CCPA

Privacy Policy for California Residents

Effective Date: 01/01/2023
Last Updated on: 1/3/2024

This Privacy Policy for California Residents supplements the information contained in Optima Tax Relief, LLC’s (“Company,” “we,” or “us”) general privacy policy located at https://optimataxrelief.com/about-us/privacy/ and applies solely to all visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (“consumers” or “you”). We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Policy.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer, household, or device (“personal information”). Personal information does not include:

• Publicly available information from government records
• Deidentified or aggregated consumer information
• Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, such as:
  • • personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994;
    • health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA), clinical trial data, or other qualifying research data.

In particular, we have collected the following categories of personal information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

Category	Examples	Collected
A. Identifiers.	A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.	Yes
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).	A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories.	Yes
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.	Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information).	Yes
D. Commercial information.	Records of personal property, products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.	No
E. Biometric information.	Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data.	No
F. Internet or other similar network activity.	Browsing history, search history, information on a consumer’s interaction with a website, application, or advertisement.	Yes
G. Geolocation data.	Physical location or movements.	Yes
H. Sensory data.	Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.	No
I. Professional or employment-related information.	Current or past job history or performance evaluations.	Yes
J. Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)).	Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records.	Yes
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information.	Profile reflecting a person’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.	No
L. Sensitive personal information.	Social Security, driver’s license, state identification card, or passport number; account log-in, financial account, debit card, or credit card number in combination with any required security or access code, password, or credentials allowing access to an account; precise geolocation; racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, or union membership; the contents of mail, email, and text messages unless we are the intended recipient of the communication; and genetic data.	Yes

 

We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from you or your authorized agent (i.e., a person that has been legally granted the rights to act on your behalf). For example, from forms you complete, documents you provide, or products and services you purchase.
• Indirectly from you. For example, through information we collect from you in the course of providing services to you or in the course of facilitating an employment or business relationship with you, as applicable.
• Directly and indirectly from activity on our website (LINK TO WEBSITE) or our Optima Tax App. For example, from submissions through our website portal or website usage details collected automatically (such as cookies and web beacons).
• Directly from our service providers and other third parties that we interact with in connection with the services we perform or for our operational purposes. For example, marketing companies, companies providing system security maintenance, operating systems and platforms, companies that support human resource and workforce management activities, and data analytics providers.
• Directly from our affiliates and related parties. For example, from affiliates who may provide other services to you or for which we provide operational support.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business or commercial purposes:

• To fulfill or meet the reason you provided the information. For example, if you share your name and contact information to request a price quote or ask a question about our products or services, we will use that personal information to respond to your inquiry. If you provide your personal information to purchase a product or service, we will use that information to process your payment and facilitate delivery. If you provide your information as a part of an application for employment, we will use that information to evaluate your suitability for the position you apply to and, if hired, we will use your information to manage an employment relationship. If you provide your personal information to enroll as a tax partner, we will use that information to process your enrollment and facilitate our business relationship. We may also save your information to facilitate new product orders or process returns.
• To advertise our products and services to you.
• To provide, support, personalize, and develop our Website, products, and services.
• To create, maintain, customize, and secure your account with us.
• To process your requests, purchases, transactions, and payments and prevent transactional fraud.
• To provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including to investigate and address your concerns and monitor and improve our responses.
• To personalize your Website experience and to deliver content and product and service offerings relevant to your interests, including targeted offers and ads through our Website, third-party sites, and via email or text message (with your consent, where required by law).
• To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collections.
• To help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of our Website, products and services, databases and other technology assets, and business.
• For testing, research, analysis, and product development, including to develop and improve our Website, products, and services.
• To protect the rights, property, or safety of us, our employees, or others.
• To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
• As described to you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA.
• To evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us is among the assets transferred.

We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.

DISCLOSING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. We only make these business purpose disclosures under written contracts that describe the purposes, require the recipient to keep the personal information confidential, and prohibit using the disclosed information for any purpose except performing the contract. In the preceding twelve (12) months, Company has disclosed personal information for a business purpose to the categories of third parties indicated in the chart below.

We do not sell personal information. In the preceding twelve (12) months, Company has not sold personal information.

Personal Information Category	Category of Third-Party Recipients
	Business Purpose Disclosures	Sales
A. Identifiers	Our third-party service providers, such as advertising partners, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, information security companies, human resource and workforce management companies, and companies that conduct background and credit checks in connection with employment applications. Other third parties, such as government entities and our affiliates.	None
B. California Customer Records personal information categories	Our third-party service providers, such as advertising partners, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, information security companies, human resource and workforce management companies, and companies that conduct background and credit checks in connection with employment applications. Other third parties, such as government entities and our affiliates.	None
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law	Our third-party service providers, such as companies who assist us with legally mandated reporting requirements to government entities. Other third parties, such as government entities and our affiliates.	None
D. Commercial information	None	None
E. Biometric information	None	None
F. Internet or other similar network activity	Our third-party service providers, such as data analytics providers.	None
G. Geolocation data	Our third-party service providers, such as data analytics providers.	None
H. Sensory data	None	None
I. Professional or employment-related information	Our third-party service providers, such as human resource and workforce management companies, and companies that conduct background and credit checks in connection with employment applications. Other third parties, such as our affiliates.	None
J. Non-public education information	Our third-party service providers, such as human resource and workforce management companies, and companies that conduct background and credit checks in connection with employment applications. Other third parties, such as our affiliates.	None
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information	None	None
L. Sensitive personal information	Our third-party service providers, such as operating systems and platforms, information security companies, human resource and workforce management companies, and companies that conduct background and credit checks in connection with employment applications. Other third parties, such as our affiliates.	None

 

Deidentified Patient Information

We do not sell or disclose deidentified patient information exempt from the CCPA to third parties.

YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES

Subject to certain exclusions and limitations, the CCPA provides consumers (California residents) with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Right to Know and Data Portability

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months (the “right to know”). Once we receive your request and confirm your identity (see Exercising Your Rights to Know, Delete, or Correct), we will review your request to determine if any exception or other limitation on our obligation to disclose the information applies. If an exception or other limitation does not apply, we will disclose to you:

• The categories of personal information we collected about you.
• The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting, selling, or sharing that personal information.
• The categories of third parties with whom we disclose that personal information.
• If we sold or shared your personal information, a list disclosing:
  • the categories of personal information that we sold or shared; and
  • the categories of third parties to whom we sold or shared your personal information, identifying the categories of personal information for each category of third parties to whom the personal information was sold or shared.
• If we disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, a list disclosing:
  • the categories of personal information that we disclosed; and
  • the categories of persons to whom we disclosed for a business purpose.
• The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).

Right to Delete

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions (the “right to delete”). Once we receive your request and confirm your identity (see Exercising Your Rights to Know, Delete, or Correct), we will review your request to see if an exception allowing us to retain the information applies. We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) or contractor(s) to:

1. Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
2. Help to ensure security and integrity to the extent the use of personal information is reasonably necessary and proportionate for those purposes.
3. Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
4. Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
5. Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
6. Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the ability to complete such research, if you previously provided informed consent.
7. Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
8. Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.
9. Comply with a legal obligation.

We will delete or deidentify personal information not subject to one of these exceptions from our records and will direct our service providers to take similar action.

Right to Correct

You have the right to request that we correct inaccurate personal information that we may maintain about you. Once we receive your request and confirm your identity (see Exercising Your Rights to Know, Delete, or Correct), we will review your request to determine if the information we maintain about you is in accurate based on the totality of the circumstances. We may require you to provide documentation to demonstrate that the information we maintain about you is inaccurate. We may deny your request if:

1. The personal information we maintain about you is more likely than not accurate based on the totality of the circumstances.
2. We have denied your request to correct the same alleged inaccuracy within the past six months of receiving the request.
3. We have a good-faith, reasonable, and documented belief that a request to correct is fraudulent or abusive.

If we determine that your request is valid and the personal information we maintain about you is inaccurate, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to correct the inaccurate personal information existing in our systems. Alternatively, we may delete the alleged inaccurate personal information instead of correcting the information if the deletion of the personal information does not negatively impact you, or you consent to the deletion. On request, we shall disclose the specific pieces of personal information that we maintain and have collected about you to allow you to confirm that we have corrected the inaccurate information that was the subject of your request to correct.

Exercising Your Rights to Know, Delete, or Correct

To exercise your rights to know, delete, or correct described above, please submit a request by either:

• Calling us at (800)536-0734.
• Emailing us at privacy@optimataxrelief.com.
• Visiting https://optimataxrelief.com/about-us/privacy/.

Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request to know, delete, or correct related to your personal information. To designate an authorized agent, you must provide us with a valid Power of Attorney granting your authorized agent the authority to act on your behalf with regard to tax and legal matters, including the right to make information requests pursuant to California law.

We do not knowingly collect, sell, share, or retain personal information of persons under the age of 18. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 16, we will delete that information. If you believe that we might have any personal information about a child under 16, you may also make a request to know, delete, or correct on behalf of your child using the submission methods designated above.

You may only submit a request to know twice within a 12-month period. Your request to know, delete, or correct must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative, which may include:
  • First and last name;
  • Address;
  • Phone number; and
  • Last four digits of your Social Security number.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.

You do not need to create an account with us to submit a request to know, delete, or correct. However, we do consider requests made through your password protected account sufficiently verified when the request relates to personal information associated with that specific account.

We will only use personal information provided in the request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make it.

Response Timing and Format

We will confirm receipt of your request within ten (10) business days. If you do not receive confirmation within the 10-day timeframe, please contact our privacy team at privacy@optimataxrelief.com, or call us at (800)536-0734.

We endeavor to substantively respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to another 45 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.

If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.

Any disclosures we provide will cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of your request. We will endeavor to provide disclosures beyond the 12-month period preceding our receipt of your request unless doing so proves impossible or would involve disproportionate effort, or you request data for a specific time period. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable, including any explanation as to why we cannot provide disclosures beyond the 12-month period, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination and Non-Retaliation

We will not discriminate against you or retaliate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Retaliate against you if you are an employee, job applicant, or independent contractor.

However, we may offer you certain financial incentives permitted by the CCPA that can result in different prices, rates, or quality levels. Any CCPA-permitted financial incentive we offer will reasonably relate to your personal information’s value and contain written terms that describe the program’s material aspects. Participation in a financial incentive program would require your prior opt-in consent, which you would be able to revoke at any time. We currently do not provide any financial incentives in exchange for the collection, sale, sharing, or retention of personal information.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to amend this privacy policy at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this privacy policy, we will post the updated notice on the Website and update the notice’s effective date. Your continued use of our Website following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.

Contact Information

If you have any questions or comments about this notice, the ways in which Opima Tax Relief, LLC collects and uses your information described here and in the Privacy Policy, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under California law, please do not hesitate to contact us at:

Phone: (800)536-0734
Website: https://optimataxrelief.com
Email: privacy@optimataxrelief.com

Postal Address:

Optima Tax Relief, LLC
Attn: Privacy Team
6 Hutton Centre Boulevard, Suite 200
Santa Ana, California 92707

If you need to access this Policy in an alternative format due to having a disability, please contact privacy@optimataxrelief.com and (800)536-0734.