Updated: December 31, 2019
We at HomeLight Home Loans, Inc. d/b/a HomeLight Home Loans, HomeLight Mortgage, Inc and Accept.inc. ("HomeLight Home Loans", "HLHL", "we", "our", "us") know you care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we take your privacy seriously. Please read the following to learn more about our Privacy Policy.
By using or accessing the Services in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use, and share your information in the following ways.
Remember that your use of our Services is at all times subject to the
Terms of Use, which incorporates this Privacy Policy. Any terms we use in this Policy without defining them have the definitions given to them in the
Terms of Use.
What does this Privacy Policy cover?
This Privacy Policy covers our treatment of personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") that we gather when you are accessing or using our Services, but does not cover the practices of companies we don't own or control, or people that we don't manage. We gather various types of Personal Information from our users, as explained in more detail below, and we use this Personal Information internally in connection with our Services, including to personalize, provide, and improve our services, to allow you to set up a user account and profile, to contact you and allow other users to contact you, to fulfill your requests for certain products and services, and to analyze how you use the Services. In certain cases, we may also share some Personal Information with third parties, but only as described below.
As noted in the
Terms of Use, we do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are under 18, please do not attempt to register for the Services or send any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 18, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 18 may have provided us personal information, please contact us at:
HLHLprivacy@homelight.com844-882-3283100 California Street, Suite 800, San Francisco, CA 94111
Will HomeLight Home Loans ever change this Privacy Policy?
We're constantly trying to improve our Services, so we may need to change this Privacy Policy from time to time as well, but we will alert you to changes by placing a notice on
https://homelighthomeloans.com, by sending you an email, and/or by some other means. Please note that if you've opted not to receive legal notice emails from us (or you haven't provided us with your email address), those legal notices will still govern your use of the Services, and you are still responsible for reading and understanding them. If you use the Services after any changes to the Privacy Policy have been posted, that means you agree to all of the changes.
What Information does HomeLight Home Loans Collect?
Information We Collect
HLHL collects information that 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"). The categories of personal information that HomeLight Home Loans may collect include:
- Contact information (such as name, email address, mailing address, and phone number)
- Personal identifiers (such as Social Security Number (SSN), date of birth, employee identification number, Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), other DBA number(s), other government issued identification(s), account name, online identifier, and signature)
- Financial information (such as bank, credit or debit card number, account type, routing number, bank institution name, account balances, credit history, investment activity, income or source of funds, and payment/transaction history)
- Commercial information (such as primary business address, secondary business address, ownership information, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies, home purchase information, such as the address, type of home, and price range of the home you are interested in buying or selling, records of personal property)
- Professional or employment-related information (such as occupation, title, performance evaluations, and prior employment history)
- Demographic information (such as age, date of birth, gender, race, color, origin, citizenship, and ethnicity)
- Personal characteristics (such as marital status and familial information)
- Geolocation data (such as city/state, zip code, physical location or movements)
- Internet or other Electronic Network Activity information (such as log information, IP address, access times, operating system, browser type and language, Internet service provider, and website interactions and browsing history)
- Inferences drawn from the above categories of personal information reflecting your preferences, characteristics, behaviors, psychological trends, attitudes and abilities
We may combine the above categories of information with other information we collect about you in order to improve our Services. For example, we may combine the information you provide to us, such as the type of home and price range of the home you are interested in buying or selling with other information we have collected about you or from you.
In addition to the above categories, you may choose to provide us with additional pieces of information when you fill in a form, update or add information to your account, apply for a job, or interact with us in other ways.
How We Collect Personal Information
HomeLight collects information from a variety of sources. For example, we may collect information you provide directly to us, such as when you use the Services to compare the relevance of agents in your area of interest, request that we contact you to match you with an agent, provide feedback and rate your experiences using the Services, sign up for our mailing list, or when you call, email or otherwise communicate with us.
The following are the categories of sources from which we may collect your personal information:
- Directly from you and other consumers through your interactions with us, such as when you use our services or purchase our products
- Through our websites, when you send us an email or complete a form requesting personal information
- From government agencies or public records
- Through automated technologies and online browser tools, including the use of cookies
- From third party service providers or business partners
If you choose to submit any personal information relating to other people, you represent that you have the authority to do so and permit us to use the information in accordance with this Policy.
Use of Personal Information
We may use the personal information we collect for one or more of the following purposes:
- Perform our Services and Respond to Requests. We may use personal information to fulfill requests, process payments, and perform other services requested by you.
- Protection and Security. We may use personal information to protect the security and integrity of HLHL our users, and others.
- Administrative Communications. We may use personal information to send you important information regarding our services, such as changes to our terms, conditions, and policies and/or other administrative information.
- Marketing Communications. We may use personal information to show you promotions or content based on your interests. You may opt out from receiving marketing communications, as described in the "Your Rights" section.
- Research and Surveys. We may use personal information from you, our service providers, publicly available sources and other third parties to conduct research.
- Internal Business Purposes. We may use personal information collected from the categories mentioned for our internal business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, developing new offerings, and monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of our services or to evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of HLHL's assets in which personal information held by HLHL about our website users is among the assets transferred.
- Testimonials and Reviews. We may display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our site in addition to other endorsements. By submitting such information, you grant HLHL the right to post and publish such information at our sole discretion. With your consent we may post your testimonial along with your name.
- Legal and Regulatory. We may use personal information to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations, defend legal claims or cooperate with law enforcement.
Sharing Personal Information
HomeLight Home Loans may disclose your personal information as described above 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 the following entities:
- Affiliated Entities. We may share your personal information to our subsidiaries and corporate affiliates, including future subsidiaries and affiliates of HomeLight to use your information consistent with this Policy.
- Third Party Service Providers. We may share personal information with third party service providers who provide us with services, such as data analysis, online advertising, payment processing, order fulfillment, IT services, customer service, and other similar services. We grant our service providers access to personal information only to the extent needed for them to perform their functions, and require them to protect the confidentiality and security of such personal information. HomeLight Home Loans works with Heap to analyze the activities of visitors to our website, and our web application. Heap's authorized use of cookies and other tracking technologies enable it to have access to Personal Information of visitors to this website. Such access to and use of Personal Information by Heap is governed by Heap's Privacy Policy https://heap.io/privacy. personal information. HomeLight Home Loans works with Segment to analyze the activities of visitors to our website, and our web application. Segments's authorized use of cookies and other tracking technologies enable it to have access to Personal Information of visitors to this website. Such access to and use of Personal Information by Segment is governed by Segment's Privacy Policy https://segment.com/legal/privacy/.
- Information Shared in Connection with the Sale of a Loan. If you close a loan with HomeLight Home Loans, HomeLight Home Loans may sell your loan to a third-party financial institution, such as a bank. We will share your Personal Information with such third-party financial institutions only to the extent we deem necessary to sell your loan.
- Commercial Partners. We may share personal information with unaffiliated third parties who partner with us to deliver our services or on our commercial activities. Depending on the choices you have made and the nature of the joint activity, these third parties may contact you regarding products or services of interest. However, we do not sell personal information to unaffiliated third parties for their own marketing purposes.
- Business Transfers or Assignments. In the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or stock (including without limitation in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings), we may transfer any information that we collect from site users or offline to a third party.
- Law Enforcement; Emergencies; Compliance. We may disclose personal information about you to others as we believe to be appropriate: (i) under applicable law including laws outside your country of residence; (ii) to comply with legal process (iii) to respond to requests from public and government authorities including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (iv) to enforce our terms and conditions; (v) to protect our operations and property interest; (vi) to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of HomeLight Home Loans, our employees, users of our service, or others; and (vii) to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.
- At your direction. We may disclose your personal information as you otherwise consent to or request, such to real estate agents, lenders, and closing agents in connection with your mortgage transaction.
In the preceding twelve (12) months, HomeLight Home Loans has not sold any personal information for money. However, we may share your personal information with third parties and service providers for the purposes described in this Policy.
HomeLight Home Loans does not offer financial incentives for the use or sharing of personal information.
Is Personal Information about me secure?
Your account is protected by a password for your privacy and security. You must prevent unauthorized access to your account and Personal Information by selecting and protecting your password and/or other sign-on mechanism appropriately and limiting access to your computer or device and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account.
We endeavor to protect the privacy of your account and other Personal Information we hold in our records, but unfortunately, we cannot guarantee complete security. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information at any time.
Your Rights and Choices
Depending on your jurisdiction, applicable law may entitle you to certain rights and choices as it pertains to your personal information, including the right:
- To know the categories and/or specific pieces of personal information collected about you, including whether your personal information is sold or disclosed and the purpose, and with whom your personal information was shared;
- To request deletion of personal information;
- To access a copy of the personal information we retain about you;
- To opt-out of the sale of personal information; and
- To non-discrimination based on the exercise of a consumer's privacy rights.
In addition, 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.
Please note that a portion of the information collected and processed by HLHL may be out of scope for certain individual rights as it falls under exemptions for information collected under applicable state or federal laws.
Exercising Your Rights
In connection with promotions or other special projects, we may ask you specifically whether you have objections against a certain kind of data use or sharing. If you opt-out under such circumstances, we will respect your decision.
If personal information you have submitted to us is no longer accurate, current, or complete, and you wish to update it, please contact us and upon appropriate request we will usually be glad to update or amend your information, but we reserve the right to use information obtained previously to verify your identity or take other actions that we believe are appropriate.
To exercise any other rights as described in this Policy, please submit a request by contacting us using the contact information at the end of this Policy. We reserve the right to verify your identity in connection with any requests regarding personal information to help ensure that we provide the information we maintain to the individuals to whom it pertains, and allow only those individuals or their authorized representatives to exercise rights with respect to that information. If you are an authorized agent or parent/guardian making a request on behalf of an individual or your minor child, we may require and request additional information to verify that you are authorized to make that request.
We reserve the right to deny your request if we cannot verify your identity. Where we deny your request in whole or in part, we will inform you of the denial, provide an explanation of our actions, and the reason(s) for the denial.
We will not restrict or deny you access to our services because of choices and requests you make in connection with your personal information.
Security and Protection of Personal Information
The security of your personal information is important to us. Thus, HomeLight Home Loans has taken reasonable steps to help protect the personal information our users share with us in an effort to prevent loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction.
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. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. We urge you to exercise caution when transmitting personal information over the Internet. If you have questions about security on our website, you can contact us at
HLHLprivacy@homelight.com.
Links to Third Party Sites
Our website includes links to other websites whose privacy practices may differ from those of HomeLight Home Loans. 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 website you visit.
Our website also includes Social Media Features, such as the Facebook Like button, the Twitter Tweet button and other social sharing buttons 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 website. Your interactions with these Features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.
Children and Minors
HomeLight Home Loans does not direct services to individuals under the age of sixteen (16) and we do not sell the personal information of minors under 16 years of age. If you are under age 16, please do not submit personal information to us. If you are a parent and become aware that your child has provided us with information, please contact us using one of the methods specified below and we will work with you to address this issue.
Cookies / Website Usage
When you access our website, your personal information may be collected by cookies and other similar technologies. Technologies such as: cookies, beacons, tags and scripts are used by HomeLight Home Loans and our marketing partners and analytics or service providers. These technologies are used in analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users' movements around the site anonymously 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 aggregated basis. If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some features or areas of our site may be limited.
Additionally, when you use our website, some browsers have Do Not Track ("DNT") features that allow you to tell a website not to track you. HomeLight Home Loans honors the AdChoice DNT signals.
Behavioral Targeting
We partner with a third party to either display advertising on our web site or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our third-party partner may use technologies such as cookies to gather information about your activities on this site and other sites in order to provide you advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you interest-based ads, you may opt-out by clicking here. Please note this does not opt you out of being served ads. You will continue to receive generic ads.
Testimonials and Reviews
Users may perform ratings and reviews of our lenders and real estate professionals. By submitting such information, you grant HLHL the right to post and publish such information at our sole discretion. We also 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.
What if I have questions about this policy?
If you have any questions or comments about this Policy, the ways in which HomeLight Home Loans collects and uses your information described in Policy, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your applicable rights, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
Email: HLHLprivacy@homelight.com
Phone:844-882-3283
Postal Address: HomeLight Home Loans, Inc. A/K/A Eave, Inc., 100 California Street, Suite 800, San Francisco, CA 94111
