Legal & Privacy

VGRTI Privacy & Data Security Practices

Federal law requires us to tell you how we collect, share, and protect your non-public personal information … it’s also just common courtesy in our opinion. We’ve created this guide to help you understand what data we actually collect, why, and what we do with it. We’ll also mail you a hard copy of these policies for your records upon request. If you still have questions after reviewing this guide, we’ve provided the names and contact information to our President & CEO, Vice President of Product & Technology, and General Counsel.

Privacy Policy

Important Definitions

Nonpublic Information – NYCRR Part 500 2nd Amended defines “Nonpublic Information” as:

(1) business related information of a covered entity the tampering with which, or unauthorized disclosure, access or use of which, would cause a material adverse impace to the business, operations or security of the covered entity;

(2) any information concerning an individual which because of name, number, personal mark, or other identifier can be used to identify such individual, in combination with any one or more of the following data elements:

  • social security number;
  • drivers’ license number or non-driver identification card number;
  • account number, credit or debit card number;
  • any security code, access code or password that would permit access to an individual’s financial account; or
  • biometric records;

(3) any information or data, except age or gender, in any form or medium created by or derived from a health care provider or an individual and that relates to:

  • the past, present or future physical, mental or behavioral health or condition of any individual or a member of the individual’s family;
  • the provision of health care to any individual; or
  • payment for the provision of health care to any individual

Publicly available information- any information that a covered entity has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public from: Federal, State or local government records; widely distributed media; or disclosures to the general public that are required to be made by Federal, State or local law. A covered entity has a reasonable basis to believe that information is lawfully made available to the general public if the covered entity has taken steps to determine:

(1) that the information is of the type that is available to the general public; and

(2) whether an individual can direct that the information not be made available to the general public and, if so, that such individual has not done so.

 

Affiliates – companies related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and non-financial companies.

Non-affiliates – companies not related by common ownership or control. They can be financial and non-financial companies.

Joint marketing – a formal agreement between non-affiliated companies that together market products or services to you.

Settlement – the process of settling a transfer of ownership to real estate between parties. This may include loan origination and processing, negotiating the sale and purchase of real estate and recording the legal documents, such as a deed, which reflect the new ownership with the local County Clerk’s Office.

Information Vanguard Collects

The types of nonpublic personal information Vanguard collects and processes depends on the product or service you request from Vanguard or from affiliated or non-affiliated third parties who may request products and services on your behalf. This information can include but may not be limited to any of the following:

  • Contact information (such as name, phone number, address, e-mail address);
  • Social security number or taxpayer identification number;
  • Driver’s license number or other government identification number (or a full copy);
  • Bank and routing information from checks or electronic payment methods;
  • Loan information contained on a loan or other real estate disclosure form provided by a settlement agent (such as an attorney) in a real estate transaction.

Vanguard may collect non-public personal information about you in person, over the phone, through facsimile (fax) transmission or other electronic communication, such as e-mail or through Vanguard’s website or other portal, and on applications or other forms submitted to Vanguard.

Vanguard may also collect or receive personal information about you from others involved in your transaction such as the real estate agent, attorney or lender and through standard real estate settlement forms, such as state tax forms.

Vanguard may also collect or receive personal information about you from affiliates or non-affiliated service providers, consumer reporting agencies and regulators in connection with or in relation to products or services Vanguard provides to you, law enforcement action and regulatory reporting and investigation.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Post Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Website Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

How Your Information is Used

Vanguard uses both public and nonpublic personal information during the course of routine business in order to provide products and services.

Do We Share Your Information?

Vanguard does not share non-public personal information about you to any affiliate or non-affiliated third party that is not expressly permitted by law. Even where sharing such information is permitted under the law, you may be able to opt out of such sharing by providing written notice to Vanguard. Reasons why and with whom Vanguard might share your personal information are as follows:

Internally:

To enable Vanguard’s personnel to perform everyday business purposes, including but not limited to processing orders, maintaining accounts, preparing for and responding to court orders and legal investigations and routine audits

Externally:

To third party contractors or service providers from whom Vanguard obtains a product or service on your behalf related to the settlement process To law enforcement or other governmental authority in connection with investigation, or civil or criminal matters or to respond to subpoenas or court orders For reasons of communicating with financial service providers engaged in banking, consumer finance, securities and insurance Communicating with parties involved in a specific loan transaction or real estate closing such as an attorney or the bank/lender Communicating with non-financial companies such as direct mail companies and other fulfillment service providers For marketing purposes in order to offer Vanguard’s product(s) and service(s) to you For Vanguard’s affiliates to market to you For non-affiliates to market to you For Vanguard’s affiliates’ or non-affiliate third party providers’ everyday business purposes, information about your order(s) To enforce this privacy notice

How Do We Store Your Data & How Long?

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

How does Vanguard protect your information? Any non-public personal information which Vanguard may have to collect and process for reasons of routine business are protected by physical, electronic and procedural safeguards intended to make best efforts to comply with federal law. Vanguard limits access to non-public personal information only to those personnel who have a reasonable need to access such information for purposes of providing products and services to you. Vanguard also limits the non-public personal information provided to third party service providers or contractors to only that information necessary to provide a product or service on your behalf.

Ways in which Vanguard may protect your non-public information include but are not limited to the following:

Training our employees on privacy and data security best practices Directing the flow of documents between personnel and between Vanguard’s offices Using document envelopes and bags to transport legal documents Keeping paper files for storage which may contain NPPI in locking cabinets or behind locked doors Protecting files and attachments sent via E-mail Only communicating with persons and entities Vanguard knows and trusts in the settlement process as legitimate service providers Protecting external hard drives which may be used to store digital NPPI Utilizing network security access controls Using strong passwords, user authentication steps and other security measures to limit access to NPPI stored on computers or in Vanguard’s database Properly disposing paper copies with NPPI by shredding

What Rights You Have Over Your Data

Can you limit our sharing? Yes, federal law gives you the right to limit Vanguard’s sharing in certain cases. You can limit Vanguard’s sharing of your personal information to affiliates and non-affiliated third party service providers for reason of marketing products and services to you. Vanguard does not make a practice of providing or selling non-public personal information such as name lists to any non-affiliated third party for their own direct marketing use but may in future make joint marketing

arrangements with an affiliate or non-affiliate in order to promote future products and services. You cannot limit Vanguard’s sharing of personal information with Vanguard’s affiliates or non-affiliated third parties in cases wherein the information is necessary to provide our products or services to you or on behalf of a third party with whom you are engaged as a customer such as your lender. In such cases Vanguard may also be obligated to abide by the privacy practices of the financial institution with whom you are a customer which may also additionally limit our use of your personal information. In certain cases Vanguard may contact you in order to obtain your permission to share information with non-interested parties to your loan and settlement transaction, such as your real estate agent.

Reasons why Vanguard may share some personal information in the normal course of business, as allowed by law, may include but are not limited to, verifying your identity for reason of complying with state or federallymandated forms, for reason of insurance underwriting contractual requirements or ensuring proper delivery of specific products or services.

To limit Vanguard’s sharing:

Call Vanguard’s Corporate Office at (315) 422-6031 Visit Vanguard Online at www.vgrti.com Mail in the form provided below

Please note: If you are a new customer, Vanguard can begin sharing your information 30 days from the date you received this notice. When you are no longer our customer, Vanguard can continue to share your information as described in this notice, however, you can contact us at any time to limit our sharing.

Additional Questions?

For Questions or Complaints Contact:

Patrick J. Corbett, President & CEO, 407 South Warren Street, Syracuse, New York 13126; (315) 422-6031 x 004.

Stephen Champlin, VP Brand, Product & Technology, 407 South Warren Street, Syracuse, New York 13126; (315) 422-6031.

Legal Terms

Payment Terms & Expectations for Individuals

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Payment Terms & Expectations for Attorneys & Settlement Agents

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Terms Related to Independent Vendors & Contractors

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Corporate Office

407 South Warren Street, Syracuse, NY, 13202

Phone

Toll Free: +1 (800) 294-3740

Local: (315) 422-6031

Email

info@vgrtsvcs.com

Policy Issuing Agent For

Fidelity National Title Insurance Company

Chicago Title Insurance Company

Old Republic National Title Insurance Company

Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company

WFG National Title Insurance Company

Follow Us

Privacy Policy

Aaron M. Thorpe Memorial

TLA@ 1361055 – Licensed Title Insurance Agent with the New York State Department of Financial Services.

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