The only personal information FAFSA USA obtains about individual visitors to our website is information supplied voluntarily by the visitor. Our website's personal profile questionnaire requires users to volunteer contact information (name and address for example) and financial information. We NEVER ask if we may make information about you available to any select list of marketing sources. We work with reputable, organizations that provide products and services that are useful and of interest to students and parents. When FAFSA USA shares your personal information with The Department of Education under any circumstance described in this Privacy Policy, your personal information will become permanently subject to the information use and sharing practices of the Department of Education, and the Department of Education will not be restricted by this Privacy Policy with respect to its use and further sharing of your personal information. If you agree to receive communications from FAFSA USA and later change your mind, you may have to deal with the Department of Education directly. Any updates you wish to make to the information we possess must also be given directly to the Department of Education at that point in time. We reserve the right to disclose your personally-identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our website.

It is the responsibility of the user to make all necessary changes in their profile to ensure the information they have provided while completing their profile remains current. Users may make changes to the information in their personal profile at any time by logging in at FAFSAUSA.COM and entering the email address and password they submitted when creating their profile. After users have logged in, they will be taken to the "Members' Area". On that page is a text link to "My Profile". Click on that link and you will be taken to a summary of your information. To protect the security and integrity of your information, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before providing access.

Users of FAFSAUSA.com who wish to terminate their profile at FAFSAUSA.com may do so at any time by contacting FAFSAUSA, LLC. Please be sure to type "Remove" in the subject field and submit the email account associated with your profile.
FAFSA USA is committed to safeguarding users' privacy on our website. We require our employees to protect the privacy of information about our users and visitors and expect the Department of Education to do the same. You can feel confident that your individually-identifiable information will be protected when you visit FAFSAUSA.com. We have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control.


Information Sharing & Email Preferences

FAFSA USA understands the importance of protecting personally-identifiable information. We will not share, sell, rent or otherwise transfer this information without the user's permission, and then only in accordance with the terms set forth in this Privacy Policy. Our website provides users the opportunity to unsubscribe (opt-out) from receiving email messages from FAFSAUSA.com. Users may change their email preferences in the "My Profile" section. Users may also opt-out by contacting us. Please allow up to seven business days for these changes to take effect.

We may communicate with our users through email to respond to visitor's email, to send information that a user has requested, or to inform users of new financial aid opportunities or additional education financing information which may be of interest. In the event a user contacts FAFSAUSA.com via email, they will not be subject to receive any communication other than a response to the email, unless specifically requested by the user (i.e. the user will not be defaulted into receiving any secondary/promotional material).


Collection of Passive Information

To gauge the effectiveness of our website, we do collect some non-individually-identifiable generic information about our visitors. Our web servers automatically recognize a visitor's IP address, the web page from which a visitor enters our website, which pages a visitor visits, and how much time a visitor spends on each page. This information does not reveal a visitor's identity. We aggregate this information and use it to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our website, or to evaluate and improve our website. We use cookies to tell our server that a visitor has initiated a user session; however, they do not contain any personally identifiable information. Some of our business partners (e.g., advertisers) use cookies on our site. We have no access to, nor control over, these cookies. This privacy statement covers the use of cookies FAFSAUSA.com only and does not cover the use of cookies by our business partners.

We may share statistical and demographic information about our website's visitors with our marketing partners. This information is only provided in the aggregate, meaning that the information is about our website's visitors as a group and not individually identifiable visitors.


Security Practices

We follow generally-accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially-acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can contact our privacy department.


Links to Other Websites

FAFSAUSA.com contains text and banner links to other websites. FAFSAUSA.com is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of the aforementioned websites.


Collection of Information from Children

In April 2000, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) became a law that regulates the gathering of personal data online from children under the age of 13. FAFSA USA abides by COPPA, and works diligently to ensure compliance with the law. As such, FAFSAUSA will not knowingly collect any personally-identifiable information from, or allow the registration of, children under the age of 13.


Notification of Changes

If we are going to use your personally identifiable information in a manner materially different from that stated at the time of collection, we will notify you via email. You will have a choice as to whether we may use your information in this materially different manner. In addition, if we make any material changes in our privacy practices that do not affect user information already stored in our database, we will post a prominent notice on our web site notifying users of the change. In some cases where we post the notice, we will also email users, who have opted to receive communications from us, notifying them of the changes in our privacy practices.


Testimonials

We may post user testimonials on our web site, all of which are volunteered and none of which contain personally identifiable information beyond said user's first name and last initial. Each user is made aware of the purpose of their supplied testimonial and the fact that it will be published at FAFSAUSA.com. The user volunteers this information and is made aware that they are under no obligation to participate. We obtain the user's consent prior to posting this information along with, in most cases, their photograph.


TRUSTe Privacy Program

This privacy statement covers www. FAFSAUSA.com. The above TRUSTe trustmark confirms that FAFSA USA is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. Because FAFSA USA wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.

By displaying the TRUSTe trustmark, FAFSA USA has agreed to notify you of:

What personally-identifiable information of yours or third party personally identifiable information is collected from you through the web site The organization collecting the information How the information is used With whom the information may be shared What choices are available to you regarding collection, use and distribution of the information The kind of security procedures that are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under control of Scholarships.com How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information

FAFSA USA has adopted privacy principles that state our commitment and define our policy on safeguarding visitor and user privacy when we conduct our business. Questions regarding this privacy policy statement, the practices of this website, or your dealings with FAFSA USA should be directed to FAFSA USA’s privacy department. Alternatively, you may contact us at:

Privacy at FAFSAUSA.com
FAFSA USA
9070 Irvine Center Drive, Suite 125
Irvine, CA 92618