information you provide to us, information from third parties, and information collected automatically about your use of our Services.

Information You Voluntarily Provide

  • Information that you provide by filling in forms that we make available, such as on our Get Started page, such as your name. email, phone number, city, state and zip code.
  • Information you provide us via our LiveChat function on our Site.
  • Information you provide when you report a problem with our Site or an in-store or online transaction with us by email, our Site, telephone, in writing or through other means.
  • Information relating to our email sign-up page, including contact information.
  • Records and copies of your correspondence (including email addresses), if you contact us.
  • Information relating to your participation in a promotion or surveys that we may ask you to complete for research purposes.

Information from Third Parties

  • When you interact with any FASTSIGNS property page or account on a social media platform, we may collect the personal information that you or the platform make available to us on that page or account, including your social media account ID and/or user name associated with that social media service, your profile picture, email address, friends list or information about the people and groups you are connected to and how you interact with them, and any information you have made public in connection with that social media service. The information we obtain depends on your privacy settings on the applicable social media service; we will comply with the privacy policies of the social media platform and we will only collect and store such personal information that we are permitted to collect by those social media platforms. When you access the Site through social media channels or when you connect the Site to social media services, you are authorizing us to collect, store, and use such information and content in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

Information Automatically Collected. As you navigate through and interact with our Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns, including:

  • Details of your visits to our Site, including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, logs and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Site.
  • Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.
  • Information about the type of device you are using, mobile ad identifiers, the time and length of your visit, and the website that referred you to our Site.
  • Service-related, diagnostic, and performance information, including high-level information about your activity, and diagnostic, crash, website, and performance logs and reports.
  • Information about your preferences to make your use of the Site more productive, via the use of cookies or other tracking technologies. When you access our Site, we or companies we work with may place cookies on your computer or other devices. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, and inform us about which parts of our websites people have visited.

Please refer to the FASTSIGNS Cookie Policy for more information about our use of cookies.

How We Use Your Information

We will only use your personal information as described in this Privacy Notice or as disclosed to you prior to such processing taking place.

  1. To Provide and Maintain our Service. We will use your Personal Information to provide you with information about franchise opportunities with FASTSIGNS International, Inc. If the applicable information is to be provided or Service is to be performed by a third party, then we will disclose the applicable information to the third party providing the information or performing applicable Services.
  2. To Provide Customer Support or Respond to You. We collect any information that you provide to us when you contact us, such as with questions, concerns, feedback, disputes or issues. Without your personal information, we cannot respond to you.
  3. To Send You Marketing and Promotional Emails. We may use your personal information to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information that may be of interest to you based on the Services that you already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information. You may opt-out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link or the instructions provided in any email we send.
  4. Advise You of Other Services. From time to time, subject to the applicable law, we may your personal information with third parties or partners. You may opt out of having your personal information shared with third parties. If you choose to limit the use of your personal information, certain features or Services may not be available to you.
  5. For Internal Use. We will use your information to gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our Services and to detect, prevent and address technical issues. We may also use your information to monitor the usage of our Site including without limitation search terms entered, pages visited and documents viewed.
  6. To Enforce Compliance with Our Terms and Agreements or Policies. When you access or use our Site, you are bound to our Terms and Conditions and this Notice. To ensure you comply with them, we process your personal information by actively monitoring, investigating, preventing and mitigating any alleged or actual prohibited, illicit or illegal activities on our Services. We also may process your personal information to: investigate, prevent or mitigate violations of our internal terms, agreements or policies; enforce our agreements with third parties and business partners; and, as applicable, collect fees based on your use of our Services. We cannot perform our Services in accordance with our terms, agreements or policies without processing your personal information for such purposes.

Disclosure of Your Personal Information

We may disclose your personal information as described below.

  1. Service Providers and Third Parties. We may employ third-party companies and individuals to facilitate our Services (“Service Providers”), provide the Services on our behalf, perform Service-related services, provide you with additional information on our franchise or assist us in analyzing how our Services are used. These third parties have access to your personal information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
  2. Within Our Corporate Organization. FASTSIGNS is a part of a corporate organization that has many legal entities, business processes, management structures and technical systems. We may share your personal information within this organization in order to provide you with the Services and take actions based on your request.
  3. Mergers and Acquisitions. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, your personal information may be transferred. We will provide notice before your personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
  4. Disclosure for Law Enforcement. Under certain circumstances, FASTSIGNS may be required to disclose your personal information by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency). We may disclose your personal information in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

• comply with a legal obligation;

• protect and defend the rights or property of FASTSIGNS;

• prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Services;

• protect the personal safety of users of the Services or the public; or

• protect against legal liability.

Security Safeguards

We maintain and require our service providers to maintain appropriate physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect the security and confidentiality of the personal information you entrust to us. However, we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse, unauthorized acquisition, or alteration of your data will not occur. Please recognize that you play a vital role in protecting your personal information.

Furthermore, we cannot ensure or warrant the security or confidentiality of the information you transmit to us or receive from us by Internet or wireless connection, including email, phone, or SMS, since we have no way of protecting that information once it leaves and until it reaches us. If you have reason to believe that your data is no longer secure, please contact us at the email address or mailing address listed at the bottom of this Notice.

RETENTION

We limit our retention of your personal information as long as necessary for the purposes set out in this Notice. We will retain and use your personal information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes and enforce our legal agreements and policies. While retention requirements vary by jurisdiction, information about our typical retention periods for different aspects of your personal information is described below.

  • The email address for marketing purposes is retained on an ongoing basis until you unsubscribe.
  • Information collected via technical means such as cookies, web page counters and other analytics tools is kept for a period of up to one year from the expiration of the cookie.

Please feel free to contact us at privacy@fastsigns.com if you have questions about retention periods for a particular aspect of your personal information which is not detailed above.

YOUR CHOICES

You may contact us at privacy@fastsigns.com to access the personal information we hold about you. If any of the information is inaccurate, you may rectify such information. We reserve the right to limit your access or modifications if your requests are too frequent and/or burdensome. For individuals residing in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, please see section ____ below.

Subject to the applicable law, we may send you communication that are related to your requests for information we believe interests you. In the event we send any communication to you which is not related specifically to your interest, we will provide you with an "unsubscribe" mechanism through which you may opt out of receiving other similar messages in the future.

Children's Privacy

Our Services are not intended for anyone under the age of 18 (“children”). We do not target or knowingly collect personal information from children. FASTSIGNS recognizes the privacy interests of children and we encourage parents and guardians to take an active role in their children's online activities and interests. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child without verification of parental consent, we will take steps to remove that information from our servers.

California Privacy RIGHTS

This section applies only to California residents. Pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), below is a summary of the personal information categories, as identified and defined by the CCPA (see California Civil Code section 1798.140 (o)), that we collect, the reason we collect your personal information, where we obtain the personal information, and the third parties with whom we share your personal information.

We generally collect the following categories of personal information when you use our Services:

  • identifiers such as a name, address, unique personal identifier, email, phone number, your device’s IP address, software, and identification numbers associated with your devices;
  • commercial information such as records of products or services purchased, obtained, or considered by you;
  • Internet or other electronic information regarding you browsing history, search history, the webpage visited before you came to our Site, length of visit and number of page views, click-stream data, locale preferences, your mobile carrier, date and time stamps associated with transactions, and system configuration information;
  • audio recordings of your voice to the extent you call us, as permitted under applicable law;
  • inferences about your preferences, characteristics, behavior and attitudes.

We generally do not collect biometric information, professional or employment-related information, education-related information. For more information about the personal information we collect and how we collect it, please refer to section 1 above, and FASTSIGNS Cookie Policy.

We collect your personal information for the business purposes described in section 2. The CCPA defines a “business purpose” as the use of personal information for the business’s operational purposes, or other notified purposes, provided the use of personal information is reasonably necessary and proportionate to achieve the operational purpose for which the personal information was collected or another operational purpose that is compatible with the context in which the personal information was collected. Section 3 or this Privacy Notice describes the categories of third parties with whom we may share your personal information.

CCPA Privacy Rights. If you are a California resident, you have rights in relation to your personal information; however, your rights are subject to certain exceptions. For instance, we cannot disclose specific pieces of personal information if the disclosure would create a substantial, articulable, and unreasonable risk to the security of the personal information, your account with us or the security of our network systems.

  • Right Against Discrimination. You have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of the rights described in this section. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your right to know, delete or opt-out of sales.
  • Right to Know. You have the right to request in writing: (i) a list of the categories of personal information, such as name, address, email address, that a business has disclosed to third parties during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes, and (ii) the names and addresses of all such third parties. In addition, you have the right to request: (i) the categories of personal information we have collected about you, (ii) the categories of sources from which personal information is collected, (iii) the business or commercial purpose for the information collection, (iv) the categories of third parties with whom we have shared personal information, and (v) the specific pieces of personal information we hold about an individual. You have the right to request a copy of the specific Personal Information we collected about you during the 12 months before your request.
  • Right to Delete. You have the right to request us delete any personal information we have collected from you or maintain about you, subject to certain exceptions. We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our Service Providers to:
    • Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
    • Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
    • Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
    • Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
    • Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 seq.).
    • Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information's deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research's achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
    • Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
    • Comply with a legal obligation.
    • Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.
  • Right to Opt-Out of Selling. You have a right to opt-out of allowing us to sell your personal information. We currently do not sell any personal information. If this changes in the future, we will update this notice to reflect that change.

Exercising Your Rights. To exercise your rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either calling us at 214.346.5710emailing us at privacy@fastsigns.com or submit a verifiable consumer request from You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. Your verifiable consumer request must:

  • Provide sufficient information that allows FASTSIGNS to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information.
  • Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

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 the personal information relates to you. Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.

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.

Authorized Agent. In certain circumstances, you are permitted to use an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf where (i) you provide sufficient evidence to show that the requestor is an authorized agent with written permission to act on your behalf and (ii) you successfully verify your own identity with us.

Shine the Light. California's "Shine the Light" law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Services that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes, to the extent applicable. To make such a request, please send an email to privacy@fastsigns.com, indicating that you are making a “Shine the Light request.

Do-Not-Track (DNT). DNT is a concept that has been promoted by regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for the Internet industry to develop and implement a mechanism for allowing Internet users to control the tracking of their online activities across websites by using browser settings. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been working with industry groups, Internet browsers, technology companies, and regulators to develop a DNT technology standard. While some progress has been made, it has been slow. No standard has been adopted to this date. As such, FASTSIGNS does not generally respond to “do not track” signals.

Notice to Nevada Residents

This section applies only to Nevada residents. Pursuant to Nevada law, you may direct a business that operates an internet website not to sell personal information the business has collected or will collect about you to third parties, who will license or sell that personal information to other parties. If you are a Nevada resident, you may submit such opt-out requests to privacy@fastsigns.com. To be effective, your request must include your full name, address, phone number, and email address.

International Transfers

As a global entity, we may store, transfer, and otherwise process your personal information in countries outside of the country of your residence, including the United States and possibly other countries. The data protection laws of such countries may not be as protective as the laws of the country in which you reside. We will take all the steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your personal information is treated securely and in accordance with this Notice and no transfer of your personal information will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place. If you do not want your information transferred to or processed or maintained outside of the country or jurisdiction where you are located, you should not use the Services.

For individuals located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), the United Kingdom or Switzerland (collectively “Europe”) at the time they access our Services, we transfer your personal information subject to appropriate safeguards as permitted under the applicable data protection laws. Specifically, when your personal information is transferred out of Europe, we have the required contractual provisions for transferring personal information in place with the third parties to which your information is transferred. For such transfers, we rely on legal transfer mechanisms such as Standard Contractual Clauses, or we work with U.S.-based third parties that are certified under the EU-US and Swiss-US Privacy Shield Framework.

NOTICE TO INDIVIDUALS IN EUROPE

This section only applies to individuals that access or use our Services while located in the EEA, United Kingdom and/or Switzerland (collectively, the “Europe”). We may ask you to identify which country you are located in when you use some of the Services or we may rely on your IP address to identify which country you are located in. When we rely on your IP address, we cannot apply the terms of this section to any individual that masks or otherwise hides their location information from us so as not to appear located in Europe. If any terms in this section conflict with other terms contained in this Notice, the terms in this section shall apply to users in Europe.

FASTSIGNS is a controller with regard to any personal information collected from individuals accessing or using its Services. A “controller” is an entity that determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal information is processed.

Marketing. We will only contact individuals located in Europe by electronic means (including email or SMS) based on our legitimate interests, as permitted by applicable law or the individual’s consent. When we rely on legitimate interest, we will only send you information about our Services that are similar to those which were the subject of a previous sale or negotiations of a sale to you. If you do not want us to use your personal information in this way or to disclose your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes, please click an unsubscribe link in your emails or contact us at privacy@fastsigns.com. You can object to direct marketing at any time and free of charge. Direct marketing includes any communications to you that are only based on advertising or promoting products and services.

Legal Bases for Processing. Below is our legal bases for processing for the processing activities identified in this Notice.

  • We rely on our contract with you as our legal basis for processing in relation to the following: Sections 2.a. To Provide and Maintain Our Services, 2.b. To Provide Customer Support, 2.f. To Enforce Compliance with Our Terms or Agreements and 3.a. To Share with Service Providers.
  • We rely on your consent or legitimate interest in relation to the following processing activities: Section 2.c. To Send Marketing and Promotional Emails and 2.d. To Advise You of Other Services.
  • We rely on legitimate interest in relation to the following processing activities: Sections 3.b. Sharing within Our Corporate Organization, and 2.e. For Internal Use.
  • Our processing in relation to the following sections is based on our legal obligations: Section 3.c. Sharing due to Mergers and Acquisitions and 3.d. Disclosure for Law Enforcement.

Your Rights.We provide you with the rights described below when you use our Services. We may limit your individual rights requests in the following ways: (a) where denial of access is required or authorized by law; (b) when granting access would have a negative impact on other’s privacy; (c) to protect our rights and properties; and (d) where the request is frivolous or burdensome. If you would like to exercise your rights, please contact us at which can be exercised by contacting us at privacy@fastsigns.com so that we may consider your request under applicable law. When we fulfill your individual rights requests for correct (or rectification), erasure or restriction of processing, we will notify third parties also handling the relevant personal information unless this proves impossible or involves disproportionate effort. In certain circumstances, you have the following data protection rights:

  • Right to withdraw consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal information collected on the basis of your consent at any time. Your withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of Commerce’s processing based on consent before your withdrawal.
  • Right of access to and rectification of your personal information. You have a right to request that we provide you a copy of your personal information held by us. This information will be provided without undue delay subject to some fee associated with the gathering of the information (as permitted by law), unless such provision adversely affects the rights and freedoms of others. You may also request us to rectify or update any of your personal information held by us that is inaccurate.
  • Right to erasure. You have the right to request erasure of your personal information that: (a) is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected or otherwise processed; (b) was collected in relation to processing that you previously consented, but later withdraw such consent; or (c) was collected in relation to processing activities to which you object, and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for our processing. If we have made your personal information public and are obliged to erase the personal information, we will, taking account of available technology and the cost of implementation, take reasonable steps, including technical measures, to inform other parties that are processing your personal information that you have requested the erasure of any links to, or copy or replication of your personal information. The above is subject to limitations by relevant data protection laws.
  • Right to data portability. If we process your personal information based on a contract with you or based on your consent, or the processing is carried out by automated means, you may request to receive your personal information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and to have us transfer your personal information directly to another “controller”, where technically feasible, unless the exercise of this right adversely affects the rights and freedoms of others. A “controller” is a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other bodies which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of your personal information.
  • Right to the restriction of or processing. You have the right to restrict or object to us processing your personal information where one of the following applies
    • You contest the accuracy of your personal information that we processed. In such instances, we will restrict processing during the period necessary for us to verify the accuracy of your personal information.
    • The processing is unlawful and you oppose the erasure of your personal information and request the restriction of its use instead.
    • We no longer need your personal information for the purposes of the processing, but it is required by you to establish, exercise or defense of legal claims.
    • You have objected to processing, pending the verification whether the legitimate grounds of our processing override your rights.
  • Restricted personal information shall only be processed with your consent or for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims or for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person or for reasons of important public interest. We will inform you if the restriction is lifted.
  • Notification of erasure, rectification, and restriction. We will communicate any rectification or erasure of your personal information or restriction of processing to each recipient to whom your personal information has been disclosed unless this proves impossible or involves a disproportionate effort. We will inform you about those recipients if you request this information.
  • Right to object to processing. Where the processing of your personal information is based on consent, contract or legitimate interests you may restrict or object, at any time, to the processing of your personal information as permitted by applicable law. We can continue to process your personal information if it is necessary for the defense of legal claims, or for any other exceptions permitted by applicable law.
  • Automated individual decision-making, including profiling. You have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing of your personal information, including profiling, which produces legal or similarly significant effects on you, save for the exceptions applicable under relevant data protection laws.

If you believe that we have infringed your rights, we encourage you to contact us first at privacy@fastsigns.com so that we can try to resolve your issue or dispute informally. You also have a right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority situated in a Member State of your habitual residence, place of work, or place of alleged infringement.

CONTACTING US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, please contact FASTSIGNS at privacy@fastsigns.com or send physical mail to: FASTSIGNS International, Inc., 2542 Highlander Way, Carrollton, TX 75006
Attn: Privacy.