Privacy Policy

Uncover their Past : Protect your Future

As a consumer reporting agency governed by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) among other applicable state and federal laws, CIA is committed to protecting your privacy.

This Privacy Policy covers CIA's web site, and CIA's practices for handling personal information provided to CIA over the Internet by the general public using CIA's publicly available web site. This Policy also covers personal information provided by CIA's clients, and their job applicants and employees, using CIA's online background screening solution that is accessible only through an access-restricted portion of CIA’s web site. CIA will collect, store, and use personally identifiable information only in compliance with applicable law, including the FCRA.

When you browse CIA’s publicly accessible web site, you do so anonymously. CIA collects personally identifiable information from you only if you choose to provide this information to us. In some instances, CIA may collect non-personal (e.g., aggregate or demographic) data through cookies. This information is used to better understand and improve the usability, performance and effectiveness of the ciaresearch.com web site, as is further described below under “Cookies and Tracking Technology”.

The types of personal information we may collect about you through our publicly accessible web site include the following (should you decide to provide such information to CIA): (a) contact and identifying information (e.g., name, address, e-mail address, phone and fax numbers, employer(s), job title) in connection with your expression of interest in receiving information about, or your registering for, CIA products or services, newsletters and conferences; (b) your resume information and employment application information in response to CIA job openings; and (c) any other personal information that you may voluntarily provide to us in an online form or through an e-mail.

Access to certain CIA web pages and online services by CIA’s clients and their employees and job applicants is not available to the general public and requires a login code and password provided by CIA. The use of those web pages, and the information downloadable to and from those pages, are governed by a written agreement between CIA and its clients. On these web pages, CIA collects only information that the user voluntarily shares with CIA.

If you are using this web site to open an employment screening account with CIA, we collect the information requested on our account application form, including contact information and financial information (such as credit card number or billing information). This information is used for internal purposes, such as account establishment, billing, fulfillment of orders and customer service.

When your personal information is collected on CIA’s publicly accessible web site, CIA will inform you at the point of collection of the purpose for the collection. CIA will use your personal information only in the way we specify when it is collected unless you consent to a different use.

For example, CIA may use personal information submitted in an account application to set up and maintain your account. CIA also may use the personal information you provide to answer your questions and inquiries, to support CIA’s own recruitment activities in response to your inquiries into CIA’s job postings, and to provide newsletters and other information (if any) that you have requested.

If you have provided your personal information over this web site in connection with a background screen ordered by CIA’s client - your employer or prospective employer - CIA may use your personal information to perform your background screen for that client. CIA will not use your information to conduct a background screening investigation and create a report unless CIA’s client completes a certification required by the FCRA and any other applicable law. In this certification, CIA’s client certifies to CIA that it has a legally permissible purpose for ordering the background screen, and that it has, to the extent required by applicable law, obtained your informed consent to conduct the background screen.

CIA does not sell or rent personal information to third parties. CIA will not disclose your personal information to a third party without your permission, except as described in this Privacy Policy.

CIA may disclose personal information as necessary or appropriate in connection with any of the purposes for which we use personal information as described above in “How We Use Your Personal Information”.

When CIA conducts a background screening investigation about you, CIA may disclose to your employer or prospective employer information that you submit through this web site. CIA also may disclose your information to a third-party representative or subcontractor authorized by CIA to assist in the background screening investigation. These third parties include service providers that help host or support the web site or otherwise provide technical assistance, court researchers and other service vendors. CIA transfers to these representatives and subcontractors only the personal information they need to deliver to CIA (for the benefit of CIA’s client) the requested product or service. CIA prohibits these third parties from using that information for any other purpose. CIA requires that these parties maintain commercially reasonable measures to protect the confidentiality of your information.

CIA also may in good faith disclose personal information and any other additional information available to CIA for any of the following purposes: (i) investigate, prevent or take action regarding actual or suspected illegal activities or fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, or violations of CIA’s terms of use; (ii) respond to or defend against subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process; (iii) establish or exercise CIA’s legal rights; or (iv) otherwise comply with applicable law.

CIA may acquire other businesses, and other businesses may acquire CIA. If that occurs, the information CIA collects may be one of the assets examined or transferred as part of the transaction. CIA will not permit another business to examine the information CIA has collected without a confidentiality agreement and only to the extent permitted by law. CIA will not transfer the information it has collected unless the recipient agrees to provide privacy protections equal to or exceeding those established by this Privacy Policy.

CIA’s web site may use the standard technology called a “cookie” to collect information about how you use the web site.

A cookie is a small data file that is transferred to your hard drive and used for record-keeping purposes. A cookie file can contain information such as the URL you came from, your computer’s IP address (i.e., the Internet address of your computer) and domain type (e.g., .com or .org, etc.), your browser type, the country, state and telephone area code where your server is located, the pages of our site that were viewed during a visit, and any search terms that you entered on our site. This information is used for internal purposes only, and we do not link your URL or IP address to any personal information unless you have logged into our web site with a CIA account login and password.

If you would prefer not to receive cookies, you can alter the configuration of your browser to refuse cookies, although it is possible that some areas of our web site will not function properly if you do so. In particular, you may be required to accept cookies in order to complete certain actions on CIA’s web site.

CIA is committed to protecting the personal information that CIA receives about consumers. While we cannot guarantee the security of that information, we utilize a combination of online and offline security technologies, procedures and organizational measures to help safeguard consumer information against loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. We take precautions to protect your information. When you submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and offline.

Wherever we collect sensitive information (such as name, date of birth, social security number, credit card data), that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar and looking for "https" at the beginning of the address of the Web page.

While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers/servers in which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

We employ Secure Socket Layer (SSL) data encryption when data is transmitted over the Internet to our web site. We have installed layered firewalls and other security technologies to help prevent unauthorized access to our systems. Strong password protection protocols are used on our computers, and employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy policies. The servers used to store consumer information are maintained in a secure environment with appropriate security measures.

CIA’s web site may provide links to third-party web sites. Please be aware that those third-party web sites are outside of our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy. If you have questions about how another site uses your information, consult that site's privacy statement.

CIA strives to protect the quality and integrity of your personal information. If you have provided your personal information (such as zip code, phone, e-mail or postal address) to CIA while browsing CIA’s publicly accessible web site, and wish to update such personal information (if any) that you have provided us, please e-mail us at support@ciaresearch.com. If you are a CIA client with a registered account, you may review (and update) your account information by logging into your account. If you are an employee or job applicant of a CIA client, and have submitted personal information to CIA at the request of such client for purposes of procuring a background report, then you can review your CIA file in accordance with your file disclosure rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and California Civil Code Section 1786.22 by contacting CIA’s Customer Service Department at privacy@ciaresearch.com. You can review a summary of your consumer rights (including file disclosure rights) under the Fair Credit Reporting Act by accessing: http://www.ftc.gov/os/2004/11/041119factaappf.pdf.

CIA does not offer services to children under the age of 13, and this web site is not directed to children under the age of 13. CIA does not knowingly collect information about children under the age of 13.

CIA may revise this policy from time to time. If there is a material change to this Privacy Policy, we will post the revised policy at this location. CIA will not provide less privacy protection, without your consent, to information collected under a prior privacy policy. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to be informed of how CIA is protecting your information.

If you have any questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us:
Effective Date: 11/21/2024