Personal Information We Collect

We collect information about you: (1) when you voluntarily provide it to us while using the Services or acting as a Business Contact, (2) with automatic technologies connected to our online Services, and (3) from third-party sources, including affiliated Cetera entities, financial professionals, service providers, recordkeepers, data enrichment and analytics providers, consumer reporting agencies, and publicly available sources. We explain this in further detail below.

This section describes the categories of Personal Information we may collect or may have collected from or about you in the last twelve months, and the purposes for which this information is used.

How We Disclose Information About You

We may disclose information we collect about you to entities, including business partners and affiliates, services providers, advertising partners, and other third parties:

• Business Partners and Affiliates: We disclose your Personal Information to business partners with whom we work, such as our affiliates and other companies that help us improve, market, or provide our Services to you.
• Service Providers: We may permit our agents, vendors, contractors, consultants, and other service providers to access information we collect about you to carry out work on our behalf.
• Advertising Partners: We disclose your Personal Information to advertising networks, ad tech providers, social media platforms, and measurement and analytics partners.
• Other Third parties: We may disclose information about you to other third parties: (1) if we are required to do so by law, regulation, or legal process (such as in response to a court order or subpoena); (2) when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss, or in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity; or (3) in the context of a business negotiation or transaction relating to CFG or any affiliated entity (e.g., further to a merger, reorganization, liquidation, or any other business transaction), including negotiations of such transactions.

Identifiers and your Internet or other similar network activity, as described above, may be disclosed to our advertising partners through the placement of cookies on the site, which may constitute a “sale” or “sharing” under applicable law. You can opt-out of targeting cookies sharing by clicking on the “Your Choices Regarding Cookies” banner on the sites.

We do not have actual knowledge that we sell or share the Personal Information of individuals under 16 years of age.

Use of Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies to collect information through data analytics tools like Google Analytics and other third-party tracking pixels to improve your site experience, to serve you more personalized ads on other sites, and to track your activity over time and across websites, as well as across different devices you use to access the Internet. We may use information collected this way to target marketing we believe corresponds to your interests within and outside our Services, for example, by utilizing retargeting or other targeted marketing practices (collectively, “Online Behavioral Advertising”). To learn more about Online Behavioral Advertising, your choices regarding the information collected for that purpose, or to opt out, you may visit https://optout.aboutads.info/ or http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices. If you choose to opt out of Online Behavioral Advertising, a cookie will be placed on your browser indicating your choice. Because cookies are stored by your browser, any opt out choice you make will be effective only for the computer/browser combination you used to opt out. Please note that even if you opt out of Online Behavioral Advertising, you may still receive advertisements from us, but they will not be customized based on your online browsing activities. Clearing your browser's cookies will reset your opt out instruction because the instruction is stored in a browser cookie. If you were to clear your browser cookies, you would need to renew any opt out choice you previously made.

Our websites honor Global Privacy Control (“GPC”) signals where required by applicable law. When you enable a GPC signal on browsers that support it, our websites will respond by disabling the targeted advertising cookies present on the website for that browser.

Many web browsers provide options to allow you to stop accepting new cookies, or to disable existing cookies. Please be aware that if you disable cookies on your browser, you may not be able to use certain features of the Services or other websites, and disabling cookies may invalidate opt-outs that rely on cookies to function.

How We Respond to Do Not Track

Our websites respect and honor Do Not Track (DNT) signals. We use OneTrust to manage cookie preferences, and it is configured to accept and honor DNT signals. This means that if you have enabled DNT in your browser settings, non-essential cookies will not be set on your device. You can still manage your cookie preferences through our OneTrust preference center, ensuring you have control over your data. This practice aligns with our commitment to privacy and compliance with relevant regulations. To learn more about “do not track” signals, you may wish to visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com/.

Updating and Correcting Your Personal Information

Keeping your information current is important. If you are a customer of a Cetera-affiliated firm, you may update, correct, or delete contact information by contacting your financial professional. If you are a customer or a financial professional who has enrolled in online Services with CFG or one of its affiliates, you can access your profile, review contact information that is stored, and revise certain types of information by signing into your online account. To make any other updates, customers should contact their financial professionals, and financial professionals should contact their CFG-affiliated broker-dealer. Business Contacts should contact their CFG business owner.

Your Choices

As a consumer or customer of a Cetera-affiliated firm, you can learn more about how and why we share information about you and your options related to such sharing by reviewing the firm’s Consumer Privacy Notices (each a “Notice”), available below:

• Cetera Wealth Services, LLC
• Cetera Advisors LLC
• Cetera Financial Specialists LLC
• Cetera Investment Services LLC
• Cetera Planning Partners LLC

Federal law gives consumers and customers, as those terms are defined in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”), the right to limit some but not all sharing of their information by financial companies like Cetera. As explained in the Notices, you may opt out of sharing by calling the number provided in the Notice and following the prompts. (Please see the “To Limit Our Sharing” section in the Notice for instructions.) Your request will be addressed, but you will not receive a confirmation. Please note that customers will continue to receive annual Notices as required under Federal law; however, you do not need to respond to maintain a previous opt-out designation.

Managing Text (SMS) Message

If you opt into receiving SMS communications from Cetera, we will not “sell” or “share” your phone number, as those terms are defined under applicable law, opt-in to an SMS campaign or consent status, nor will we disclose it to any third party for purposes other than providing the messaging. For example, we may disclose this information to the service providers that help us provide our text messaging services, such as platform providers and wireless carriers.

To stop receiving text messages from Cetera, reply STOP to any of the text messages you receive from us. After texting STOP, you will receive one additional message confirming that your request has been processed.

Unsubscribe Information

If you would like to unsubscribe from marketing emails sent by Cetera, you can do so by clicking the unsubscribe link included in the footer of our emails or UNSUBSCRIBING HERE. Please note that even if you opt out of receiving such communications from us, we may continue to send you transactional emails, such as communications regarding your account or our ongoing relationship with you.

Links to Affiliate and Non-Affiliate Websites

You should be aware that linked sites may have their own privacy policies or notices that differ from this Privacy Policy. Your use of linked sites is governed by the privacy policies and terms and conditions of those sites, which we strongly suggest you review.

Children's Privacy

We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 16 through our Services, and we do not knowingly market to children under the age of 16 without parental consent. If we learn that we have received information directly from a child who is under the age of 16, we will delete the information in accordance with applicable law.

Security

We employ administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to secure Personal Information. Although we use reasonable efforts to safeguard information, transmission via the Internet is not completely secure and we cannot guarantee the security of information collected through our Services.

Your California Privacy Rights

This section describes your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively “CCPA”).

Under the CCPA, “Personal Information” means “information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.” As a financial services organization, any information we collect, process, or disclose pursuant to the Gramm–Leach– Bliley Act (Public Law 106–102) or the California Financial Information Privacy Act (Division 1.4 (commencing with Section 4050) of the Financial Code) is exempt from the requirements of CCPA. In addition, some information we collect may be exempt because it is considered public information (i.e., it is made available by a government entity) or because it is subject to other federal privacy laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”).

To the extent that we collect Personal Information that is subject to the CCPA, your rights as a California resident with respect to that information are described below.

Cetera does not “sell” your Personal Information as that term is defined by CCPA; however, we may “share” your Personal Information as that term is defined by the CCPA when we collect and use Personal Information we automatically collect for online behavioral advertising. We provide details below regarding how you can opt-out of the sharing of your Personal Information. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the data sharing practices described in this paragraph do not apply to Cetera Trust. For Cetera Trust, we do not share Personal Information with third parties for their own marketing or advertising purposes.

Description of Your Rights

Subject to certain limitations, California residents have the following rights with respect to your Personal Information.

• Right to Know/Access Information – You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your Personal Information with respect to the following:
  • The categories of Personal Information we have collected about you.
  • The categories of sources from which we have collected your Personal Information.
  • Our business or commercial purpose for collecting that Personal Information.
  • The categories of Personal Information we have disclosed to a third party for business purposes.
  • The categories of third parties to which we have disclosed each category of Personal Information collected.
  • The specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about you.
• Right to Request Deletion of Information – You have the right to request in certain circumstances that we delete Personal Information that we have collected from you. It should be noted that we may not be able to delete certain Personal Information due to business, regulatory, legal, and compliance purposes. In addition, deletion of your Personal Information may affect our ability to provide services, products, and support to you.
• Right to Correct – You have the right to request that we correct inaccuracies in the Personal Information we maintain about you.
• Right to Opt-Out of the Sale/Sharing of Your Personal Information – We do not sell Personal Information in exchange for monetary compensation. However, we may allow certain third-party advertising, analytics, or similar providers to collect information through cookies and similar technologies on our websites, which may constitute “sharing” under the CCPA. You have the right to opt out from the “sale” or “sharing” of Personal Information for the purposes of online behavioral advertising. To do so, please click the “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link in the cookies banner or access our Cookie Settings and toggle off cookies used for targeting purposes.
• Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Personal Information – You have the right to limit the use/disclosure of your Sensitive Personal Information. However, we do not collect, use, or disclose Sensitive Personal Information beyond what is reasonably necessary and proportionate for the permitted purposes under the CCPA.
• Right to Non-Discrimination – You have the right to not be denied goods or services, charged different prices or rates for goods or services, or receive a different level or quality of goods or services, as a result of exercising the above rights.

How to Submit a Request

You may submit a request to exercise your California privacy rights through any one of these means:

• By filling out a Consumer Data Request Form available at www.cetera.com/ccpa
• By calling us at (888) 443-6380
• By emailing us at privacy@cetera.com

Verification Procedures – In order to process your request to know about, delete, or correct your Personal Information, we must verify your identity. We do this by requesting that you provide personal identifiers that we can match against information we may have collected from you previously. We may also request you to confirm your request using the email account or telephone number stated in the request.

Requests by Authorized Agent – You may authorize another individual or a business entity, called an authorized agent, to make requests on your behalf. To process a request made by an authorized agent, we require that you provide documentation confirming the identity of an authorized agent, and your signed permission for them to act on your behalf. Such documentation may include, but is not limited to, a power of attorney, conservatorship or guardianship documentation, letters testamentary, or notarized statements (as may be appropriate under the circumstances). Parents of minor children may be required to submit a birth certificate of the child, in order to make requests on the child’s behalf. Depending on the circumstances, we may also require that you verify your own identity with us, and directly confirm with us that you provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request on your behalf.

Our websites honor the user-enabled opt-out preference signal Global Privacy Control (“GPC”). When you have enabled this opt-out preference signal on browsers that support it, our websites will respond by disabling the targeted advertising cookies present on our website for that browser.

You can learn more about how to enable GPC here. Please note that GPC only applies to the browsers and devices on which you enable it. If you would like to change the effect of your GPC signal, you can do so by updating your cookie selections.

Direct Marketing Disclosures

If you are a California resident, in addition to the rights above, you have the right to request that we disclose information about any third parties to which we have disclosed Personal Information in the preceding calendar year. Specifically, you have the right to request:

• A list of the categories of certain Personal Information we disclosed to third parties for their direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year;
• The names and addresses of all the third parties that received certain Personal Information from us in the preceding calendar year.

If you send us a request by email at privacy@cetera.com, please include “California Privacy Rights Request” in the subject line of your email, and include your name, street address, city, state, and ZIP code. Note that we are only required to respond to one request per customer each year, our response may be in a standardized format and may not be specific to you.

Retention of Personal Information

We retain your Personal Information in accordance with our record retention schedules and policies. Personal Information is retained as long as necessary to meet business, legal, and regulatory requirements. Retention may be extended in connection with litigation or investigations. In determining how long to retain Personal Information, we consider:

• the date the information was collected, generated, or last updated;
• whether we continue to need the information to provide the Services to you or to maintain our relationship with you;
• whether we are required to retain the information to comply with legal or regulatory obligations, including books-and-records requirements applicable to broker-dealers and investment advisers, anti-money-laundering and Customer Identification Program requirements, tax reporting requirements, and litigation or investigation holds; and
• whether retention is necessary to protect the security and integrity of our Services, to detect and prevent fraud, or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the applicable Service. Your use of such Service following these changes means that you accept the revised Privacy Policy.

Contact Us

For any questions you may have regarding this Privacy Policy, other than to opt out (please see the “Your Choices” section above for information on opting out), you have several options for reaching us. You may email us at privacy@cetera.com, call us at (800) 362-9547, or write to us at the following address: