TracFone Wireless, Inc. Privacy Policy

Effective Date: September 23, 2022

Introduction

Our Privacy Policy describes the information that we collect, how it’s used, shared, and retained, your choices about how it’s used and shared, and your rights under certain privacy laws. This policy applies to all TracFone brands including Total by Verizon, Straight Talk Wireless, Tracfone, Simple Mobile, SafeLink Wireless, Walmart Family Mobile, Net10 Wireless, Page Plus, GoSmart Mobile, and Clearway Wireless for Business. TracFone is a Verizon company.

When you use our websites and services you are subject to this Policy and the terms and conditions of the service associated with your brand. We do not require you to provide your personal information to us to enjoy some of our services. However, if you do not provide certain personal information, you may not be able to use or access portions of our websites, such as the account features or account information.

Categories and Types of Personal Information We Collect

We collect information when you purchase and use our products and services and when you interact with us. Depending on the products and services you use, the personal information we collect may include:

Contact, billing and other information you provide such as your name, nickname, address, email, phone numbers, date of birth, driver’s license, signature, other information needed to process payment, or Social Security Number or Tax Identification Number.
Identifiers that link to your account or device.
Commercial and transaction information related to your payment method, credit card information, including account numbers, card holder names and addresses, phone or device purchases, airtime card purchases or redemptions, wireless plans and offers, activation and port-in history, other financial information and records, and products or services you purchase or place into your online cart.
How you use our services and your devices, which may include: call records containing phone numbers you call and receive calls from, websites you visit, text records, wireless location, application and feature usage, product and device-specific information and identifiers, router connections, domain name server information, service options you choose, mobile and device numbers, technical configuration and other similar information. When you grant them permission, our mobile apps may also collect Wi-Fi, Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) and other location information.
Our cloud apps may backup your contact list, call records containing phone numbers you call and receive calls from, text records, text messages, your photo and video library, documents and music when you grant us the required permissions. In addition, depending on your mobile device operating system, we may obtain your permission to collect location information for scheduled backups or to locate printing vendors near you. Additionally, we maintain several internet websites and mobile apps to inform you about plans and services, and help complete transactions. As part of this, we may collect certain information including browsing history, search history, interaction with websites and apps, and interaction with advertisements.
Network and device information including how our network and your devices are working. We monitor the conditions of the network you are using such as traffic flow, speed, capacity, power, and environmental, as well as temperature and operating status of home network equipment such as your fixed wireless equipment. We collect location information about your wireless device including cell tower location information. This also includes how you use or access our service or websites such as Wi-Fi usage, IP address, internet browser, operating system, geographic locations, the domain name of the website and/or Internet Service Provider (ISP) from which you are linked to our websites, the model of the phone that you are using, your device identifier (“UDID”), web browsing and wireless application use information, date and time stamp, clickstream data to analyze trends in aggregate to administer our websites, and websites performance information. We may also collect aggregated network strength data. This data may combine geolocation information, signal data, and other information to help us monitor the strength and reliability of the services we provide to our customers.
Demographic and interest information from third parties or from you to verify your identity or determine your eligibility for certain services. This may include age or date of birth, gender, marital status, disability, or military or veteran status. For example, this information may be required as part of the Federal Lifeline program to determine a customer’s qualification for SafeLink. We may ask you to provide a copy of your driver’s license to verify your identity.
Educational, professional, and employment information if you submit it as part of verifying your eligibility for our Lifeline program. For example, you may elect to verify your income by submitting pay stubs.
TracFone always seeks to provide the best service, products, and selections to our customers. We create customer profiles from information we collect and develop inferences such as your preferences, predispositions, and behaviors. We use this to better develop products, services and offers, and to market to you.

If you are referred to TracFone by your Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), we share your mobile number with the HMO provider. If a child or other beneficiary is the qualifying recipient for the Lifeline Assistance Program, we will also collect the child’s or other beneficiary’s name, date of birth, and partial Social Security number to verify their eligibility in the program.

How We Collect Personal Information

We collect information from you when you interact with us and use our products and services, including information about how you use these products and services and our websites, when you make a purchase, or when you establish or modify an online account. We also collect information when you interact with our customer service representatives or use our websites or apps to place an order or ask questions about your account or service; seek technical support; contact us on social media; enter a TracFone-sponsored or affiliate contest; participate in surveys; sweepstakes or promotions; refer a friend or respond to a referral; or participate in our rewards program. When you communicate with us, we may monitor or record the interaction to help us better serve you; to personalize your experiences; to train or otherwise support employees, resources or systems; and for fraud detection and security purposes. We may use artificial intelligence guided by humans, such as chat bots, to respond to your inquiry. When you interact with us through third-party services like Facebook Messenger or Twitter Direct Message, your communications are also governed by these companies’ privacy policies.

Some devices may have pre-installed applications that are used by us and our partners to collect network strengths, performance, coverage, and quality, as well as for marketing purposes. Additionally, these applications may collect information regarding your device, such as device identifiers, features, and software versions installed, for campaign management such as push notifications or to preinstall certain applications. Some apps installed or updated on your device in this way do not appear as icons on your device screen because of their limited utility. To see what apps are installed on your devices, use your device app controls in the settings menu on your device.

We also automatically collect information when you use your device and our products and services. When you visit our websites, we may store information on your computer that allows us to identify you immediately. This process is often referred to as "cookie" technology. More specifically, a cookie is a commonly used Internet standard which stores, in a very small text file on the customer's hard disk, information specific to the customer. We and our partners use cookies or similar technologies to identify you as the user, analyze trends, administer websites, track users’ movements around our websites, and to gather demographic information about our customer base as a whole. We and our partners also use web beacons, widgets, and server log files to collect and store information about our users. You can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level, but if you choose to disable cookies, you may limit your use of certain features or functions on our websites or services.

How We Use Personal Information

TracFone uses your personal information to:

Deliver and maintain products and services and collect and process transactions
Establish and maintain your account, payment and claim filing purposes, where applicable, and to provide the auto-refill program
Anticipate and resolve problems with your service and provide account-related services
Help you with service and technical support issues or questions
Detect and prevent fraud
Comply with legal requirements
Communicate with you
Manage and administer our websites and services
Auditing and accounting purposes
Inform you of products and services that better meet your needs
Assess credit and payment risk
Manage and protect our services, employees and users
Help us improve and personalize our services
Research, develop and market new products and services
Authenticate you
Determine your eligibility for new products and services
Better predict content and marketing offers that may interest you
Measure service quality

Interest Based Advertising. We and our authorized advertising partners use cookies and similar technologies to help tailor the ads you see on our sites and to help make decisions about ads you see on other sites. These companies employ cookies and action tags to determine whether you fall into an audience advertisers wish to reach and measure advertising effectiveness. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads you may opt-out using the NAI’s interest-based advertising opt out. Please note that by “opting out,” you will no longer receive targeted advertisements but may continue to receive general advertisements.

Adobe Experience Cloud Device Co-op. All of TracFone’s brands participate in the Adobe Experience Cloud Device Co-op to better understand how you use our websites and apps across the various devices you use, to deliver tailored promotions, and to provide our customers with a better, more consistent cross-device experience. You can learn more about this program, including your ability to opt out at Adobe’s Experience Cloud Device Co-op Privacy Control website.

Analytics. We use mobile analytics software to better understand the functionalities of our mobile software on your phone. This software may record information such as how often you use an application, the events that occur within an application, aggregated usage, performance data, and location where an application was downloaded. We do not link the information we store within the analytics software to any personally identifiable information you submit within a mobile application.

De-identified and aggregated information. We may also de-identify or aggregate information so that we or our affiliates may use it for business and marketing purposes. For example, the data we aggregate might be used to analyze, personalize and improve our services. We may de-identify your CPNI and, if we do so, we will maintain and use the data in a non-individually identifiable form and will not attempt to re-identify the data.

How We Share Personal Information

We share information within TracFone and with Verizon companies for a variety of purposes, including providing you the latest information about our products and services and offering you our latest promotions. We will not share Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), which relates to the type, quantity, destination, technical configuration, location, amount of use and related billing information of your wireless services with Verizon for them to market services that are different from the ones you have without giving you an opportunity to opt out. We will also not share certain credit information, such as credit scores, your account history and information in your consumer reports, without giving you an opportunity to opt out.

We share your information with vendors and partners. We use vendors and partners to perform services on our behalf, such as marketing, fulfillment services, shipping to customers and to help us offer, provide, repair, restore and bill for services. We will require that vendors and partners protect and restrict use of your personal information consistent with the terms described in this Policy. Your wireless number may be shared for text messaging services operated by vendors. These vendors may directly contact you on our behalf by text messages with promotions, discounts, advertisements, reminders related to your services, or other information that may be helpful or informative to you. You can opt-out of these messages using the mechanism provided.

When you purchase or use services that are offered by TracFone and one of our partners, both parties may receive your information. When this is the case, you should also review the partner company’s privacy policy because it may describe uses of your information that are different from ours.

We also share de-identified information with companies to assist with the delivery of advertising campaigns or aggregate reports.

We may further share customer personal information in the following situations:

With affiliated and unaffiliated vendors who help us perform and deliver our websites and services, subject to confidentiality agreements where reasonably feasible, including: service and sales fulfillment; form processing; website management and hosting providers; information technology and security providers; customer service; email and newsletter delivery services; background check providers; credit agencies; advertisement partners and corporate sponsors; and auditing providers;
With third parties, including government and law enforcement entities, to protect our rights and property, to protect against fraudulent, malicious, abusive, unauthorized or unlawful use of our products or services, and to protect our network, services, devices and users from such;
To comply with valid legal process including subpoenas, court orders or search warrants, and as otherwise authorized by law;
With the appropriate government and law enforcement entities, when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect your safety or the safety of others or in other emergencies;
To advance or defend against complaints or legal claims in court, administrative proceedings or elsewhere;
When needed by outside auditors or regulators;
With necessary third parties in connection with, or during negotiations for, a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets; and
With your consent.

Walmart Family Mobile Customers. If you are a Walmart Family Mobile customer, we work with Walmart Stores, Inc. ("Walmart") to offer the Walmart Family Mobile service. Any information you provide directly to Walmart will be subject to Walmart's Privacy Policy, not this one. This includes information you provide to Walmart in connection with your device purchase, upgrade, return, or replacement, whether in its stores, by phone or online, including but not limited to, if you purchase a Family Mobile device or obtain technical support for the device at or from Walmart or its agents. In addition, if you activate Walmart Family Mobile communications services at a Walmart store, Walmart may request personal information from you that is passed to TracFone as part of the activation process, but which may also be retained by Walmart. You can learn more by visiting Walmart's Privacy Policy.

Software Application for Our Websites. TracFone also works with other companies who supply software applications for use on our websites. The software is used to collect survey or feedback information or support real-time chat sessions from customers who visit our websites and utilize these tools. Information from your web session, including your device serial number, phone number, and account email may be associated with your responses when you use these tools. This information is used by TracFone exclusively for analysis of survey or feedback results and will not be shared with any third party for any other purposes.

How Long We Retain Your Personal Information

We retain your personal information as long as is needed for business, tax, and legal purposes. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Absent a specific request to delete your personal information, as permitted by law, TracFone will delete your information per its normal business processes and procedures.

How You Can Opt Out of E-Mail Marketing

We may send you e-mails regarding promotional offers or other news. You can always choose not to receive our e-mail direct marketing communications by opting-out or unsubscribing. You can do this by clicking on the unsubscribe link found at the bottom of every email promotion we deliver. Upon such election and within a reasonable time thereafter, we will not email you directly with promotional messages though you may see marketing messages from TracFone in other forms and directed at a general audience.

How We Secure Personal Information

We use administrative, organizational, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the personal information we collect and process. Nonetheless, we cannot guarantee your personal information will be perfectly secure at all times. Our security controls are designed to maintain data confidentiality, maintain data integrity, and give us an appropriate level of access to your data. For example, when you enter sensitive personal information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). If you have any questions about security on our websites, you can contact us at privacy@tracfone.com.

Links to Other Websites

Third Party Links. Our websites may contain links to other websites that are not owned, operated, or controlled by us. Any personal information collected by such third-party websites is not governed by this Policy. We recommend that you examine the privacy policies of such third-party websites prior to submitting any personal information.

Third-Party Websites. In some instances, our websites content is also featured on other websites with differing or non-existent privacy policies. These websites may collect personal information from website visitors that may or may not be used in conjunction with our website information. Prior to supplying personal information to any third-party company linking to our website, please read and understand their privacy policies.

Policy Regarding Information Obtained from Children

Our websites are not structured to attract children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect information, directly or passively, from children under the age of 18. Ordering online products and services from TracFone is limited to adults (ages 18+). Of course, wireless devices and services purchased for family use may be used by minors without our knowledge. If that happens, any information collected from the usage will appear to be the personal information of the actual adult subscriber and treated as such under this Policy.

Advertisements may appear on pages throughout our websites. Some advertisements may request information directly from our customers or take our customers to websites that may request personal information. We have no control over our advertisers' privacy policies, so please examine the privacy policy of any company advertising on our websites prior to submitting any personal information.

Public Forums/Blogs

Our websites may offer publicly accessible blogs or community forums. You should be aware that any information you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others who access them. You should not provide personally identifiable information in any publicly accessible blog or community forum.

To request removal of your personal information from our blogs and forums, contact us at privacy@tracfone.com, and we will do our best to comply with the request. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

Refer-A-Friend

If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our websites, we will ask you for your friend's name and email address and automatically generate a one-time email to send your friend inviting them to visit the site. If you use the “Import Contacts” feature, we may collect your friends’ names and addresses in order to administer TracFone’s Refer-A-Friend program. We do not store your friend's information or use it for any other purpose.

Gift Purchases

If you purchase a gift, we will ask you for the recipient’s name and mailing address in order to ship the product to the individual. We do not retain the recipient’s information or use it for any other purpose.

Social Media Features

Our websites include social media features and widgets, such as the "Share This" button or other interactive mini-programs that run on our sites. 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 websites. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing the feature or widget.

Surveys

Occasionally, we may conduct surveys on our websites. Surveys are conducted at random and are completely voluntary to our website visitors. The survey may require you to provide personal information in exchange for the information or services provided by the survey. We may use this information in an aggregate manner to better tailor the types of services, information, and advertising that are provided on our websites.

Mobile Applications

If you allow it, our apps may send you push notifications from time-to-time in order to update you about any events or promotions that we may be running. If you do not wish to receive these types of communications, you may turn them off using your device controls.

Geolocation

You may opt-out of the collection and use of location for features offered in our apps at any time by editing the location services setting on your device.

How Customers and Visitors Can Access and Update Personal Information

You can verify your account and manage your personal information by logging into the “My Account” portal or by contacting Customer Service. To manage your personal account online, log into the “my Account” portal and select the “Update Your Profile” link. Delete or change your personal information from the form and select “Submit” at the bottom of the page.

If you do not remember or are unable to use your information to log onto the “My Account” portal, please contact a customer care agent by calling 1-800-867-7183. All requests for changes or deletion of account information require account verification by answering security questions or providing the Personal Identification Number (PIN) you set when you first activated your account.

In certain circumstances we may be required by law to retain your personal information, or may need to retain your personal information in order to continue providing a service.

Nevada Privacy Rights

Nevada consumers have a right to submit a request to opt-out of sale of personal information, referred to under the Nevada Privacy Law as “covered information.” Upon receipt of a verified request, both as to the submission and the identity of the consumer, TracFone will ensure that no covered information, as defined under the Nevada Privacy Law, is sold. TracFone will further notify the customer within 60 days after receipt that the request has been processed. At this time, Nevada residents can only submit this request by calling 1-877-799-1999.

California Privacy Rights

California consumers have certain rights as it relates to personal information. These rights include the right to request access to personal information, to request the deletion of personal information, and to opt-out of the sale of personal information. You will not be penalized or discriminated against if you exercise any of these rights.

Consumer Rights Request

California Consumer’s Rights to Access Personal Information. If you are a California resident, you or your authorized agent can log into your account and request access to your personal information. If you do not have an account, you can submit a request to obtain, free of charge, an electronic, portable copy of your personal information. We will provide your personal information covering the 12-months preceding our receipt of the verifiable request. Instructions on how to submit this request can be found below under “How to Submit Your CCPA Request.”

Verifiable Consumer Request. We take security very seriously so we will provide your personal information only after you verify your identity through safe and secure means, which means using methods and information that are not publicly available. Also, we will honor up to two consumer rights requests every twelve months as required by California law.

Time to Provide Personal Information. We will endeavor to provide this information to you within 45 days, but it may take up to 90 days. If we need more than 45 days, we will contact you to let you know that we need additional time.

Consumer Deletion Request

If there is any personal information found on the report that you would like us to delete, you may submit a request to delete. We are unable to delete information that is necessary to provide you ongoing service, for security purposes, that we are contractually obligated to retain, or that is necessary to comply with legal obligations.

Consumer Sale Opt-Out Request

Opt-Out Request. California consumers have a right to opt out of the sale of personal information to third parties. The term “sale” is broadly defined by the CCPA and includes sharing personal information for monetary or other valuable consideration, but does not cover all sharing of personal information. We may share your information with a partner to confirm your identity and help assess credit worthiness when you submit a credit application with third parties you are attempting to do business with and unrelated to TracFone products and services. This activity may be considered a "sale" under the CCPA. If you tell us not to sell your personal information, then we will be unable to respond to any identity verification or credit worthiness inquiries that we receive on your behalf. This may result in the denial of credit or third party services. If you wish to exercise this opt out, please submit a request online at:

Non-Discrimination. If you exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information, TracFone will not treat you differently such as by denying goods or services, charging a different price (including through discounts), or providing a different level of quality of goods or services.

How to Submit Your CCPA Request

If you wish to exercise your right to access or delete your personal information you can make a request through your existing online account. If you do not have an existing account, you can submit a request by calling 1-877-799-1999 or submitting a request online at:

Shine the Light

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 entitles California consumers to request, once per year, that we disclose the identity of any third parties to whom we have shared personal information for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. If you wish to submit a request, you may write to us at privacy@tracfone.com or call us at 1-877-799-1999.

California Website Data Collection & “Do Not Track” Notices

“Do Not Track” Notice: The providers of “do not track” and similar signals do not yet operate according to common, industry-accepted standards. Therefore, TracFone currently does not respond to those signals. For more information on Do Not Track, please visit www.allaboutdnt.com .

California customers who wish to request further information about our compliance with these requirements or have questions or concerns about our privacy practices and policies will find the contact information at the end of this policy.

Changes To This Policy

We may make changes to this Policy, so please check back periodically. When we do, we will revise the effective date above. If we decide to use or disclose information that identifies you personally in a way that is materially different from what we stated in our privacy policy at the time we collected that information from you, we will give you a choice about the new use or disclosure by appropriate means, which may include an opportunity to opt-out.

How to Contact Us

Please direct any questions or comments regarding our privacy policy to:

privacyoffice@verizon.com

Verizon Privacy Office

1300 I Street, NW Suite 500 East

Washington, DC 20005

If you have any unresolved privacy or data use concerns that we have not addressed to your satisfaction, please contact our U.S. based third party dispute resolution provider (free of charge) at https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request.