Last updated: July 20, 2023
Montana Credit Union, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, strive to serve your financial needs while protecting your identity, as well as any information we collect about you.
I. INTRODUCTION
Montana Credit Union (MCU) is committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of our online visitors and members. We recognize that individuals need to understand how their privacy is protected, so we have established the following privacy notice ("Privacy Notice") for our users.
This Privacy Notice explains what personal information MCU will collect about you from our MCU website and mobile applications, as well as from third-party and offline sources. This Privacy Notice also explains how we use, protect, and disclose information to provide you with digital services and other financial services. When you use our digital and financial services or otherwise provide us with your personal information, you consent to our collection, use, and sharing of the data as described in this Privacy Notice.
What does personal information mean? "Personal information" means personally identifiable information, such as your name, email address, telephone number, and account numbers. It does not include aggregated data that does not reveal your identity or anything about you individually. Rather, aggregated data consists of information about a group that includes you. Remember, aggregated data is not considered personal information.
II. INFORMATION COLLECTED BY MCU
Why does MCU collect personal information? We collect personal information because this information makes it possible for us to provide you with the full benefits of our financial services. MCU collects certain information from you, your devices, the applications you use to access our digital services, and from third-party sources so that we can provide these services to you.
1. INFORMATION THAT YOU PROVIDE TO MCU
You may provide personal information directly to MCU both online and offline for different reasons. This information includes, but is not limited to, your name, address, email address, and phone number. You may also provide personal information to MCU online when you complete an online form on our website or pay a bill online.
Other ways you may provide personal information are when you provide feedback to us through the MCU website, respond to surveys that we send you, provide information to MCU member service representatives online, or provide personal information to us through other online means.
What's more, you may provide personal information offline to MCU when you complete membership or credit applications (e.g., to open a MCU account or apply for a loan), provide information to MCU member service representatives offline, deposit money, use your debit card, or provide personal information to us through other offline means.
When you sign up for or maintain a financial account with MCU, you may provide the types of personal information described in our Privacy Notice, including but not limited to your Social Security number and employment information.
2. INFORMATION AUTOMATICALLY COLLECTED BY MCU
In addition to the information you provide, when you use our online services, we may also automatically collect the following types of information from your devices and applications that you use.
MCU Website: If you use the MCU website, we may collect certain information from your device or web browser, including but not limited to your browser type, your geographic location, the date and time of your visit, and the MCU website pages that you visit ("website data"). We may collect this information through the use of cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, and log files. Website data alone (i.e., when it is not associated with other personal information) is not deemed to be personal information.
MCU Mobile Application: If you choose to use the MCU mobile app, we may collect certain information from the app and your mobile device ("mobile app data"), including but not limited to geographic location information, unique device identifier information, and website data (as defined above). The mobile application may require access to the contact list on your mobile device in order to facilitate certain features within the application including, but not limited to, bill pay. If the MCU mobile app collects any sensitive information from your mobile device that is not identified here, then we will notify you before doing so.
3. INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM THIRD PARTY SOURCES
In addition to personal information that you provide to MCU, we may also collect information about you, including personal information, from third-party sources, including but not limited to credit reports from consumer reporting agencies and information from propensity information sellers ("third-party data"). This includes, but is not limited to, instances in which you affirmatively authorize third parties to provide us with information. Third-party data includes both personal information and information that is not personally identifiable to you.
When you sign up for an account with MCU, we may also collect information about you, including personal information, from third-party sources as described in our Privacy Notice, including, but not limited to your credit history, payment history, and account balances.
4. INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM ONLINE TOOLS
We may feature certain tools through our online services, such as online calculators ("online tools"). These online tools do not require you to log in or enter your contact information to use the online tool. The information you provide when using these online tools is not associated with you or your account and, for purposes of this Privacy Notice, is not considered to be personal information.
III. USE AND SHARING OF COLLECTED INFORMATION
- COLLECTED INFORMATION
MCU may use your personal information, third-party data, mobile app data, website data, and forum postings to:
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- Provide you with services or other products, financial services, and information that you have requested or in connection with our financial services;
- Maintain your account;
- Allow you to apply for products or services and process your applications and transactions;
- Manage our business, including performing accounting, auditing, and other internal functions;
- Verify your identity and authenticate you (such as when you request access to your account information);
- Communicate with you about your account, in response to your requests, to notify you about important information regarding financial services, and to provide you with other administrative information;
- Communicate with you about special offers, ads, events, or new products or services that may be of interest to you;
- Evaluate and improve our websites and other offerings;
- Provide you with member service;
- Personalize and tailor our services and otherwise enhance the member experience;
- Conduct research and perform analysis in order to measure, maintain, protect, develop, and improve our products and services;
- Use in the case of risk control, fraud detection, and prevention;
- Comply with laws and regulations, contractual obligations, and our own internal policies; and
- Use for other purposes as permitted by applicable law.
MCU may share or disclose collected information (including personal information) in the following situations:
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- With third parties acting on our behalf, such as third party payment card processors, call-center operators, shippers, servicers, marketing providers, people who analyze data for us, and other service providers;
- With other financial companies for joint marketing purposes (e.g., to bring you co-branded services or products);
- If MCU is involved in any merger, acquisition, sale of company assets, transition of service to another provider, or insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership, MCU reserves the right to transfer your collected information (including personal information) in connection with such transaction;
- If we determine a website or policy violation has occurred
- If we believe such disclosure is necessary to identify, contract, or bring legal action regarding injury or interference with the rights and property of MCU, including to enforce our rights against unauthorized access or attempted unauthorized access to our information technology assets or against other inappropriate use of our financial services;
- To report to credit bureaus;
- To comply with laws, regulations, court orders, and subpoenas or similar requests for information by authorities, or as otherwise required by law;
- To respond to an emergency;
- To protect the rights, property, safety, and security of members and others; and
- To assist us in preventing or investigating fraud, security, technical issues, or to otherwise manage risks.
If you are a MCU member, we may use and share your personal information as described in the MCU Privacy Notice. This notice also provides information about how you may limit certain types of sharing.
MCU does not share your personal information with nonaffiliated third parties for their own marketing purposes.
2. AGGREGATED DATA
MCU may aggregate collected information gathered from our various users (so that it no longer identifies you specifically) and share it with our business partners and other third parties. We may also store such aggregated data for a reasonable period of time after you terminate your account(s) or stop using our financial services.
The aggregated data may also be used by MCU or third parties for research purposes (including to help us improve our products). This, among other uses, allows companies to develop better products for MCU members.
3. WEBSITE DATA
In addition to the uses described above, MCU may use website data to improve our financial services, as well as help us understand how members are using our financial services. This information is also collected for statistical analysis, to determine what information is of most and least interest to our members, to improve the usefulness of the financial services, and finally, for other purposes described in this Privacy Notice. We may share website data with our business partners and other third parties (including for the reasons listed above).
IV. REVIEW AND CORRECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
You may review, correct, and update certain personal information (such as your name and contact information) by logging in to digital banking and editing the information listed in your account profile.
You may also correct or update your personal information by contacting us via our website, via secure message, or by making the request in person at any of our MCU locations.
V. OPTING OUT
You may occasionally receive emails from MCU, including emails about products or services, marketing or promotions, research, and/or other topics. To contact you, MCU may use the information you provide to us, including email, direct (postal) mail, or phone. You may, at any time, inform us that you do not want us to contact you with marketing or promotional communications by contacting us.
Do you wish to opt out of MCU's promotional emails? Simply click on the email opt out link. After you opt out of marketing and promotional messages, you'll still receive other transactional messages, such as notifications and information relating to your account and services. If you also wish to opt out of these transactional email notifications, simply unsubscribe using the opt out link.
Joint account holders: If either account holder opts out of email communications, the preference is applied to all email addresses on the account.
VI. SAFEGUARDING YOUR INFORMATION
MCU is committed to maintaining the security of the data you provide us. We use security controls that comply with applicable federal laws to protect against unauthorized access and use of your personal information that's in our custody or control. Safety measures may include computer safeguards, secured files, and buildings.
While we are focused on the security of your personal information, you must remember that the Internet is a global communications vehicle open to threats, viruses and intrusions from others. For this reason, we cannot promise, and you should not expect, that we will be able to protect your personal information at all times and in all circumstances. MCU cannot guarantee the security and privacy of transmissions via the Internet, and we will not be liable for any lack of security relating to the use of digital banking by you. You agree that you will not hold MCU liable for any damages resulting from any loss of privacy or security occurring in connection with any such communications.
VII. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS: YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
Are you a California resident? Under California law, you may have the right to request and receive certain information about our disclosure of your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes, and your choices with respect to such disclosures. However, because we will not share your personal information with our joint marketing partners without first giving you additional privacy choices, we are exempt from having to meet this requirement.
VIII. TRACKING; THIRD-PARTY ANALYTICS PROVIDERS; ADVERTISING
- DO NOT TRACK DISCLOSURE
Certain web browsers may provide a do-not-track ("DNT") option. You may be able to ask your browser to inform websites that you do not wish your activities to be tracked, either by cookies or other persistent identifiers, commonly called "DNT signals."
2. THIRD-PARTY ANALYTICS PROVIDERS
We work with third-party analytics providers, including but not limited to Google Analytics, to help us better understand how you use our website. Google Analytics provides us with certain data regarding the demographics of the users that visit the MCU website and digital banking.
To provide this service, Google Analytics may collect certain information about you from your computer, including but not limited to:
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- information regarding your visit (such as the pages you visit and the length of your visit)
- information about your device (such as your IP address)
- how you got to the website, and other information about you.
You can learn more about Google Analytics and how it collects and processes data (including how to control the information sent to Google) by visiting: www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.
You can opt-out of Google Analytics by using the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
Other ways you can opt out of other website data tracking include:
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- accessing the MCU websites via the private browsing function on your browser
- clearing the cookies on your browser on a regular basis, and
- going to http://www.google.com/ads/preferences/ to set your preferences on Google tracking.
3. ADVERTISING
Third parties may collect certain information on third-party websites where MCU advertises; however, we do not allow third parties to collect our users' personal information on our websites or through our online services.
IX. EXCLUSIONS
The MCU website and mobile app may contain links to websites owned by other companies. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of websites owned by other companies. We recommend that you carefully review the privacy notice for each of the websites you visit because MCU has no control over the privacy practices or content of these linked sites.
The MCU website and mobile app are intended for use within the U.S. (unless otherwise specified). This includes any information you provide using either our website or our mobile app.
Accordingly, if you do not reside in the U.S. and are using MCU digital banking, any personal information you provide to us may be transferred to and processed on computers in the U.S. and other countries.
The data protection and privacy laws of other countries, including the U.S., may not afford you the same level of protection as those in your own country. Do not provide your personal information to us if you do not want this information to be transferred outside of your country, or if the laws in your country restrict these types of transfers. We will handle the personal information you provide in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
By doing business or interacting with MCU, using our financial services, or by otherwise providing us with your personal information, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Notice and consent to the transfer, storage, and processing of your personal information to and within facilities located in the U.S. and other facility locations selected by MCU.
This Privacy Notice addresses our procedures for handling the personal information of members in the United States who are at least 13 years old. We do not seek to, nor do we knowingly collect, information from children under 13 years old. If a child has provided us with personal information, that child's parent or guardian may contact us to have the information deleted from our records. To do so, contact MCU.
X. CONTACT US
To update or change any of your information in person, visit one of our branch locations or contact us in one of the following ways:
By Postal Mail:
P.O. Box 5027
Great Falls, MT 59403
By Phone:
800-721-2242
Log in to digital banking and send us a secure message:
To request deletion of your digital banking data, or to close your account:
please contact us by the above methods or email [email protected].
XI. UPDATES TO PRIVACY NOTICE CONSENT
Each time you use our financial services, you are indicating you acknowledge and consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Notice.
From time to time, we may update this Privacy Notice. If we do, we will note the date that any changes are made and/or when they become effective (which you can find at the top of this page).
If the changes being made are material (that is, we make a major change in the important points of this Privacy Notice), we may notify you of the changes in a more prominent way, such as through an email. Your inaction or continued use of our financial services after the revised Privacy Notice is posted or after any such notices are sent will tell us that you agree to these changes. If you do not accept the terms outlined in this Privacy Notice or the revised Privacy Notice, please do not provide us with personal information or use our financial services.