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An Important Notice from TIAA-CREF Tuition Financing, Inc. about its Privacy Policy
Please read this notice carefully. It gives you important information about how TIAA-CREF Tuition Financing,
Inc. ("TFI") handles nonpublic personal information it may receive about you in connection with the Independent 529 Plan
(the "Plan"). It applies to all past, present and future participants in the Plan.
Information We May Collect
We, on behalf of the Plan, may collect personal information about you from various sources to provide information
requested by you about the Plan, as well as to service and maintain your account in the Plan.
We may obtain this personal information (which may include your Social Security Number) in any of the following ways:
- you provide it on the Plan enrollment form ("Application");
- you provide it on other Plan forms;
- you provide it on the Plan website;
- you provide it during consultations; or
- we obtain it to complete your requested transactions.
How Your Information Is Used
Unless you consent, TFI does not disclose your personal information to anyone for marketing purposes. TFI discloses
your personal information only to those service providers, affiliated and non-affiliated, who need the information to
respond to your inquiries and/or to service and maintain your account. In addition, TFI may be required to disclose
your personal information to government agencies and other regulatory bodies (for example, for tax reporting purposes
or to report suspicious transactions).
The affiliated and non-affiliated service providers who receive your personal information may use it to:
- process your Plan transactions;
- provide you with Plan materials;
- mail you Plan account statements; and
- enhance your Plan benefits.
These service providers provide services at TFI's direction and include fulfillment companies, printing and mailing
facilities.
- Under their agreements with TFI, these service providers are required to keep your personal information confidential
and to use it only for providing the contractually required services
Security of Your Information
TFI protects the personal information you provide against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, destruction,
loss or misuse. Your personal information is protected by physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in accordance
with federal and state standards. These safeguards include appropriate procedures for access and use of electronic data,
provisions for the secure transmission of sensitive personal information on the Plan's website, and telephone system
authentication procedures.
Changes in Our Privacy Policy
TFI periodically reviews this Privacy Policy and its related practices and procedures. You will be notified of any
material amendments to this Privacy Policy.
NOTICE ABOUT ONLINE PRIVACY
The personal information that you provide through the Plan website is handled in the same way as the personal
information that you provide by any other means, as described above. This section of the notice gives you additional
information about the way in which personal information that is obtained online is handled.
Online Enrollment, Account Access, and Online Transactions
When you visit the Plan website, you can go to pages that are open to the general public or log onto protected pages
to enroll in the Plan, access information about your account, or conduct certain transactions on your account. Once you
have opened an account in the Plan, access to the secure pages of the Plan website is permitted only after you have
supplied your Social Security Number or Taxpayer Identification Number and Password. This information serves to verify
your identity.
When you enter personal data into the Plan website (including your Social Security Number or Taxpayer Identification
Number and your password) to enroll or access your account online, you will log into secure pages where we use Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol for protecting information.
To use this section of the Plan website you need a browser that supports encryption and dynamic Web page construction.
If you provide personal information to effect transactions on the Plan website, a record of the transactions that
you have performed while on the site is retained by the Plan.
Other Personal Information Provided By You on the Plan Website
If you decide not to enroll online and you want to request Plan materials to be mailed to you, or you want to subscribe
to the Plan e-mail newsletter, you can click on another section of the Plan website (i.e., the Request Enrollment Kit page
of the Enroll Today section) to provide your name, mailing address and e-mail address, respectively. The personal information
that you provide on that page of the site will be stored and used to market the Plan more effectively. Although that page of
the Plan website does not use SSL encryption protocol, your information will be safeguarded in accordance with federal and
state privacy laws and industry norms.
The Independent 529 Plan Cares About Your Privacy
We use cookies on the Plan website to measure marketing results for the Plan. This process renders all visitors to the Plan
website anonymous and will not personally identify you.
Effective date: 12/31/08.
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