Security StatementPrivacy Principles for IndividualsProtecting your privacy is important to our Bank and our employees. We want you to understand what information we collect and how we use it. In order to provide our customers with a broad range of financial products and services as effectively and conveniently as possible, we use technology to manage and maintain customer information. The following policy serves as a standard for all employees for collection, use, retention and security of nonpublic personal information. “We”, “our,” “us,” or similar expressions when used in this notice, mean Farmers & Merchants State Bank. This is our privacy notice for our customers. When we use the words “you” and “your” we mean the following types of customers: Our consumer customers who have a continuing relationship by purchasing or holding financial products or services such as a(n):
We will tell you the sources of the information we collect about you. We will tell you what measures we take to secure that information. We first define some terms. Nonpublic personal information means information about you that we collect in connection with providing a financial product or service to you. Nonpublic personal information does not include information that is available from public sources, such as telephone directories or government records. Hereafter, we will use the term “information” to mean nonpublic personal information as defined in this section. An affiliate is a company we own or control, a company that owns or controls us, or a company that is owned or controlled by the same company that owns or controls us. Ownership does not mean complete ownership, but means owning enough to have control. A nonaffiliated third party is a person we do not employ or a company that is not an affiliate of ours. This is also known as nonaffiliated third party, or simply, an “other party.” The Information We CollectWe collect information about you from the following sources:
Information We Disclose About YouWe do NOT disclose any information about you to anyone, except as permitted by law. Examples of this might include disclosures necessary to service your account or prevent unauthorized transactions. The Confidentiality, Security, and Integrity of Your InformationWe restrict access to information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect this information. Information About Former CustomersWe do not disclose information about former customers, except as permitted by law. Maintaining accurate informationWe continually strive to maintain complete and accurate information about you and your accounts. If you ever believe that our records contain inaccurate or incomplete information about you, please let us know immediately. We’ll correct any inaccuracies as quickly as possible. Consumer reporting agenciesIf you believe we have reported inaccurate information about your account to any consumer reporting agency, please let us know in writing. Be sure to include your complete name, current address, social security number, telephone number, account number, type of account, specific item of dispute and the reason you believe the information is wrong. We’ll investigate your concern and correct any inaccuracies we find. We’ll confirm any actions we take with you. Internet PrivacyBrowsing Our SiteWhen you visit our website to view any pages, read product information, or use our online calculators and tools, you do so without telling us who you are and without revealing any personal information. While we do not collect identifying information about visitors to our site, we do use standard software to collect information for the strict purpose of tracking activity on our site. This allows us to better understand how many people use our site and which pages and features are most popular. To evaluate the usefulness of our site, we may gather and analyze data regarding usage such as:
How We Handle EmailWhen you send us an email to comment on something or to ask a question, we will use your email address to reply to you and for a limited time we will store your email address, your message and our response for quality assurance. We may also do this to meet legal and regulatory requirements. If we collect your email address in this manner, we won’t use it to let you know about our products and services unless you have given us permission. This information is not given or sold to any other organization. Email SecurityRegular non-encrypted Internet email is not secure. In the instances where our Internet email addresses are provided, these are provided for information inquiries of a non-sensitive and non-confidential nature. Email you send us may not be secure unless we advise you that it is secure prior to transmitting your message. Therefore, we recommend that you DO NOT send us confidential information such as social security or account numbers via unsecured email. You may also contact us by phone, U.S. mail, or by visiting us in person. Online Banking SecurityWhen you bank online with us, we, along with the third-party vendors we work with to bring these services to you, have access to your information. Information is retained on our system or the system of the appropriate outside company, depending on what is required in order to serve you. We use state-of-the-art Internet technology, supported by third party vendors we work with, to make online banking secure and to protect your personal information. We also require an ID, password, and One-Time Passcodes (OTPs) to access your accounts. If you do not provide this information, we cannot establish an online banking service for you. You can also help safeguard your personal information by taking a few simple precautions. Do not share your user ID or password, or OTPs with anyone, change your password regularly, and remember to log off when finished. Never disclose confidential information to unknown callers. When banking on the internet, be sure to use a secure browser and current virus detection software, and never open e-mail from unknown sources. We also recommend only using our online banking product on a private computer and never using public Wi-Fi. Protecting Your Privacy OnlineWhenever we ask for personal information on our web site, we use Secure Socket Layer (SSL technology) for transferring data. This technology encrypts – or scrambles – your account information so it’s virtually impossible to read by anyone other than employees at our Bank. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology secretly encodes information that is being sent over the Internet between your computer and our Bank, helping to ensure that the information remains confidential. The use of SSL requires that you have an SSL compatible browser. While older browser versions may support SSL sessions, we strongly recommend using the most recent updated web browser and make sure automatic updates are turned on (this will eliminate the need to manually change every year when a new browser is released.) Farmers & Merchants State Bank goes to great lengths to protect your information with internal structures such as a yearly Information Technology Audit and Pen Testing, vulnerability assessments, firewalls, secure email solutions, restricted end user security, and more. We are constantly reviewing our procedures and adapting new security features to protect our customers. When navigating websites, make sure the URL starts with HTTPS: and that there is a padlock icon in the address bar; these features indicates a secure site. Protecting Your ChildrenOur website is not targeted or marketed to children under the age of thirteen. We respect the privacy of your children, and we comply with the practices established under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. We do not knowingly collect or retain personally identifiable information from consumers under the age of thirteen. |
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