Parchment Privacy Policy

At Parchment LLC (“Parchment”) we take your privacy seriously. We have developed this Privacy Policy to clearly describe how we collect, use, and disclose your personal information as we provide our services and tools on or via this website, www.parchment.com, and its affiliated websites (“the Site”), and in the Parchment applications accessed via the Site, collectively referred to herein as “Services.” The Services include the electronic ordering, fulfillment, and delivery of academic credentials and data, including without limitation, transcripts and related admissions documents, diplomas, test score reports, certificates and certifications (collectively, “Credentials”) and the electronic awarding of Credentials.

By accessing and using our Site, using the Services, or by clicking “I accept” prior to your registration on the Parchment Site, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by Parchment as described in this Privacy Policy. If you are acting on behalf of an academic institution, school district, state agency, public and private board, or non-academic private entity (“Member”), you agree that you have the authority to  bind the Member and that this Privacy Policy shall apply to personal data provided by or on behalf of Member for the Services.   If you are a Member, your use of the Services is also governed by the applicable agreement or terms entered into between you and Parchment, which includes applicable privacy-related provisions

“Personal information” (whether or not capitalized) as used in this Privacy Policy means any information about an identified natural person or that could reasonably identify a natural person. Personal Information shall not include publicly available information from government records (unless otherwise specified by applicable law) or de-identified or aggregated consumer information, where such information is not considered personal information by applicable privacy legislation.

Parchment complies with its obligations under applicable privacy law, which may include private sector privacy legislation where personal information is collected directly from you. When obtaining personal information through Members in the course of providing Services to members, Parchment handles your personal information as required by its Members and in accordance with the privacy laws that apply to its members.  Those laws may include freedom of information legislation and education/school acts. In this Privacy Policy, “applicable privacy law” refers to the privacy laws that apply based on the type of service we are providing (whether as a direct service provider or outsourced service provider) and the jurisdiction in which we are processing the personal information.  If you have any questions about a Member’s privacy practices, please contact the applicable Member.

This Privacy Policy includes privacy notices based on your individual relationship with Parchment and is organized as follows:

GENERAL TERMS; PRIVACY POLICY

CCPA PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

INTERNATIONAL TERMS FOR RESIDENTS IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA (“EEA”), UNITED KINGDOM (“UK”) OR SWITZERLAND

GENERAL TERMS; PRIVACY POLICY

The General Terms; Privacy Policy outlines in detail:

1. Personal Information we collect
2. How we use personal information
3. How we share personal information
4. How we store your personal information
5. Your choices about receiving email
6. How to access and update your personal information or preferences
7. How we protect your personal information
8. How we make updates to this policy
9. How to contact us for more information

Information You Enter.

We also collect information you choose to provide us through the Site or via email. For example, we obtain information when you create an account, complete a registration form or feedback form, contact us requesting information, purchase our Services, respond to a survey, contact a customer support representative, or opt-in to provide information to one or more of our affiliates through the Site.

This information may include information about you (for example, your name, email address, postal address, phone number), information about your institution (for example, a school’s name and address), and other information (for example, your graduation year and certain demographic information, when not associated with your personally-identifiable information). We may also collect other information not sourced from Credentials, including college admissions information, and test scores (e.g. SAT, GRE, etc.), which may be collected if you choose to use certain admissions tools available through the Site.  If requested by your school in order to correctly identify your Credentials, we may request additional personal information from you, which may include the last four digits of your social security/insurance number.

When you use the Services offered on the Site, we may collect information regarding your use of the Services, including any communications made or transactions entered into by you.

You can choose not to provide us with certain information, but then you may not be able to successfully use the Services or take full advantage of the features of our Site.

If you provide us personal information about others, or if others give us your information, we will only use that information for the specific reason for which it was provided to us. You should not provide us with information about others unless you have been expressly authorized by the other person to provide this information to us.

We collect feedback and correspondence from you, including information you provide in your responses to surveys, when you participate in market research activities, report a problem with the Site, receive customer support, or otherwise correspond with us.

Information We Get from Others.

We may also get information about you from other sources, for example, if you have agreed to share information with one of our partners for purposes of the electronic ordering, fulfillment, and delivery of academic credentials and data or other use related to the Services. The type of personal information collected from other sources is similar to the personal information outlined above under “Information You Enter”. We may add this to information we get from you in our Services.

We may combine other publicly available information, such as information related to the organization for which you work, with the personal information that you provide to us through our Services.

Information We Get from Members.

We may also receive personal information from our Members, which are academic institutions, school districts, state agencies, public and private boards, and non-academic private entities. The type of personal information collected from our members is similar to the personal information outlined above under “Information You Enter” and may also include student contact information, student demographic information such as age and gender, and student records, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, or student disciplinary records.

When we obtain your personal information indirectly from our Members, we rely on their lawful authority to collect and use your personal information and provide it to us so that we can provide you with Services on behalf of our Member. Our members are solely responsible for obtaining all required consents and authorizations from the relevant individuals and for satisfying all obligations or rights owed to the member’s data subjects under applicable privacy law. Parchment is not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of its members. Changes to Your Personal Information.

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current.  Please let us know if your personal information changes during your relationship with us by updating your account information or emailing us at privacy@parchment.com.

Automatic Collection of Information.

Like many websites on the Internet, we automatically gather certain non-personally identifiable information and store it in log files. This information may include, for example, your IP address, browser type, and Internet connection speed. In addition, we may employ the use of “cookies” in certain areas of our Site. We use this information, which does not identify individual users, but does differentiate between users (as described in greater detail below) to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users’ activity on the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may link this automatically collected data to other information we collect about you.

Technologies such as cookies, beacons, tags and scripts are used by Parchment and our partners, affiliates, or service providers. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the Site, tracking users’ movements around the Site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We may receive reports based on the use of these technologies by these companies on an individual as well as aggregated basis.

Cookies.

We may collect information using “cookies.” Cookies are small data files stored on the hard drive of your computer or mobile device by a website. We may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer or mobile device until you delete them) to provide you with a more personal and interactive experience on the Site.

We use two broad categories of cookies: (1) first party cookies, served directly by us to your computer or mobile device, which we use to recognize your computer or mobile device when it revisits the Site; and (2) third party cookies, which are served by service providers on the Site, and can be used by such service providers to recognize your computer or mobile device when it visits other websites.

Cookies we use.

Our Site uses the following types of cookies for the purposes set out below:

Disabling Cookies.

You can typically remove or reject cookies via your browser settings. In order to do this, follow the instructions provided by your browser (usually located within the “settings,” “help” “tools” or “edit” facility).  Many browsers are set to accept cookies until you change your settings.

Further information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your computer or mobile device and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

If you do not accept our cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of our Site. For example, we may not be able to recognize your computer or mobile device and you may need to log in every time you visit our Site. However, declining cookies will not prevent you from transacting with us.

Do Not Track Signals.

Some Internet browsers may be configured to send “Do Not Track” signals to the online services that you visit. We do not currently respond to do not track signals. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit www.allaboutdnt.com.

1. Why do we collect your information and how is it used?

In general, we  use information that we collect (i) to efficiently provide our Services and to develop new products and services, (ii) to improve your experience in using the Site and our Services, (iii) to aid in communication between Parchment and you, and (iv) to notify you of Services that we think may be of interest to you (when express consent has been given where required by applicable privacy law).

Personal or Institution Information.

Any personal information that we collect is used to (i) facilitate the provision of Services that you may order and any related transactions and to further operate and improve our Services, (ii) personalize your account, (iii) operate, maintain, and customize the Services, (iv) develop new products and services, (v) allow communication between Parchment (its affiliates and service providers) and you and to manage your account, (vi) send administrative or customer service related emails, including without limitation product and services surveys, (v) and marketing emails about upcoming products or services, when express consent has been given where required by applicable privacy law, and which you may opt out of receiving by following the instructions in the marketing email, (vii) provide support and maintenance for the Site and our Services, (viii) respond to your service-related requests, questions, and feedback, (viii) as we believe necessary or appropriate (a) to comply with applicable laws; (b) to comply with lawful requests and legal process, including to respond to requests from public and government authorities; (c) to enforce our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use; and (d) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property and that of you or others, and (e) to protect, investigate, and deter against fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity; (ix) to evaluate a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer or some or all of our assets; (x) as otherwise described to you when collecting your personal information; and (xi) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable privacy law.

Under certain law, we only collect, use or disclose your personal information with your consent, which may be implied by your use of our Services with knowledge of how we use your personal information, unless we are required or permitted by law to obtain your personal information without consent. We will ask for your consent if we wish to use your personal information for purposes other than those listed in this Privacy Policy or if we are required to expressly request your consent under applicable privacy law, unless an exception to consent applies. We will request your consent to use your personal information where required by law, such as where we use certain cookies or similar technologies or would like to send you certain marketing messages.  If we request your consent to use your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent any time in the manner indicated when we requested the consent or by contacting us at https://support.parchment.com.

Sensitive Personal Information.

We do not collect and we ask that you do not send us or disclose any sensitive personal information (e.g. information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or other beliefs, health, biometrics, or criminal background) on or through the Services, with the exception of certain services on the Site where some users may opt in to providing ethnicity in order to participate in such service offering. If you send or disclose any sensitive personal information to us when you submit user generated content in our Services, you consent to our processing and use of such sensitive personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you do not consent to our processing and use of such sensitive personal information, you must not submit such user generated content in our Services.

Anonymous and De-Identified Data.

We may create anonymous data from your personal information and other individuals whose personal information we collect.  We make personal information into anonymous data by excluding information that makes the data personally identifiable to you.

We may use anonymous information in aggregate form to provide institutions with analytics on Credential exchange activity through the Services, including analysis to track where requests are coming from and going to, benchmarking information, and for any other lawful business purpose. Additionally, we may use anonymous information in aggregate form to provide users with certain admissions-related analytics. These analytics rely solely on aggregated, anonymized data, and do not include any data from the Credentials we process.

We may use a third party to assist us in collecting and analyzing information as described below.

2. How we share your information?

Our business hinges on security and the trust you place in us. We take great care to ensure that your personally identifiable information is only shared in the following limited circumstances:

• Designated Institutions or Third Parties. When a student, academic institution, or other user uses our Services, we will access certain data, including personal information, and may transmit, fulfill, or otherwise disclose Credentials and related data to such other academic institutions or third parties as authorized by such user. The consent of a student-user’s parent may be required to submit a Credential request for non-postsecondary students under the age of 18. We will share certain information with the institutions from which we obtain your Credentials in order to fulfill your order.
• Service providers. We may also use other companies and individuals to perform supporting functions on our behalf for the institutions that we work with or for the various Services offered through the Site, such as account billing and processing. They handle data only in compliance with the terms of this Privacy Policy and will not be permitted to use the information collected from you for any purpose other than performing the support functions for Parchment. Prior to partnering with any third-party service provider, we contractually require these service providers to use the information only to provide the contracted services and to represent that their privacy and security practices meet our standards and comply with applicable privacy law.
• Affiliates. We may disclose your personal information to our wholly owned subsidiaries, and any corporate affiliates or business partners, if any, and which are under common control with Parchment, for purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy.
• Professional Advisors. We may disclose your personal information to professional advisors, such as lawyers, auditors, and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services they render to us.
• Academic Research. We may share anonymous data with researchers at academic institutions for academic research purposes, including the study of topics of relevance to the admissions process, college access, and labor market outcomes. Researchers and academic institutions are only permitted to handle such data in compliance with the terms of a restricted use agreement with Parchment; additionally, such academic institutions must be accredited and the research must be approved by the researching institution’s institutional review board (IRB), passing review of the methods proposed for research to ensure that they are ethical.
• Protection of rights. We may disclose your information if we believe that such action is appropriate to: (i) comply with law or any lawful requests and legal process, such as to respond to subpoenas or requests from government authorities, (ii) enforce the Terms of Use Agreement for the Site or this Privacy Policy, (iii) respond to claims that any information or content posted on our site or transmitted through the use of the Services violates the rights of any third party, or (iv) protect the rights, privacy, property, or personal safety of Parchment, its affiliates and employees, other Site users or others, or (v) protect, investigate, and deter against fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity.
• Business transfers. Parchment may transfer, or otherwise share your information to an acquirer, assignee or other successor entity in connection with the transfer or sale of all or substantially all of the equity, business, or assets of Parchment to which your information relates, or in connection with an actual or contemplated sale, merger, bankruptcy, reorganization, change in control, or other similar transaction. Following such business transfer, this Privacy Policy may be assumed by the acquirer, assignee, or other successor entity and/or modified or replaced, subject to the modification terms (see below), and the acquirer, assignee, or other successor entity will be responsible for compliance under such policy.
• Other Third-Parties. Parchment may disclose personal information to other third-parties without your consent where required or permitted by law, including without limitation where: (i) the information is public as permitted by law; (ii) it is reasonable for the purposes of investigating a breach of an agreement, or actual or suspected illegal activity; (iii) it is necessary to identify an individual who is injured, ill or deceased; or (iv) due to an emergency that threatens the life, health or security of an individual.

International Data Transfer

We are headquartered in the United States and may have business partners or members in other countries, and your personal information may be transferred, in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy, to the United States or other locations outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction and where the personal information may be subject to access by or disclosure to foreign law enforcement and other authorities under the laws of those jurisdictions. Parchment currently stores or transfers your personal information, or utilizes service providers, in the following countries: the United States.

By contacting Parchment at privacy@parchment.com, you may request information from Parchment on the specific jurisdictions in which Parchment and/or its service providers will process personal information, including how to access such information and who to contact about the specific privacy practices involving the personal information.

European Union users should read the important information provided here about transfer of personal information outside of the European Economic Area. Canadian users authorize the transfer of their personal information into the United States and elsewhere as directed and authorized by the Canadian user or Member to Parchment. Parchment will take all reasonable measures to ensure that the personal information will not be used, transferred, or disclosed for purposes not relevant to the purposes of its collection or as authorized by you or a Member.

3. Storage of information

Once a Credential request has been fulfilled, Parchment does not retain such Credential, unless requested by the individual user, the sending institution, or the receiving institution, for the convenience of such user, or to meet our legal and contractual obligations. For example, it is Parchment’s policy to comply with the sending institution’s preferences until the Credential is delivered. After the Credential is delivered, Parchment follows the receiver’s preferences regarding the retention and analysis of the transmitted Credential. If an individual user requests Parchment retain their Credentials on their behalf, Parchment will comply with such request and maintain the Credentials on behalf of such user in their personal account. Similarly, if an institution requests that Parchment store Credentials in the Parchment credential library, Parchment will comply with such request and maintain the Credentials on behalf of such institution in its credential library, subject to the applicable agreement between such institution and Parchment.

4. Your Choices

You can access, review, correct, update, or delete the information you provide Parchment by signing in to your account and accessing the Profile tab. Account holders may also contact us at privacy@parchment.com to accomplish the foregoing or if you have additional requests or questions. We will correct, update or delete any personal information we have about you, unless we are required to keep it by law. If your personal information is provided to us by a Member (defined above), then we will contact the Member or direct you to contact the Member regarding any correction, update, or deletion requests by you. If you request that we delete your information, please note that your information may continue to reside in our backup systems. Where personal information is being used to make a decision about you, we will make every reasonable effort to ensure such information is accurate and complete. We will make corrections to your personal information when notified by our members and we ask you to correct and update your information as outlined above.

Subject to restrictions and exceptions under applicable privacy law, upon request we will provide you with access to your personal information as well as information about the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information and a listing of the individuals or organizations to which your information has been disclosed. Such requests should include sufficient information to allow us to locate the records that you are seeking. Reasonable fees may apply to access requests, where permitted under Applicable Privacy Laws. We will generally respond to access requests within 30 days, except where a longer period of reply or an extension is permitted under applicable privacy law. If access is denied, we will provide you with a written explanation in accordance with applicable privacy law.

We give you an opportunity to let us know your preference in terms of receiving promotional e-mail mail or telephone calls, including information on Parchment’s various Services, when you register for a service, provide us with your personal information, or when we send you e-mails. Parchment complies with applicable law with respect to such communications. If you choose not to accept this communication, you may not receive special offers that may be of value. This option applies to promotional communications only, as we may find it necessary to send you e-mail relating to the Services you have purchased, your account or your orders. You can opt-out of receiving these types of communications or access your personal information by clicking on an unsubscribe link at the bottom of each message or by contacting us at privacy@parchment.com. You may continue to receive service-related and other non-marketing messages.

If you have opted in to receive communication offered from third parties through Parchment, please contact each such party for information about their available opt-out procedures. We are unable to opt you out of third-party marketing programs.

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you Services. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Personal information that is subject to an access request will be retained even if access is denied in accordance with applicable privacy laws until the requestor has exhausted all recourses and/or appeal mechanisms under such laws. Where personal information is no longer needed and the requests identified above have been complied with, the personal information will be securely destroyed or permanently anonymized or de-identified.

Where we are required by law to collect your personal information, or where we need your personal information in order to provide the Services to you, if you do not provide this information when requested (or you later ask to delete it), we may not be able to provide you with the Services and may need to close your account.  We will tell you what information you must provide to receive the Services by designating it as required in the Services or through other appropriate means.

5. Security

We use industry-standard technology designed to protect your information and all transmissions made through our Services, and take reasonable measures to protect the confidentiality, security and integrity of personally identifiable information collected on our Services. Below are some of the highlights. However, no security safeguards are 100% secure and we cannot guarantee the security of your information.

The personal or institution identifiable information that you provide us is stored in secured facilities with restricted access and protected by protocols and procedures designed to ensure the security of such information. In addition, all individuals who have access to such information are trained in the maintenance and security of such information, and we limit access of such information by our employees to the minimum information reasonably required in order to provide prompt, high quality Services. The departments with access to personal information are the sales department, product department, customer support department, and information security department.

When you enter sensitive information, such as your social security/insurance number, on our forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it.  No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however.  Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our website, you can Contact Us.

Parchment does not collect credit card information through our website. No credit card information is sent electronically by email. Credit card transactions made through Parchment’s websites are processed by secure payment gateway(s), with all credit card details retained by the payment gateways. Parchment currently uses the following payment gateways; the privacy policy of each processor is available by clicking below.

Authorize.net

Chase

First Data

If you create an account, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account password and for activity that occurs under your account credentials.  Please email us at privacy@parchment.com if there are any unauthorized uses of your account or other breaches of security.

Privacy or Security Breach

A “breach of security safeguards” is defined as the loss of, unauthorized access to or unauthorized disclosure of personal information resulting from a breach of an organization’s security safeguards or from a failure to establish those safeguards.

In case of a breach of security safeguards involving personal information under our control, we will notify the affected individual, associated member and the applicable privacy commission, as appropriate and where required by law, if it is reasonable in the circumstances to believe that the breach creates a real risk of significant harm to the individual, including physical, financial or reputational harm. We will also notify any other organization or government institution that can reduce the risk or mitigate the harm from the breach. We will keep a record of any breach of security safeguards in accordance with our obligations under applicable privacy law.

6. Third Party Services

Our Site includes links to other websites and services whose privacy practices may differ from those of Parchment. These links are not an endorsement, authorization, or representation that we are affiliated with that third party. We do not exercise control over third party websites or services and are not responsible for their actions. When you follow a link to a third-party website, you are no longer protected by our Privacy Policy. If you submit personal information to any of those sites, your information is governed by their privacy policies. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policy of any site you visit.

Some of our partners may utilize framing techniques to serve content to and from webpages accessible through our Site while preserving the look and feel of our site. Please be aware that you are providing your personal information to these third parties and not to Parchment.

If you opt in to provide information to a third party whose services may be introduced by Parchment (e.g., through a site that is not owned or controlled by Parchment), please be aware that such collection of information is governed by the privacy statement of such third party.

7. Blog

Our Site offers publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. To request removal of your personal information from our blog or community forum, please contact us at privacy@parchment.com. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

8. Testimonials

We may display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our site in addition to other endorsements. With your consent we may post your testimonial along with your name.  If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, please contact us at privacy@parchment.com.

9. Social Media Widgets

Our Site includes social media features, such as the Facebook Like button and widgets, such as the ShareThis button or interactive mini-programs that run on our Site. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Site. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing such feature.

10. Single Sign-On

You can log in to our Site using sign-in services such as Facebook Connect or an Open ID provider. These services will authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain personal information with us, such as your name and email address, to pre-populate our sign-up form. Services like Facebook Connect give you the option to post information about your activities on this Site to your profile page to share with others within your network. If you connect to such services through our Site you authorize us to access, use and store the information that you agreed the services could provide to us based on your settings on that service. We will access, use and store that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You can revoke our access to the information you provide in this way at any time by amending the appropriate settings from within your account settings on the applicable service.

11. Children’s privacy

Our Site is a general audience website and no portion of the Site is directed to children under the age of 13. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we know is a child under the age of 13.

Should we be alerted that we have inadvertently collected personally identifiable information from a child under the age of 13, we will take steps to immediately delete it.

We further do not knowingly permit children under the age of 18 to become registered members of our Site, or to use our Services without parental consent. Parchment does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information about children under 18, except with their parent’s consent.

If you are a resident of California and under the age of 18, you may remove any content that you have posted to our Site. In the event you cannot remove the content, you may request for Parchment to remove the content by contacting privacy @parchment.com. Please note that the removal of content or information from our Site does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information posted on our Site.

12. Modifications

At Parchment, protecting your privacy is important to us. By accessing and using our Site, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of information by Parchment as described in this Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to modify the Privacy Policy at any time. The “Last Updated” legend above indicates when this Privacy Policy was last modified. The revised Privacy Policy will become effective as of the date it is posted on the Parchment Site. We recommend that you to periodically review the Privacy Policy to ensure familiarity with the most current version. We may also notify you by email in the event of such material change. If you have any questions concerning this policy, please email us at privacy@parchment.com.

In all cases, your continued use of the Services after the posting of any modified Privacy Policy indicates your acceptance of the terms of the modified Privacy Policy.

13. Contact Us

We have a privacy officer to verse compliance with this Privacy Policy and how we handle personal information. If you have any questions or concerns at all about our Privacy Policy or to contact our privacy officer, please feel free to email us at privacy@parchment.com or write to us at:

Parchment LLC

7001 N. Scottsdale Road, Suite 1050

Scottsdale, AZ 85253

Attn: General Counsel

If any concerns are not resolved to your satisfaction, you may contact the applicable privacy commissioner/regulator.

CCPA PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

Effective Date: January 1, 2020

Last Reviewed: May 26, 2021

This Privacy Notice for California Residents supplements the information contained in the Privacy Policy of Parchment LLC (“Parchment”) and applies solely to all visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this notice. Capitalized terms not otherwise defined in this Privacy Notice shall have the definitions set forth in the Privacy Policy. This Privacy Notice for California Residents supplements the Privacy Policy as indicated above and does not replace or otherwise modify the Parchment Privacy Policy.

Parchment does not knowingly collect personal information from California consumers under the age of 16.

1) Information We Collect. 

From Consumers Directly. Our Services (as defined in the Privacy Policy) may collect information directly from consumers, which 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”). This personal information may be collected directly from you on the Site (as defined in the Privacy Policy) or through the Services, or indirectly from you, for example by observing your actions in the Services or on the Site.

From Covered Businesses. Our Services may also collect such personal information about consumers indirectly from Members, such as an educational institution, district, school, or other type of organization that may be a covered business under the CCPA. In such event, Parchment is deemed an exempt third party as defined under the CCPA, that processes personal information on behalf of such covered business for business purposes of electronic ordering, fulfillment, and delivery of academic credentials and data. Such processing activities are governed by the contract between Parchment and such covered business and the Privacy Policy of such covered business. This Privacy Notice for California Residents shall not apply to personal information collected from covered businesses as set forth in this paragraph. Please see the privacy policy and notices from such covered business.

The Parchment Services have collected the following categories of personal information from its consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

‌Personal information does not include:

1. 1. Publicly available information from government records.
   2. De-identified or aggregated consumer information.
   3. Information excluded from the scope of the CCPA.

2) Use of Personal Information; Business Purpose. We may use, or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the purposes set forth above, which includes without limitation, to fulfill or meet the reason you provided the personal information to Parchment, contact you; to analyze the use of our Services; to market our Services to you; for security; for legal compliance; and with your consent.

Parchment 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 by updating this Privacy Notice or otherwise.

Parchment discloses your personal information for a business purpose to the following categories of third parties:  

• • • to facilitate the provision of Services and fulfillment of orders that you may request, to create transactions that allow issuing institutions to process your requests for Services, and any related transactions;
    • to further operate and improve our Services; 
    • to personalize your account with Parchment; 
    • to maintain and customize the Services; 
    • to develop new products and services; 
    • to allow communication between Parchment and its affiliates and service providers and you; 
    • to send administrative or service related emails and marketing emails about upcoming products or services, which you may opt out of receiving; 
    • to provide support and maintenance for the Site and our Services; 
    • to respond to your service-related requests, questions, and feedback; 
    • as we believe necessary or appropriate (a) to comply with applicable laws; (b) to comply with lawful requests and legal process, including to respond to requests from public and government authorities; (c) to enforce our Privacy Policy and contract with you; (d) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property and that of you or others; and (e) to protect, investigate, and deter against fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity; 
    • as described to you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA; or 
    • to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets.

Parchment may sell, transfer, or otherwise share your personal information to an acquirer, assignee, or other successor entity in connection with the transfer or sale of all or substantially all of the equity, business, or assets of Parchment to which your personal information relates or in connection with a sale, merger, bankruptcy, reorganization, change in control or similar transaction. Following such business transfer, this Privacy Notice and the Privacy Policy may be assumed by the acquirer, assignee, or other successor entity and/or modified or replaced, subject to the modification terms of the Privacy Policy and applicable law, and the acquirer, assignee, or other successor entity will be responsible for compliance under this Privacy Notice.

Parchment 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 by updating this Privacy Notice or otherwise.

3) Sharing Personal Information; Categories of Third Parties. 

Parchment may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose as outlined in this Privacy Notice and our Privacy Policy, including Designated Institutions or Third Parties; Service Providers; Professional Advisors; Academic Research; Protection of Rights; Business Transfer; social media services pursuant to your integration and settings; and with your consent.

The information we have disclosed in the preceding 12 months to the above entities includes the following categories of information from Section 1 above:

Category A: Identifiers.

Category B: California Customer Records personal information categories.

Category C: Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.

Category D: Commercial information.

Category J: Non-public education information.

See “How do we share your information?” for more details.

4) Your Rights and Choices. The CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights.

You have the right to request that Parchment disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:

• • The categories of personal information we collected about you.
  • The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
  • Our business purpose for collecting your personal information.
  • The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
  • The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).

A verifiable consumer request is a request that originates from the Parchment registered account containing the personal information in question. Otherwise, Parchment will verify your request using information you have previously provided to Parchment, which may include your email address.

Deletion Request Rights.

You have the right to request that Parchment delete your personal information that we have collected from you and retained on your behalf, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is permitted under one or more statutory exceptions under the CCPA.

Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights.

To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by visiting www.parchment.com and accessing your account. You can also call us at (844) 515-2272 to obtain the information necessary to access your account.

Only you, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

The verifiable consumer request must:

• • Provide your parchment.com account credentials to allow us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
  • 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.

Response Timing and Format

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time, we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.

If you have an account, we will deliver our written response to the email address associated with your account. If you do not have an account, we will deliver our written response to the email address associated with your verified consumer request.

Any disclosures we provide will cover at least the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt.

Personal Information Sales Opt-Out and Opt-In Rights

If you are 16 years of age or older, you have the right to direct us to not sell your personal information at any time (the “right to opt-out”).

Non-Discrimination.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

Other California Privacy Rights.

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. Parchment does not disclose personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. For more information, please send an email to privacy@parchment.com.

5) Changes to Our Privacy Notice. 

Parchment reserves the right to amend this privacy notice at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this privacy notice, we will post the updated notice on the Website and update the notice’s effective date. Your continued use of our Site and/or the Parchment Services following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.

6) Contact Information. 

If you have any questions or comments about this notice, the ways in which Parchment collects and uses your information described below and in the Privacy Policy, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under California law, please do not hesitate to contact us at:

Phone: (844) 515-2272
Website: www.parchment.com
Email: privacy@parchment.com

INTERNATIONAL TERMS FOR RESIDENTS IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA (“EEA”), UNITED KINGDOM (“UK”) OR SWITZERLAND

Parchment may receive personal information from individuals that visit or Site and that we receive in the United States from the EEA, UK, or Switzerland (referred to herein as “EEA, UK, or Swiss personal information.” Our Privacy Policy governs Parchment’s collection and use of such EEA, UK, or Swiss personal information and is supplemented by these international terms. These international terms supplement and do not replace or modify the Parchment Privacy Policy.

Parchment is based in and operates in the United States.  As a result, we and our service providers will process personal information in the United States and in other locations outside of the European Economic Area, where there may be different data protection standards than in the EEA.  By using the Services, you acknowledge that personal information will be processed in outside of the EEA.

EU-U.S. Privacy Shield

Parchment complies or will comply with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce for data transferred under such Framework, and subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the EU and the United Kingdom to the United States, upon our self-certification approval and certification to the Department of Commerce that we adhere to the Privacy Shield Principles. If there is any conflict between the terms in this Privacy Policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern.  To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, the Privacy Shield Principles, please visit www.privacyshield.gov.

We recognize that the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in July 2020 that a certification under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework no longer can serve as the basis by which entities subject to the GDPR export Personal Data to the United States.  We will continue to honor our obligation to comply with the Privacy Shield Principles with respect to data that was transferred pursuant to the Privacy Shield Framework.

As described in the Privacy Shield Principles, Parchment is accountable for personal information that it receives and subsequently transfers to third parties. If third parties that process personal information on our behalf as an authorized agent of Parchment, do so in a manner that does not comply with this Privacy Policy, we are accountable, unless we prove that we are not responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.

In compliance with the Privacy Shield Principles, Parchment commits to resolve complaints about our collection or use of your personal information.  EU individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding this Policy should first contact us at: privacy@parchment.com.

Parchment commits to cooperate with the panel established by the EU data protection authorities (DPAs) and comply with the advice given by the panel with regard to personal information transferred from the EU. Please contact us to be directed to the relevant DPA contacts. Under certain conditions, more fully described on the Privacy Shield website, you may invoke binding arbitration when other dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted.