Privacy Notice for California Residents
This Privacy Notice for California Residents supplements the information contained in Varnum LLP’s Privacy Statement and applies solely to all visitors, users, clients and other persons who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). This Privacy Notice describes how Varnum collects, uses and shares personally identifiable information including non-public personal information we obtain regarding consumers when they use Varnum’s website, www.varnumlaw.com (our “Website”), receive our services, inquire about or pursue employment opportunities with Varnum, and sign up for our services or events. 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.
Information We Collect
We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer, household or device (“personal information“). Personal information does not include:
- Publicly available information from government records.
- Deidentified or aggregated consumer information.
- Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, like:
- health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data;
- personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.
In particular, we have collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:
Category | Examples | Collected |
|---|---|---|
A. Identifiers. | A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, passport number or other similar identifiers. | YES |
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)). | A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number or any other financial information, medical information or health insurance information.
Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories. | YES |
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law. | Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information). | YES |
D. Commercial information. | Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies. | YES |
E. Biometric information. | Genetic, physiological, behavioral and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as fingerprints, faceprints and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data. | YES |
F. Internet or other similar network activity. | Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application or advertisement. | YES |
G. Geolocation data. | Physical location or movements. | NO |
H. Sensory data. | Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory or similar information. | NO |
I. Professional or employment-related information. | Current or past job history or performance evaluations. | YES |
J. Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)). | Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information or student disciplinary records. | YES |
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information. | Profile reflecting a person’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities and aptitudes. | NO |
We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:
- Directly from you. For example, from any information you provide us in connection with our legal services (or potential legal services).
- Indirectly from you. We automatically collect personal information when you access or use our website.
- From other sources. We may collect personal information from other sources, such as service providers, vendors, social media sites and advertising agencies.
Use of Personal Information
We may use, or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following purposes:
- To operate and improve our website;
- To respond to your questions, comments and requests;
- To provide the information or legal services you request and send you related information;
- To send you advisories, alerts and updates;
- To communicate with you about our legal services, programming and events, and other information we think will be of interest to you;
- To assess job applicants and make hiring decisions;
- To monitor and analyze usage, trends and activities related to our website;
- To notify you about any changes to our website.
- To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the information. For example, if you share personal information when you apply for a position at Varnum, we will use that personal information to complete the application process and follow up with you regarding the status of your application or scheduling an interview. We may also save your information for these purposes.
- To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
- To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order or governmental regulations.
- In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.
Sharing Personal Information
We may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. When we disclose personal information for a business purpose, we enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that personal information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract. We may share your personal information:
- With service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business as needed for them to provide us with services that help us with our business activities and promote our legal services to you;
- With Software/IT service providers we use to support our business and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep personal information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them;
- When we believe sharing is necessary to protect our rights, preserve safety, investigate fraud or other wrongdoing;
- When required by law, which includes complying with any court order, law or legal process, including responding to a government or regulatory request;
- In connection with the sale, transfer or financing of Varnum’s business or its assets;
- To enforce or apply our agreements, including for billing or collection purposes; and
- For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
Sales of Personal Information
In the preceding twelve (12) months, Varnum has not sold any personal information and has not sold the personal information of minors under the age of 16.
Your Rights and Choices
The CCPA provides 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 we 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 or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that 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).
- If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
- Sales, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and
- Disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.
Deletion Request Rights
You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete and direct our service providers to delete your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) 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, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, 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.
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 either:
- 866/482-7676 or
- [email protected]
Only you, or someone legally authorized 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. To designate an authorized agent, please contact us at the information above.
You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:
- Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative; and
- 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.
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 (up to 45 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. We will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.
Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance (e.g. csv, xml, pdf, etc.).
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.
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 website that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please email [email protected].
Changes to Our Privacy Notice
We reserve 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 website following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.
Contact Information
If you have any questions or comments about this notice, the ways in which Varnum collects and uses your information described here and in Varnum’s Privacy Statement, 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: 866/482-7686
Email: [email protected]
Postal Address:
Varnum LLP
Attn: John Rolecki
333 Bridge St NW
P.O. Box 352
Grand Rapids, MI
49501-0352