Joint Privacy Notice
[May 29, 2007]

     This Joint Privacy Notice is intended to fulfill our obligation to meet mandated disclosure requirements. It is for your information only, and we hope that you find it to be informative and helpful. It does not require any response from you. You may wish to print this Joint Privacy Notice and file it with your other important papers.

     When you see the words we, us, or our within this Joint Privacy Notice, you should understand that these words include the South Carolina Farm Bureau, and each of its separately incorporated County Chapters.

Our Commitment to Safeguarding Your Privacy 

     This Joint Privacy Notice is being provided to you to inform you of our practices and procedures regarding the sharing of nonpublic personal information. Nonpublic personal information is personally identifiable financial information about you, your family, or your household that we may obtain directly from you, that we may obtain as a result of our membership dealings with you, or that we may obtain from any other source.

     Except as stated within this Joint Privacy Notice, we do not engage in the practice of disclosing your nonpublic personal information to nonaffiliated third parties other than as necessary to provide quality membership services to our members. For instance, we do not engage in “list-selling,” and we do not market your personal information to publishing houses, retailers, or coupon companies. Because we do not disclose your personal information to nonaffiliated third parties other than as required or permitted by Federal and State law, you do not need to respond to this Joint Privacy Notice or to take any opt-out action as a result of it.

     During the continuation of our membership relationship with you, we will also provide you with a copy of this Joint Privacy Notice at least annually as part of a regular mailing, such as within a billing or a renewal notice and at any time that you request it in writing. Further, because Federal and State laws, regulations, and business practices can change at any time, we may revise this Joint Privacy Notice accordingly. If we materially change our policy or procedures, then we will notify you of such changes. The policy contained within this Notice supersedes all previous notices or statements with respect to the subject matter described herein. You can always review a copy of our most current Joint Privacy Notice at www.scfb.org. The effective date of this Joint Privacy Notice is printed above under the document title, and this Joint Privacy Notice replaces all prior Notices. Once you cease to be a member, we will continue to protect your private information as described within the Joint Privacy Notice in effect at the time that you cease to be a member. However, we will stop sending you annual privacy notices.

     The examples detailed within this Joint Privacy Notice are only meant to help you understand our practices and procedures, and they should not be taken as a complete and exclusive inventory of specific information that we collect, utilize, maintain, or share. In some situations we may not collect or share some of the information described below. The information that we collect and the extent to which we use it varies and will depend upon the membership service involved.

Information That We May Collect and Use

     During the course of reviewing your application for membership, we collect and evaluate information from the following sources:

• Information that we receive from you on applications or other forms;
• Information that we collect through our websites when you visit our websites and your browser interacts with us;
• Information that we obtain to verify representations made by you;
• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates, or others;
• Information that we receive from consumer reporting agencies; and
• Information that we receive from local, state, or Federal governmental agencies.

     It is important for us to collect and use this information to properly identify you; to provide, administer and perform membership services on your behalf; to improve our membership services; and to comply with certain State and Federal requirements. We could not provide optimum service to you without collecting and using this information.

Additional Information That We May Collect and Use When You Access Our Internet Homepage

• Information that we collect from digital-identifiers, commonly known as “cookies,” when you access www.scfb.org. A cookie is only a small piece of electronic information that is saved upon your computer to remind our website about you the next time that you visit it. Use of cookies is a standard practice among website sponsors. Because the same information does not have to be collected from you each time that you visit, the cookie enhances your online transactions with us, and it makes it easier for you to navigate through our website. The cookie contains no confidential information, and it is not used to track your electronic activity after you leave our Homepage. Although your computer’s browser was most likely initially set-up to accept cookies, you control your computer’s cookie files, and you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. If you are interested in disabling your computer’s cookies function, then please refer to your browser’s Help Menu or your printed computer manual for computer-specific instructions.
• Information that we collect from prior-site tracking when you access www.scfb.org. Prior-site tracking allows us to identify the prior website address that you visited before you reached our website. This allows us to determine how our visitors find us. Use of prior-site tracking is a standard practice among website sponsors.
• Electronic-specific information that we receive from you, such as your password when you register. This electronic-specific information is only used to verify your identity and to provide you access to your personal information. We do not send or support the delivery of unsolicited bulk electronic mail, commonly known as “spam.”

     Once again, it is important for us to collect and use this information to properly identify you; to provide, administer and perform services on your behalf; to improve our membership services; and to comply with certain State and Federal requirements. We could not provide optimum service to you without collecting and using this information.

Information That We May Disclose

     We regard all of your personal information as confidential. Therefore, we do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our members or former members to anyone except as permitted by law. In the course of conducting our business dealings, we may disclose certain information to other parties that we have about you. These disclosures are only made in accordance with applicable laws, and may include disclosures to administrators, service providers, consultants, and regulatory or governmental authorities. Further, certain disclosures of information will be made to Farm Bureau personnel authorized to have access to your personal information for the purpose of and providing  membership services to you.

     We may also disclose all of the information we collect, as described above, to companies that perform services on our behalf or to other institutions with which we have joint marketing agreements. Service providers, for example, may assist us in processing your transactions, mailing membership correspondence, or destroying out-dated documents. Joint marketers are business entities with which we jointly offer, endorse, or sponsor membership products or services.

     As you can see, these service providers and joint marketers allow us to more efficiently and more effectively provide membership services to you or to better meet your membership needs. The categories of information that we may disclose to service providers or joint marketers include:

• Information that we receive from you on applications or other forms, such as your name, address, social security number, or membership number;
• Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates, or others; and
• Information that we receive from consumer reporting agencies, such as your creditworthiness and credit history.

     These entities with which we share personal information are required by contract to maintain the confidentiality of that information, and to only use that information to perform the tasks for which we provided it. We do not authorize these parties to use or disclose your personal information for any purpose other than for the express purpose of performing work on our behalf, as detailed within our agreements with them, or as required or permitted by law.

How We Maintain the Confidentiality and Security of Your Information

     We carefully restrict access to nonpublic personal information to our employees, our service contract providers, and our affiliates and subsidiaries. The right of our employees, our service contract providers, and our affiliates and subsidiaries to further disclose and use the information is limited by our employee handbook, applicable law, and nondisclosure agreements where appropriate. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with Federal and State law to guard your nonpublic personal information. In situations where State of South Carolina privacy law is more protective of your nonpublic personal information, we will protect your information in accordance with State of South Carolina law.

Using the Worldwide Web

     You have reached this Joint Privacy Notice electronically through your use of the worldwide web. If you have reached this site by a link from another website, or if you link to another website from this site, then you should understand that those sites are not bound by the terms of this Joint Privacy Notice. Once you select a link that takes you to any website, you are subject to the privacy policies – or to the lack of privacy and security policies – of the website that you have chosen. We are not responsible for the collection, use, or security of information by those companies or organizations. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy policies of any website reached through a link from our website or from which you have reached our website.

Conclusion

     If you have any questions or comments concerning this Joint Privacy Notice or our privacy standards and procedures, or if you would like a printed copy of this Joint Privacy Notice in brochure format, then please write to us at Compliance Department, Post Office Box 754, Columbia, South Carolina 29202-0754.