Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY


Last Updated: October 8, 2024

ARS National Services Inc. (“ARS,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is sensitive to privacy issues. We believe that it is important you know how we treat the information about you that we receive via www.arsnational.com (the “Site”) or through other channels.  The information regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information is not intended to contradict your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.  ARS will not use or disclose any information in a manner that is prohibited by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act or other applicable laws and regulations. 

By accessing or using the Site, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy and you are consenting to our collection, use, disclosure, and protection of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

In general, you may visit the Site without telling us who you are or revealing certain personal information about you. For example, e-mail addresses and other personal information such as first and last name, home or other physical address, telephone number, and other similar information are known only when voluntarily provided by a visitor.

Collection of Personal Information

Unless otherwise disclosed during the collection, information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device (“personal information”) that may be collected is retained by ARS or subsidiary corporations (“Affiliates”).  ARS has collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

CATEGORY

DESCRIPTION

COLLECTED

Identifiers

Real name, alias, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, account name, or other similar identifiers.

 

YES

Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e))

Signature, education, employment, employment history, credit card number, or any other financial information.

 

YES

Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law

Characteristics of protected classifications under California or federal law.

YES

Commercial Information

Commercial information, including records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered.

 

 

YES

Visitor data

Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, information regarding your interaction with the Site.

YES

Geolocation data and sensory data

Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information, including call recordings.

 

YES

Professional or employment-related information

Professional (or employment) related information.

 

YES

Education information

Education information, including school name, dates of attendance, degree, major/minor

 

YES

Inferences drawn from other personal information.

Inferences drawn from any of the information identified to create a profile about a consumer reflecting the consumer’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, abilities, and aptitudes, including employee assessments for retention purposes, and consumer ability to pay.

 

YES

Sensitive personal information

A consumer’s social security, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number.

A consumer’s account log-in, financial account, debit card, or credit card number in combination with any required security or access code, password, or credentials allowing access to an account.

A consumer’s precise geolocation.

The contents of a consumer’s mail, email, and text messages unless the business is the intended recipient of the communication.

The processing of biometric information for the purpose of uniquely identifying a consumer.

 

YES

 

We have collected the above categories of personal information from the following categories of third parties within the last twelve (12) months:   Internet service providers, data analytics providers, government entities, operating systems and platforms, and data brokers.

Using Personal Information

We may use the personal information we collect about you for any of the following business or commercial purposes:

  • To understand the use of our Site or services;
  • To make improvements;
  • To respond to specific requests;
  • To obtain parental consent from visitors under 18 years of age, where necessary;
  • To provide any necessary notices;
  • To send you notices regarding this Site or our business;
  • Auditing our current interaction with the consumer and concurrent transactions, including, but not limited to, counting ad impressions to unique visitors, verifying positioning and quality of ad impressions, and auditing compliance with this specification and other standards;
  • Helping to ensure security and integrity to the extent the use of the consumer’s personal information is reasonably necessary and proportionate for these purposes;
  • Debugging to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
  • Performing services on behalf of the business, including maintaining or servicing accounts, providing customer service, processing, or fulfilling consumer requests, verifying customer information, processing payments, providing analytic services, or providing similar services on behalf of the business;
  • Detecting security incidents, protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, and prosecuting those responsible for that activity;
  • Providing debt collection services to businesses and collecting on defaulted accounts;
  • Employment purposes;
  • Undertaking internal research for technological development and demonstration;
  • Undertaking activities to verify or maintain the quality or safety of a service or device that is owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by the business, and to improve, upgrade, or enhance the service or device that is owned, manufactured, manufactured for, or controlled by the business; and
  • To conduct any other legitimate business activities not otherwise prohibited by law.

ARS and our Affiliates do not sell, transfer, or otherwise disclose personal information, except as described in this Privacy Policy or where disclosure is permitted by law.

We do not sell personal information, and we will not sell personal information except as described in this Privacy Policy. If we ever decide to sell personal information, we will provide you with notice and a right to opt-out of such sale.

We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. If we ever decide to share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, we will provide you with notice and a right to opt-out of such sharing.

If we deidentify your personal information, we publicly commit to retain and use the deidentified personal information without attempting to reidentify the deidentified personal information.

Disclosing Personal Information

We may disclose the personal information we collect about you:

  • With our Affiliates and third-party service providers to the extent necessary to provide our services or to manage your account in the ordinary course of business;
  • To data analytics providers as described herein;
  • To third parties authorized and/or designated by you;
  • In the event of a reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, bankruptcy or liquidation, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock when not otherwise prohibited by law;
  • To comply with applicable laws and regulations;
  • To comply with lawful requests and legal process, including to respond to requests from public and government authorities;
  • To protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or that of you or others unless otherwise prohibited by law; and
  • To conduct any other legitimate business activities not otherwise prohibited by law.

Children and Minors

It is our policy that visitors to our Site who are under the age of 18 should not post on or provide information to our Site without the consent of their parents. You should supervise the online activities of your children, and you should consider the use of parental control tools available from online services and software providers that help provide a kid-friendly Internet environment.

We have no actual knowledge that we have sold or shared any personal information of consumers under 16 years of age.

Cookies

A technology called “cookies” may be used to provide you with tailored information. A “cookie” is a tiny element of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then be stored on your hard drive so we can recognize you when you return. You may be able to set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie. Our cookies collect information about the operating system and browser that a visitor is using.

You may have the ability to accept or decline cookies using your web browser settings. If you choose to not accept cookies from our Site, you may not be able to take full advantage of its features or to receive some of the services that it provides.

We may utilize Google Analytics as a means of collecting data and information relating to those accessing and using the Site. Information about how Google Analytics collect and process data and options you may have with regard to the collection of such data is available at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Third-party vendors may collect personal information about your online activities over time and across different websites when you use the Site. This Site does not respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals.

State Privacy Rights

If you are a resident of a state that has adopted a comprehensive privacy law, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, you may have  certain privacy rights regarding your personal information, depending on your state of residency and applicable law, which may include the right to:

  • Request that a business delete any personal information about the consumer which the business has collected via the Site and other channels (subject to exceptions as permitted by applicable law).
  • Request that a business correct any inaccurate personal information about the consumer (subject to exceptions as permitted by applicable law). When correcting inaccuracies, we will take into account the nature of the personal information and the purpose for processing the personal information.
  • Request that a business limit the use and disclosure of a consumer’s sensitive personal information. In some states, we may first obtain your consent before processing any of your sensitive personal information.
  • Request that a business that collects personal information about the consumer disclose to the consumer, free of charge, the following:
    • The categories of personal information, including sensitive personal information, that it has collected about that consumer.
    • The categories of sources from which the personal information, including sensitive personal information, is collected.
    • The business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling or sharing personal information, including sensitive personal information.
    • The categories of third parties with whom the business discloses personal information, including sensitive personal information, which may include a list of specific third parties, other than natural persons, to which the business has disclosed personal information. You may also be able to request a list of the specific third parties to whom a business has disclosed your personal information.
    • The specific pieces of personal information, including sensitive personal information, it has collected about that consumer, which may include a copy of all personal information the business is processing or has processed (subject to exceptions as permitted by applicable law).
  • Request that a business that collects personal information about the consumer to confirm whether the business is processing or has processed the consumer’s personal information, and the categories of personal information the business is processing or has processed.
  • Request that a business that sells the consumer’s personal information, or that discloses it for a business purpose disclose, free of charge, to the consumer:
    • The categories of personal information, including sensitive personal information, that the business collected about the consumer.
    • The categories of personal information, including sensitive personal information, that the business sold about the consumer and the categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold, by category or categories of personal information for each third party to whom the personal information was sold.
    • The categories of personal information, including sensitive personal information, that the business disclosed about the consumer for a business purpose.
  • Direct a business that sells or shares (for cross-contextual behavior advertising) personal information about the consumer to third parties not to sell or share, or to opt-out of the sale or sharing of, the consumer’s personal information. Such opt-out right may be available through an opt-out preference signal.
  • Opt-out of the processing of a consumer’s personal information for purposes of targeted advertising. Such opt-out right may be available through an opt-out preference signal.
  • Opt-out of profiling in furtherance of automated decisions that produce legal effects or similarly significant effects. If a consumer’s personal information is profiled in this manner, the consumer may have the right to question the result of the profiling, to be informed of the reason that the profiling resulted in the decision, and, if feasible, to be informed of what actions the consumer might have taken to secure a different decision and the actions that the consumer might take to secure a different decision in the future. The consumer may have the right to review the consumer’s personal information used in the profiling. If the decision is determined to have been based on inaccurate personal information, the consumer may have the right to have the information corrected and the profiling decision reevaluated based on the corrected information.
  • Revoke consent that a consumer has previously given to a business for processing personal information. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, you may have the right to withdraw consent to any further materially different collection, processing, or transfer of previously collected personal information under the updated Privacy Policy.
  • Appeal any action a business takes in response to a consumer’s privacy request, as applicable based on the consumer’s state of residence and subject to exceptions as permitted by applicable law. You may exercise this right by contacting us using the same method used to submit your original request, as described below.

Any copy of personal information provided will be in a portable and, to the extent technically feasible, readily usable format that will allow you to transmit the personal information to another person.

You may also designate an authorized agent to make such requests on your behalf. We may require that the agent verify the agent’s own identity. A parent or legal guardian may exercise these rights on behalf of a child for whom the requestor has legal responsibility.

To exercise your state-specific privacy rights please use the form under the “CONTACT US” section on www.arsnational.com or call us at:

800-665-3140; TTY 866-922-9250; RELAY 800-936-7214

We may need to verify your identity using information from our business records.  Please be prepared to provide your name, phone number, and address.

You may be able to exercise some of your rights using an opt-out preference signal.  Please refer to the setting on your device or browser.

We will not retaliate or discriminate against you because you exercise any of the rights as described in this section.

Security

This Site has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. When credit card information is transmitted, we use industry standard, SSL (secure socket layer) encryption.

Links to Third-Party Web Sites

This Site may contain links to other sites of third parties. By including a link to a third-party site, we do not endorse or recommend any products or services offered or information contained at the third-party site. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of those other sites. Such third party may have a privacy policy different from that of ours and the third-party site may provide less security protection than our Site. If you decide to visit a third-party site via a link contained on our Site, you do so at your risk.

Retention of Personal Information

We retain the personal information we collect as described in this Privacy Policy for as long as you use our services or as necessary to fulfill the purpose(s) for which it was collected, provide our services, resolve disputes, establish legal defenses, conduct audits, pursue legitimate business purposes, enforce our agreements, and comply with applicable laws.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. Unless otherwise stated, any modifications to the Privacy Policy will go into immediate effect after they have been posted, as indicated by the Last Updated date located at the beginning of this Privacy Policy. You are responsible for checking this Privacy Policy when you visit our Site to review the current policy. If you do not agree with the Privacy Policy, you should cease use of the Site immediately.

Contact Information

If you have any comments or questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at legal@arsnational.com.