Privacy

Revised: 02/14/2022

Peoria Ford Privacy Policy

  1. Overview
  2. Our dealership ("Peoria Ford", "dealership", "we", or "us") takes your privacy seriously and is committed to privacy and transparency in our information practices. This Privacy Policy (our "Privacy Policy") explains the privacy and information practices of our dealership, and the rights and choices you have regarding your personal information that we collect.

  3. Sources and Types of Information We Collect
  4. The information we collect varies depending on the manner and circumstances in which you interact with our dealership.

    Information We Collect From You. We may collect personal information directly from you, including:

    • Customer Contact information. When you shop for a vehicle, schedule services, or create an online account with us, we request information such as your name, address, e-mail address, username, password, and telephone numbers. This information transfers securely to our internal customer relations systems (the "CRM"). Your information may be used to provide you with information you've requested about our company, our vehicles, our products and our services, or to provide you with special notices such as warranty or recall information. At any point, you have the option to indicate by either telephone or email that you no longer wish to be contacted. If you start your vehicle search process on one of the manufacturers' websites and input your contact information, the manufacturer will connect you with a dealership, such as ours, to complete your vehicle purchasing process.
    • Purchases and payments information. If you purchase vehicles, products, or services from us, whether in-person, online, or over the phone, we collect information related to your order, which may include name, billing and shipping address, and payment details. We may work with external payment processors and fulfillment partners to process these payments.
    • Creditworthiness. If you apply for financing a vehicle, products, or services, we may request information related to creditworthiness. In such event, we will provide you with the appropriate notices and will only use the creditworthiness information in accordance with applicable federal and state laws.
    • Communications and support. If you contact us by email, mail, phone, chat or otherwise regarding vehicles, products, or services, we collect and maintain a record of your contact details, communications and our responses. If you call us, we may also record calls and maintain logs and records of those calls.
    • Inquiries and requests. We also collect personal information when you submit information to or request information from us (such as request a quote, find a vehicle or locate a dealer) or sign up for marketing and communications from us. The information we may collect includes your name, contact information, location, vehicle(s) of interest, current vehicle and other information.
    • Events, contests and promotions. We may also run contests, sweepstakes or other promotions or participate in certain events (collectively, "Events"), online and offline. If you choose to participate in an Event, we may ask you for personal information, including your name, age, contact information, vehicle of interest or other information. Certain Events may be co-branded with one of our partners or run on an external website, such as Facebook. In these instances, the collection of your personal information may occur directly or through an external website.
    • Social Media and User content. If you choose to engage on our social media pages, we may maintain records about the content you post, such as comments, reviews or questions, as well as data and time and other metadata associated with your user content. We may also receive profile information such as name, address, social media account information, and profile image. User content may also be viewable by other visitors.

    Other Sources of Information.

    • Social Media. If you choose to link or sign up using your social network (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Google), we may collect information from these social media services, including information relating to your use of the dealership websites in relation to these services.
    • Third-Party Services. We may collect information about you from third-party services, such as advertising partners and analytics providers. We may append this information to the information we have already collected about you. For example, we may enhance or update the personal information we have about you, with information obtained from third party sources, such as data brokers and public records. We also collect device identifier information from your interactions with our online advertisements and purchase e-mail or similar lists from third parties for advertising and marketing purposes. In addition, we may collect information about how individuals interact with us or comment about our dealership and our products and services through social media. Also, if you take advantage of a third party or affiliate offer, we may receive certain information from that third party about your interaction with them.
    • Information we collect automatically. We automatically collect certain deidentified information from you when you use the websites, including internet or other network activity information such as your IP address, browsing and search history on our website (including content you have viewed in the websites), the advertising partner that referred you to our website (if applicable), and Cookies (as defined below). If you utilize our website to contact us by phone or online inquiry and provide additional personal information, we may connect this personal information with the previously deidentified IP address and browsing and search history to further enhance your customer profile.
    • Usage Information. We collect information regarding your use of our websites and any other user content that you generate through our websites.
    • Device Information. As discussed above (Information we collect automatically), we collect deidentified information about the device you use to access the websites, including your IP address, model of your device, time zone setting, screen resolution, operating system, browser, and platform.
    • Location data. In the event you provide information through our website, there are circumstances where we might ask you to provide your geographic location to initiate a transaction or provide services. In some cases, Third-Party service providers may deliver advertising to you based on your geographic location. However, such geographic data is not shared with Us.

  5. Use of Personal Information
  6. We may use the personal information we collect for the following business and commercial purposes:

    • To provide vehicles, products, and services: to provide vehicles, products, and services; to authenticate users; for recall purposes; to provide and communicate with you about our websites, vehicles, products and services; to respond to your requests; to fulfill your orders and process your payments; to provide technical support; and for other customer service and support purposes.
    • Safety, recall and warranty: for safety, recall and warranty purposes, such as to process recall and warranty claims, and for other purposes related to vehicle safety.
    • Analyzing and improving our websites and dealerships: to better understand how users access our websites, including across your devices. Also, to better understand how customers interact and experience our vehicle, product and service offerings, for other research and analytical purposes, such as to evaluate and improve our dealerships, services and business operations, develop new features, products, or services, and to otherwise improve our customer's experiences.
    • Communicating with you: to provide you with the information or services that you have requested (e.g., to provide a quote or to contact you to book a test drive); to respond to your inquiries; to administer surveys and questionnaires, such as for market research or user satisfaction purposes; and for other customer service purposes.
    • Personalizing content and experiences: to personalize the content you see when you use the websites. For example, we may provide you with services based on the zip code settings you have chosen.
    • Advertising, marketing and promotional purposes: to contact you about our vehicles, products, and services or send you promotional materials, offers or other information we think may interest you; to administer contests; to reach you with more relevant ads; and to measure and improve our advertising and marketing campaigns.
    • Supporting our general business operations: relating to audits and assessments of our business operations, security controls, financial controls, compliance with legal obligation, and otherwise relating to the administration of our general business, accounting, record keeping and legal functions.
    • Securing and protecting our assets and rights: to protect our business operations, secure our network and information technology, assets and services; to prevent and detect fraud, unauthorized activities, access and other misconduct; where we believe necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding suspected violations of our Terms of Use and other agreements, as well as fraud, illegal activities and other situations involving potential threats to the rights or safety of any person or third party.
    • Complying with legal obligations: to comply with the law or legal proceedings. For example, we may disclose information in response to subpoenas, court orders, and other lawful requests by regulators and law enforcement, including responding to national security or law enforcement disclosure requirements. We will also disclose your information where required to effectuate the titling and registration of vehicles.
    • Combine Information: to combine all the information we collect or receive about you for any of the foregoing purposes.

    Aggregate and De-identified Information. We also may use de-identified information and create anonymous and aggregated data sets and reports in order to assess, improve and develop our business, products and services, prepare benchmarking reports and for other research and analytics purposes.

  7. Disclosure of Personal Information
  8. We consider the information you choose to share with us personal and confidential. We will not rent or sell your name, address, e-mail address, credit card information or personal information to any third party. However, there are times we disclose your personal information to third parties, subject to confidentiality agreements, in order to provide and improve our products and services, reach customers with more relevant information and offers, inform manufacturers for warranty and safety purposes, to make available third-party offers you may be interested in, and as otherwise set out below.

    Affiliates, Vendors and Providers. We share personal information with our vendors and others who we work with to make certain products and services available, such as:

    • Affiliates: to our affiliate and subsidiary companies; however, if we do so, their use and disclosure of your personal information will be in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
    • Vendors: to our third-party vendors (ie. auto finance lenders), service providers, contractors or agents who use such data in order to perform functions on our behalf.
    • Third party providers: some of the products and services we make available to you may be supported by third parties, who may collect and receive personal information about you as part of their provision of the particular product or service.

    Marketing Partners and Other Third Parties. We may share personal information with dealers and other select third parties, for marketing, research and analytics purposes.

    • Marketing partners: we may share your personal information with certain third parties so that they may send you offers and other information we think you may be interested in.
    • Other third parties: we may share your personal information with other third parties that provide advertising, campaign measurement, online analytics, and related services. These other third parties may receive or access Usage Information and other personal information in order to help us better reach individuals with relevant ads and measure our ad campaigns, or to better understand how individuals interact with our Websites and online services overtime and across devices.

    Business and Operational Purposes. In addition, we may disclose personal information in support of our business and operational purposes, including:

    • Manufacturers: in certain circumstances, we are required to share personal information, such as name, contact information, and other data about your vehicles and interests with the vehicle the manufacturer so they can administrate safety, recall and warranty programs, and otherwise use this information for research and marketing purposes.
    • Business transfers: as part of any merger, acquisition, financing, sale of company assets or interests in the respective company, or in the case of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership, including during negotiations related to such business transfers.
    • Protecting rights and interests: to protect or defend the safety, rights, property, or security of our dealership, third parties or the general public, including to protect the security interests in vehicles, to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, technical issues, or other activity which we, in our sole discretion, consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity. We may also use personal information as evidence in litigation in which we are involved, and as necessary to enforce this Privacy Policy or our Terms of Use and other applicable agreements with you.
    • Complying with legal obligations: to comply with applicable legal or regulatory obligations, including as part of a judicial proceeding, in response to a subpoena, warrant, court order or other legal process, or as part of an investigation of or request by law enforcement or a government official.
    • Title Transfers and Vehicle Registrations: Additionally, in some cases our dealership will submit your personal and vehicle information to the appropriate state authorities to transfer the title and registration of a vehicles that are part of your transactions with us.

    Aggregate and De-Identified Information. We may use and disclose aggregate, anonymous, or de-identified information about users for marketing, advertising, research, compliance, or other purposes.

  9. Cookies and other tracking information
  10. We and our third-party providers use cookies, clear GIFs/pixel tags, JavaScript, local storage, log files, and other mechanisms to automatically collect and record information about your browsing activities, and use of our websites. We may combine this "usage data" with other personal information we collect about you. We use this usage data to track bugs and errors, provide and improve our websites, verify account credentials, allow logins, track sessions, prevent fraud, and protect our website, as well as for targeted marketing and advertising, to personalize content and for analytics purposes.

    Cookies. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your web browser for record-keeping purposes. Some cookies allow us to make it easier for you to navigate our website, while others are used to enable a faster log-in process or to allow us to track your activities while using our website. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can edit your browser options to block them in the future. The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Some aspects of the website may not work properly if you disable cookies.

    Clear GIFs, pixel tags and other technologies. Clear GIFs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer's hard drive, clear GIFs are embedded invisibly on web pages. We may use clear GIFs (also referred to as web beacons, web bugs or pixel tags), in connection with our website to, among other things, track the activities visitors of our websites, help us manage content, and compile statistics about usage of our websites. We and our service providers also use clear GIFs in HTML emails to our customers, to help us track email response rates, identify when our emails are viewed, and track whether our emails are forwarded.

    Third-Party Analytics. We may use third-party analytics companies, for example Google Analytics (see privacy policy and opt-out) to evaluate use of our website and marketing communications. We use these tools to help us understand use of, and to improve, our websites, performance, ad campaigns, and user experiences. These entities may use cookies and other tracking technologies, such as web beacons or local storage objects (LSOs), to perform their services.

    Preferences. You can opt out of or change your preferences for most third-party cookies and tags on our Websites, by adjusting your cookie settings using our cookie preference manager. In addition, you may block or disable cookies for the device and browser you are using, through your browser settings; however, certain features on our Websites may not be available or function properly if you block or disable cookies.

  11. Interest Based Advertising
  12. We may work with third-party ad networks, channel partners, measurement services and others ("third-party ad companies") to personalize content and advertising, and to manage our advertising on third-party sites and online services. We and these third-party ad companies may use cookies, pixels tags, and other tools (which we may refer to collectively as "targeting cookies") to collect activity information from our website (as well as on third-party sites and services), as well as IP address, device ID, cookie and advertising IDs, and other identifiers, and location information (about you); we and these third-party ad companies use this information to provide you more relevant ads and content and to improve and evaluate the success of such ads and content.

    We also may share certain encrypted customer list information (such as your email address) with third parties-such as Facebook and Google-so that we can better target ads and content to our users, and others with similar interests, within their services. These third parties use the personal information we provide to help us target ads and to enforce their terms, but we do not permit them to use or share the data we submit with other third-party advertisers.

    Updating Your Preferences

    The following is a list of ways you can update your ad preferences with these providers:

    To clear your Cookies and browser cache, locate your browser settings and privacy controls. This process depends on your internet browser and more information is available in your browser's help section. If you revisit one of our websites after clearing your Cookies and cache, Cookies will be gathered, and you may begin to see our Interest-Based Ads again.

    If you are receiving ads from networks in the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) or who follow the Digital Advertising Alliance's Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, you can follow these links to opt-out of their personalized ads: http://optout.networkadvertising.org/ & http://optout.aboutads.info

    Note - You may still see ads, but they will no longer be based on your interests and may be more general in nature.

    Facebook - When utilizing Facebook, if you prefer not to see our advertisements you can follow the steps outlined here to hide all future ads from your news feed: https://www.facebook.com/help/146952742043748 Find out more information on Facebook advertising here: https://www.facebook.com/help/516147308587266/

    This site is being monitored by one or more third-party monitoring software(s), and may capture information about your visit that will help us improve the quality of our service. You may opt-out from the data that SmartPiXL is collecting on your visit through a universal consumer options page located at https://smart-pixl.com/Unsub/unsub.html

    Some information, like how you came to our site, is available through Google Analytics. You can learn more about how Google uses your information at https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ and you can opt-out of Google Analytics here if you choose too https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

  13. SECURITY
  14. We have implemented a variety of safeguards designed to protect personal information we collect from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. However, no method of electronic transmission or storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. You should take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your password, phone, and computer by, among other things, signing off after using a shared computer, choosing a robust password that nobody else knows or can easily guess, and keeping your log-in and password private. We are not responsible for any lost, stolen, or compromised passwords, or for any activity on your account via unauthorized password activity.

  15. THIRD PARTY AND CO-BRANDED SITES AND OTHER SERVICES
  16. Our websites may contain links to third-party websites, operated by a third party and subject to a different privacy policy. You should review the privacy policy on any website, mobile application or online service. Please be aware that we are not responsible for and cannot control the privacy practices of other websites or third parties.

  17. CHILDREN
  18. Our websites are not targeted and directed at children under age 16 and we do not knowingly collect any personal information from a child under 16. If you believe we have inadvertently collected personal information about a child, please contact us and we will take steps to delete this information.

  19. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
  20. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy as we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time, in which case we will post the updated Privacy Policy on our websites. If we make any changes to this Privacy Policy that materially affect our practices with regard to the personal information we have previously collected from you, we will endeavor to provide you with notice in advance of such change, such as by changing the effective date of the Privacy Policy or notifying you at your email address of record. Your continued use of the websites following a change in the Privacy Policy represents consent to the updated Privacy Policy to the fullest extent permitted by law.

  21. CONTACT US
  22. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us via phone.

We collect and may share the following categories of personal information about you based on your specific interactions with the company. The following summarizes our activity over the past 12 months:

Categories

Examples

Purposes

Shared in Last 12 Months

Identifiers

Your contact information (name, postal address, email address, and phone number), unique personal identifier, online identifier (e.g., account name), Internet Protocol (IP) address, identification information (such as social security #, driver's license #, state ID #, military ID # or passport #) or other similar identifiers.

To respond to your requests and inquiries; communicate with you regarding our products or services; enter into transactions with you; process your transactions; complete government forms; obtain your authorization to collect payment from you; to acknowledge your receipt of documents; or send you marketing communications.

To confirm your identity, your age, the status of your legal right to drive and your insurance coverage.

To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collections.

For security and fraud protection purposes.

OEMs

Financial Institutions

Gov't Agencies

Marketing Vendors Transaction Support Vendors (ie. check guaranty, rental car and payment processors)

Customer Records

Paper and electronic customer records containing personal information, such as name, address, telephone number, insurance information, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, your signature, education, employment, employment history, and copies of your government-issued identification or military ID.

To respond to your requests and inquiries; communicate with you regarding our products or services; enter into transactions with you; process your transactions; complete government forms; obtain your authorization to collect payment from you; to acknowledge your receipt of documents; or send you marketing communications.

To confirm your identity, your age, the status of your legal right to drive and your insurance coverage.

To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collections.

Vehicle and product OEMs

Financial Institutions

Gov't Agencies

Marketing and Transaction Support vendors

Internet or Other Electronic Network Activity Information

Your IP address, browsing and search history on our websites, cookies, and your interaction with our advertisements.

To improve experiences, tailor our operations and market relevant products and services to you.

Marketing support vendors

Protected Classifications

Characteristics of protected classifications under state or federal law such as sex, age, race or citizenship.

Copies of your government issued identification (contains your image, date of birth, physical description, sex); passport (includes nationality and national origin); or military ID (includes rank).

Your veteran or military status.

To fulfill or meet the reason for which the information is provided or to provide you with information, products or services that you request from us.

To confirm your identity and legal right to drive.

To determine your eligibility for and process manufacturer rebates.

OEMs

Financial Institutions

Gov't Agencies

Commercial Information

Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies (sale/lease/service/maintenance/repair).

To communicate with you regarding our products/services, enter into transactions with you, process your transactions, or market to you.

To process your transactions; records retention requirements; appraise your current vehicle; send you information and marketing communications; retain records of sale/lease transactions as required by law; and fulfill warranty and recall obligations.

Vehicle and product OEMs

Financial Institutions

Gov't Agencies

Marketing / Transaction support vendors

Biometric Information

Your biometric information such as thumbprints or records of your voice.

To confirm your identity; to communicate with you; and (with your permission) for training and quality assurance.

Not shared

Professional or Employment-Related Information and Education Information

Your occupation/employer and education.

To determine your eligibility for and process manufacturer rebates; communicate with you regarding our products or services; enter into transactions with you; process your transactions; or complete government forms.

Financial Institutions

Geolocation Data

Geographic location information about an individual, vehicle or device.

To improve experiences, tailor our operations and market relevant products and services to you.

To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collections.

Not Shared

Profiles and Inferences

Inferences drawn from any of the information identified above to create a profile about you reflecting your preferences, characteristics or behavior.

To improve experiences, tailor our operations and market relevant products and services to you.

Third party marketing support vendors