FAIRPOINT
COMMUNICATIONS CUSTOMER PRIVACY POLICY
FairPoint
Communications (“FairPoint”) is committed to respecting and protecting the
privacy of our customers. As discussed below, we have strict policies governing
access by employees and others to customer communications and information. We
access customer accounts, records or reports for authorized business purposes
only. We educate our employees about their obligation to safeguard customer
information and communications, and we hold them accountable for their actions.
In short, privacy is a priority for FairPoint in all aspects of our business.
This Customer
Privacy Policy is divided into four sections: Section I describes several
general principles that express FairPoint’s commitment to assuring strong and
meaningful customer privacy protection. Section II describes, more
specifically, how FairPoint protects the confidentiality of Customer
Proprietary Network Information (CPNI). Section III describes FairPoint’s “Do
Not Call” practices, which are designed to protect our customers from unwanted
telemarketing. Finally, Section IV provides our contact information should you
have any questions about this policy or FairPoint’s privacy practices more
generally.
GENERAL PRIVACY
PRINCIPLES
·
The
following principles express FairPoint’s commitment to assuring strong and
meaningful customer privacy protection, and are intended to guide FairPoint’s
efforts to balance customer privacy with customer interest in receiving quality
services. These principles apply to our use of "individual" customer
information – that is, information about specific customers. These policies are
fully consistent with applicable laws and regulations governing privacy,
including the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”). Individual
customer information is distinct from “aggregated” customer information, which
does not reveal a customer’s identity. Further, the examples provided below are
intended to be illustrative, not all-inclusive.
1.
FairPoint obtains and uses individual customer information for business
purposes only.
FairPoint
obtains and uses customer information that helps us to provide our customers
with quality telecommunications services. In addition to supporting the direct
provision of service, this information may be used to protect customers,
employees and property against fraud, theft or abuse; to conduct industry or
consumer surveys; and to maintain good customer relations. Access to databases
containing customer information is limited to employees who need that
information to perform their jobs. These employees are required to follow
strict rules when handling customer information, and are subject to
disciplinary action if they fail to do so.
In
order to better serve our customers, we may ask them questions to elicit
additional information about their special needs and interests. For example, we
may ask whether customers work at home, whether any members of the household
have special needs, or whether teenagers reside in the household in order to
determine whether customers may be interested in or might benefit from
additional lines or services. In all cases, the information we gather is used
to facilitate the provision of quality customer service. We do not share this
information with third parties to market non-FairPoint services to our
customers.
2.
FairPoint informs customers how information FairPoint obtains about them is
used, as well as their options regarding its use.
FairPoint
uses customer information in a transparent fashion, and discloses to customers
the types of information FairPoint obtains about them how and when that
information is used, when that information might be disclosed, the stringent
measures we employ to protect that information, and ways that customers can
restrict the use or disclosure of that information. FairPoint’s Customer
Privacy Policy is available on our website at http://www.fairpoint.com, and
from FairPoint service representatives.
3.
FairPoint gives customers opportunities to control access by others to customer
information, and how FairPoint uses individual information about them.
FairPoint
is committed to providing customers with opportunities to control how FairPoint
uses customer information about them. For example, customers may inform us of
which telephone listings they want to include in our directories and in
directory assistance, and may also choose to have a non-published number, or a
non-listed number, or to exclude your address from your listing. Customers in
areas where Caller ID services are available have the ability to block the
display of their phone numbers and names. (Note that Caller ID blocking does
not prevent the transmission of your phone number when you dial certain
business numbers, including 911, or 800, 888, 877, and 900 numbers.) Further,
customers can express a preference not to be called for marketing purposes
(please see Section III, below, for more information on FairPoint’s “Do Not
Call” policy). Customers may also opt out of our direct mailings and other
service marketing programs. (Please see Section II, below, for information on
FairPoint’s policy on the use of “Customer Proprietary Network Information”). A
customer may indicate a change in such preferences at any time by contacting
FairPoint customer service.
We
do use individual customer information internally for planning purposes – so
that we can, for example, develop, test and market new products and services
that meet the needs of our customers. Ordinarily, such information is combined
into aggregations that do not include individual customer identities. Under
certain circumstances, we are required by law to disclose the aggregated
information to other companies, but in such cases customer identities are not
included.
4.
FairPoint enables customers to control how FairPoint discloses individual
information about them to other persons or entities, except as required by law
or to protect the safety of customers, employees or property.
Ordinarily,
FairPoint will only share individual customer information with persons or
entities outside the company to assist us in the provision of services to which
the customer subscribes. We do not use third-party marketers, nor do we share
access to individual customer information derived from the provision of
FairPoint telecommunications services with other companies interested in
marketing other services to our customers – and we would not do so without the
consent of the customer. FairPoint is committed to ensuring that customer
information is not used without the knowledge and permission of our customers.
However,
there are exceptions to our general practice. For example, if FairPoint enters
into a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, a
customer’s personally identifiable information will, in most instances, be
transferred as a part of the transaction, subject to required notices to
affected customers. In addition, we may, where permitted by law, provide
information to credit bureaus, or provide information and/or sell receivables
to collection agencies, to obtain payment for FairPoint billed products and
services. We are also required by law to provide billing name and address
information to a customer’s long distance carrier and other telephone companies
to allow them to bill for telecommunications services. (By law, customers with
non-published or unlisted service have the right not to have their billing name
and address disclosed when they make a calling card call or accept a collect or
third party call. However, if they do restrict disclosure, they will be unable
to make calling card calls or accept collect and third party calls.) Similarly,
we are required to provide directory publishers with subscriber listing
information – name, address and phone number, and for yellow page advertisers,
primary advertising classification – for purposes of publishing and delivering
directories. In addition, under certain circumstances, we may share customer
information with other carriers or with law enforcement, for example, to
prevent and investigate fraud or other unlawful use of communications services.
5.
FairPoint strives to ensure that the information we obtain and use about
customers is accurate.
FairPoint
is committed to ensuring that the information we obtain and use about customers
is accurate. To that end, we strive to verify that our customer records are
correct. Customers who find an error in their FairPoint bills are encouraged to
notify FairPoint. FairPoint’s service representatives are trained to answer
customer questions about, and to give customers reasonable access to, the information
we have about them. Our service representatives will also provide explanations
of how such information is used and how to correct any inaccuracies if they
occur.
In
addition to reviewing their bills, customers can access their customer
information by contacting FairPoint customer service. However, FairPoint will
only provide customer information after properly authenticating the identity of
the requesting “customer” in accordance with applicable law and industry best
practices. In this way, FairPoint can maximize the ability of its customers to
review their customer information for accuracy while minimizing the risk that
this information falls into the wrong hands. FairPoint service representatives
can explain how customers may be authenticated to obtain access to their own
customer information.
6.
All FairPoint employees are responsible for safeguarding individual customer
communications and information.
FairPoint
requires FairPoint personnel to be aware of and protect the privacy of all
forms of customer communications as well as individual customer records.
FairPoint makes clear that employees who fail to comply with its privacy
policies will face disciplinary action, which can include dismissal. All
employees are trained regarding their responsibilities to safeguard customer
privacy. We strive to ensure that information we have about our customers is
accurate, secure and confidential, and to ensure that our employees comply with
our privacy policy.
We
never tamper with, intrude upon or disclose the existence or contents of any
communication or transmission, except as required by law or the proper
management of our network. Access to databases containing customer information
is limited to employees who need it to perform their jobs – and they follow strict
guidelines when handling that information. We use safeguards to increase data
accuracy and to identify and authenticate the sources of customer information.
We use locks and physical security measures, sign-on and password control
procedures, and internal auditing techniques to protect against unauthorized
use of terminals and entry into our data systems. FairPoint requires that
records be safeguarded from loss, theft, unauthorized disclosure, and
accidental destruction.
In
addition, sensitive, confidential, or proprietary records are protected and
maintained in a secure environment. It is our policy to destroy records
containing sensitive, confidential, or proprietary information in a secure
manner. Hard copy confidential, proprietary, or sensitive documents are made
unreadable before disposition or recycling, and electronic media must be
destroyed using methods that prevent access to information stored in that type
of media. Just as employees would report stolen property, missing records and
suspicious incidents involving records are referred to FairPoint security. We
encourage our employees to be proactive in implementing and enforcing
FairPoint’s privacy policies. If employees become aware of practices that raise
privacy or security concerns, they are required to report them to their
supervisors or to contact FairPoint’s security or regulatory department.
FairPoint’s
legal and regulatory departments are responsible for ensuring that all
FairPoint business units and their employees comply with privacy laws and
regulations. FairPoint also requires any consultants, suppliers and contractors
that may come into contact with CPNI to observe these privacy rules with
respect to any of our customers’ individual customer information. They must
abide by these principles when conducting work for us, and they will be held
accountable for their actions.
7.
FairPoint participates in and supports consumer, government and industry
efforts to identify and resolve privacy issues.
We
participate in legislative and regulatory proceedings, industry association
efforts, consumer group efforts, and general business group activities relating
to telecommunications privacy issues. Our external affairs personnel are
responsible for the coordination of FairPoint’s public policy participation. We
believe that developing international privacy protection and information-use
standards is necessary to protect the needs of our customers. FairPoint
supports the development of international standards to protect individual
customer information and its proper use on a worldwide basis.
8.
FairPoint complies with all applicable privacy laws and regulations wherever
FairPoint does business.
Customer
and policymaker perceptions of privacy have changed over time and will continue
to do so. Changes in technology can also alter what is appropriate in
protecting privacy. Laws may change accordingly. We regularly examine – and
update as necessary –FairPoint’s privacy policies and internal procedures to
ensure compliance with applicable law and evolving technology. FairPoint also
will monitor customer needs and expectations. FairPoint will work with
policymakers and consumers to ensure that we continue to safeguard privacy,
giving customers choices, flexibility and control. FairPoint considers privacy laws
and regulations to be the minimum standards to which we will adhere in
protecting privacy. In addition to complying with the law, FairPoint will
adhere to its internal privacy policies and procedures wherever we do business.
9.
FairPoint complies only with valid, properly issued, and legally enforceable
third-party requests for access to customer information.
FairPoint
may release customer information in response to requests from governmental
agencies, including law enforcement and national security agencies, in
accordance with federal statutory requirements or pursuant to court order.
Before releasing any customer information, FairPoint will ensure that the
underlying governmental request satisfies all procedural and substantive legal
requirements and is otherwise proper. For example, FairPoint will ensure that
any court orders are valid, properly issued, and legally enforceable. Except as
required by law or with the approval of the customer, FairPoint will not
release any customer information in response to subpoenas or similar requests
issued by private parties. Further, FairPoint will be diligent in
authenticating the validity of any “governmental” request to ensure that the
request actually originates from an authorized government agency.
USE OF CUSTOMER
PROPRIETARY NETWORK INFORMATION
·
Customers
count on FairPoint to respect and protect the privacy of information we obtain
in the normal course of providing telecommunications services to our customers.
FairPoint is committed to protecting the privacy of all customer information,
and in particular the privacy of customer proprietary network information (or
CPNI).
1.
Definition of "Customer Proprietary Network Information."
The
term “customer proprietary network information” is defined by federal statute
to mean: (i) information that relates to the quantity, technical configuration,
type, destination, location, and amount of use of a telecommunications service
subscribed to by any customer of a telecommunications carrier, and that is made
available to the carrier by the customer solely by virtue of the
carrier-customer relationship; and (ii) information contained in the bills
pertaining to telephone exchange service or telephone toll service received by
a customer of a carrier.
2.
Use of Customer Proprietary Network Information.
Under
federal law, you have the right to, and we have the duty to protect, the
confidentiality of your CPNI. However, we may use CPNI without your consent, in
a manner consistent with applicable law, to: (i) initiate, render, bill, and
collect for our services; (ii) market services among the categories of service
to which you already subscribe; (iii) provide inside wiring installation,
maintenance, and repair services; (iv) provide maintenance and technical
support for our services; (v) protect our rights and property, and protect
users of our services and other carriers from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful
use of, or subscription to, these services; and (vi) provide any inbound
telemarketing, referral, or administrative services for the duration of a
customer-initiated call.
Further,
after providing you with the required notice and opportunity to “opt out,” we
may use your CPNI, in a manner consistent with applicable law, to market
additional communications-related services to you and conduct surveys in order
to improve our service offerings.
FairPoint
will not use your CPNI for purposes other than those described above unless we
first obtain your express “opt in” consent. For example, without such consent
we will not use CPNI to market services not provided by FairPoint, and will not
share your CPNI with third parties (subject to the limitations discussed
below).
3.
Limits on the disclosure of CPNI outside FairPoint.
As
a general rule, FairPoint does not use third-party marketers and will not
disclose your CPNI to third party contractors without your explicit “opt in”
consent. This means that our records of the services you buy and the calls you
make generally will remain private if you choose to keep them so, since we will
not ordinarily disclose this information to outside parties without your
permission. However, we will release customer information without involving you
if disclosure is required by law, or necessary to protect the safety of
customers, employees or property. For example:
- When
you dial 911, information about your location may be transmitted
automatically to a public safety agency.
- Certain
information about your long distance calls may be transmitted to your
long distance company for billing purposes. We are also required by law
to give competitive local exchange carriers access to customer databases
for purposes of serving their customers, to exchange credit information
with other carriers, and to provide listings (other than certain
non-published and non-listed information) to directory publishers.
- We
will disclose information as necessary to comply with law enforcement
statutes, such as to comply with valid, properly issued, and
legally-enforceable subpoenas, warrants and court orders.
- We
may, where permitted by law, share CPNI with third parties where
necessary to provide the services to which you subscribe, to protect our
rights or property, and to protect users of our services and other
carriers from fraudulent, abusive or unlawful use of services.
- We
may, where permitted by law, provide CPNI to third parties such as
credit bureaus, or sell receivables to collection agencies, to obtain
payment for FairPoint billed products and services.
4.
Authentication to prevent unauthorized access to CPNI.
FairPoint
is committed to ensuring that only properly authorized individuals are able to
access CPNI for legitimate purposes. This includes ensuring that any request by
a “customer” to access CPNI is valid and properly authenticated, in accordance
with applicable law and industry best practices. In general, our internal
policies and procedures are designed to ensure that CPNI is not released to
unauthorized individuals.
Further,
if a “customer” calls us to access “call detail records” (which include the
number called, the number from which a call was placed, and the time, location,
or duration of any call), we will not release those records unless (i) during
the call, the customer provides a pre-established password; (ii) the
information is sent to the customer’s address of record; or (iii) after the
call, we call the customer’s telephone number of record to provide the
requested information. If a “customer” attempts to access CPNI through our
website, we will only provide such access if the customer has first established
a password and back-up authentication mechanism for the relevant account, in a
manner that does not rely on readily-available biographical or account
information. If a “customer” attempts to access CPNI by visiting a retail
location in person, we will only provide such access if the “customer” presents
valid photo identification matching the name of record on the account. (Note
that different procedures may apply to certain business customers served by a
dedicated account representative where the underlying service agreement
addresses CPNI protection and authentication.) We also will notify you at your
address of record if anyone changes the access authorization or authentication
information associated with your account.
5.
Notice of unauthorized access to CPNI.
As
a company, we are vigilant in our efforts to protect your CPNI. However, should
we become aware that your CPNI has been accessed without proper authority, we
will take swift action to fully document and address such unauthorized access
and provide appropriate notice. In particular, we will (i) notify law
enforcement (including the United States Secret Service and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation) within seven business days; and (ii) notify you and any other
affected customers within seven business days thereafter, unless earlier
notification is necessary to avoid immediate and irreparable harm, or we are
instructed by law enforcement personnel to refrain from providing such notice.
FAIRPOINT'S "DO NOT CALL" LIST
Any FairPoint
customer can express a preference not to be called by us for marketing
purposes, and FairPoint will respect such preference. A customer that does not
wish to receive sales calls from FairPoint specifically may ask to be placed on
our company-specific “Do Not Call” list. We will note the customer’s request
immediately, although it may take up to 30 days for the customer’s telephone
number to be removed from any active lists or sales programs that are currently
underway.
Any customer can
ask to be put on our “Do Not Call” list by contacting FairPoint’s customer
service department. Customers living in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont in the
service areas previously served by Verizon prior to the FairPoint merger transaction
should call 1.866.984.2001 (residential) or 1.866.984.3001 (business). All
other customers should call 800-400-5568! The requesting customer should
provide, at a minimum, the telephone number that is the subject of the request,
although inclusion of the customer’s name and address is also useful. If a
customer is served by multiple telephone numbers, the customer should tell us
all numbers that should be placed on the “Do Not Call” list.
A residential
customer will remain on our “Do Not Call” list for five years, and a business
customer will remain on our “Do Not Call” list for one year, unless the
customer asks to be removed from the list by contacting our customer service
department. If a customer’s telephone number ever changes, the customer must
give us updated information in order for the “Do Not Call” status to remain in
effect.
Notwithstanding
the fact that a customer’s telephone number is on our “Do Not Call” list, we
may still contact that customer with respect to surveys, billing, and other
service-related matters. Further, the customer should understand that being on
our “Do Not Call” list will not prevent calls from other companies unaffiliated
with FairPoint.
FURTHER
INFORMATION
If you have any
questions or comments concerning this Customer Privacy Policy, or if you
believe that the Company has not adhered to its privacy policy, please contact
FairPoint’s customer service department. If you live in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont and are a customer in the service areas previously served by
Verizon prior to the FairPoint merger transaction, you should call 1.866.984.2001
(residential) or 1.866.984.3001 (business). All other customers should call
800-400-5568! Regardless of where you receive service, you may contact
FairPoint via e-mail at privacy@fairpoint.com
or regular mail at:
FairPoint
Communications
521 East Morehead Street
Suite 250
Charlotte, North Carolina 28202
Attn: Privacy