Online Privacy Policy

 

View Our Standard Privacy Policy

 

Last updated 2/24/22

Privacy on the Web

At i-bank, we believe the confidentiality and protection of consumer information is one of our fundamental responsibilities.  And while information is critical to providing quality service, we recognize that one of our most important assets is our customers’ trust. 

This privacy policy has been compiled to give you a clear understanding of how we collect, use, protect or otherwise handle your personally identifiable information in accordance with your use of our website and the Independent Bank Mobile app (the “Sites”).  Please read this notice carefully to understand how we handle user privacy. 

Personal Information We Collect

We collect information from you when you register on our site, fill out a form, provide us with feedback on our products and services, use our chat feature, or enter information on our site through other online fields, including your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, or other details to help you with your experience. 

How We Use Your Information

  • To personalize your experience and to allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested
  • To improve our website in order to better serve you
  • To allow us to better serve you in responding to your customer service requests
  • To send periodic emails regarding products and services
  • To follow up with you after correspondence (live chat, email or phone inquiries)

How We Share Your Information

Please see i-bank's Privacy Notice for Customers for information on how personal information may be shared and how you may be able to limit certain types of sharing .

How We Protect Your Information

The privacy of the communications between you (your browser) and our servers is ensured using cryptography. Cryptography scrambles messages exchanged between your browser and our online banking server. Encryption happens as follows: When you go to the sign-on page for online banking, your browser establishes a secure session with our server. The secure session is established using a protocol called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Encryption. This protocol requires the exchange of what are called public and private keys. Keys are random numbers chosen for that session and are only known between your browser and our server. After the keys are exchanged, your browser will use the numbers to scramble (encrypt) the messages sent between your browser and our server. Both sides require the keys, because they need to de-scramble (decrypt) the messages when they are received. The SSL protocol, not only ensures privacy, but also ensures that no other browser can "impersonate" your browser, nor alter any of the information sent. You can tell whether your browser is in secure mode by looking for the secured lock symbol at the bottom of your browser window.

In the event of a data security breach, we will contact you and/or the relevant authorities as required by law.

Other Information We Collect

Usage Data

We, and our third-party providers, may collect usage data that cannot be used to identify you, such as your device’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, browser version, the referral site that brought you to our website, the pages of our Sites that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data. 

Information regarding your location

While using our mobile application, in order to provide features of our mobile application, we may collect, with your permission, information regarding your location. 

We use this information to provide location-based messages, offers, and interactions and to improve and customize our service. Location information may be collected when you are using the Independent Bank Mobile app as well as when the app is not in use, depending on your selection.  You can enable or disable access to this information at any time, through your device settings.

How We Use and Share Non-personal Information

We use non-personal information to:

  • Understand and save users’ preferences for future visits
  • Keep track of advertisements
  • Compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions in order to offer better site experiences and tools in the future.

We may also use trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf.

Tracking Technologies and Cookies

i-bank uses third party cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Sites and store certain information.  Tracking technologies used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our service.  We may use third-party advertising service providers to distribute advertisements on our behalf on other websites.  These advertisements may contain tracking technologies so that we may track the effectiveness of our advertising.

The technologies we use may include:

Cookies or Browser Cookies.  A cookie is a small file placed on your device.  You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies.  You do this through your browser settings.  Since each browser is a little different, look at your browser’s Help Menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies.  If you turn cookies off, some of the features that make your site experience more efficient may not function properly.

Flash Cookies.  Certain features of our Sites may use local stored objects (or Flash Cookie) to collect and store information about your preferences or your activity on our Sites.  Flash Cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as those used for Browser Cookies.  For more information on how you can delete Flash Cookies, please read “Where can I change the settings for disabling, or deleting local shared objects?”

Web Beacons. Certain sections of our Sites and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifts) that permit Independent Bank, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of a certain section and verifying system and server integrity). 

Online Behavioral Advertising

We may work with third-party advertising service providers to deliver targeted advertisements based on your activities on our sites, including pages visited, to help determine which ads would be of interest to you.  Our online behavioral advertising will utilize the AdChoices icon, which will give you the ability to opt-out of receiving such advertisements in the future.  If you choose to opt-out, you may still receive other non-targeted, online advertisements from us.

Third-party Disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information, unless we provide you with advance notice.  This does not include website hosting partners and other parties, who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or serving our users, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential.  We may also release information when its release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety.  However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Third-Party Links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may offer third-party products or services on our website.  These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies.  We, therefore, have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites.  Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Social Media Sites

Independent Bank may engage on social media platforms like Facebook®, Twitter®, and LinkedIn® that allow sharing and collaboration among users.  Any content you post on an official Independent Bank social media page is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy of that particular platform.  Also, when visiting any Independent Bank social media page, you are subject to any Independent Bank Privacy Notices, Social Media User Terms and Guidelines. 

Children

We comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and we do not knowingly market or collect information from children under the age of 13.

Updates to This Privacy Policy

This Online Privacy Policy is subject to change, and so accordingly, you should review it periodically.  If we make changes, we will revise the “Last Updated” date at the top of this policy.  Any changes to this Policy will become effective when we post the revised Policy on the site.  Your use of the site following these changes means that you accept the terms of the revise Policy.