Privacy Policy

Home Franchise Concepts, LLC (“HFC”) is committed to the protection of your personal data. For the purposes of this Policy, “HFC” or “we” refers to HFC and all HFC affiliates. This Privacy Policy sets out the basis on which we collect and use personal data about you as part of our business activities.

This Privacy Policy describes in detail who is responsible for the personal data that we collect about you, what personal data we collect, how we will use such personal data, who we may disclose it to and your rights and choices in relation to your personal data.

In this Privacy Policy we use the words “personal data” to describe information that is about you and which identifies you. Section 2 below sets out the personal data we collect in more detail.

1. Who is Responsible for the personal data that we Collect?

For the purpose of data protection law, HFC is the data controller in respect of the personal data that we collect and use as part of our business activities. This is because we determine the purpose for which your personal data is used and how we use your personal information.

2. What personal data do we Collect?

While some of the information collected is required for membership or business engagement purposes, other information is voluntarily given by the individual. The type of personal data that HFC may collect could include, but is not limited to, the following:

  • Your full name, address, phone, fax and email contact information
  • Information about your employment such as employer name, title, address, and the industry of your employer
  • Payment information
  • Photos
  • Preference information, such as the communications you receive from us
  • Information you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings, events, webinars and other programs
  • Any other information relating to you (or other individuals) that you provide to us.

If you are providing personal data to us relating to a third party, you confirm that (i) you have the consent of the third party or another legal basis to share such personal data with us; (ii) you have the consent of the third party or another legal basis for us to use their personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy; and (iii) that you have made the information in this Privacy Policy available to the third party.

Sensitive or Special Categories of Information

HFC only collects sensitive or special categories of data when voluntarily given by the individual, such as for statistical purposes only. HFC does not share this information with third parties for direct marketing purposes. Such information may include the following:

  • Date of birth
  • Ethnicity, nationality, gender and other demographic information

Website Usage Information

We collect information when you provide it to us, such as when you use the “contact us” feature on the website or otherwise communicate with us (such as by email or via our social media pages).

HFC collects certain information automatically when you use the website, such as the IP addresses and domain names of visitors, browser type, history of pages viewed and other usage information about your use of the website. We collect this information for site administration purposes, such as to analyze this data for trends and statistics. We may share statistical or aggregated information about our users with business partners, sponsors and other third parties. This data is used to customize our website content to deliver a better experience to our users. Please see the section below on cookies for more information.

3. How do we obtain your Personal Data?

As noted above, we collect information from you in the course of your use of this website, products and services. For example, we collect information from you when you register to attend the HFC Virtual Convention. We collect information from you when you contact or communicate with us (including through this website, by email or otherwise). We also collect your personal data while monitoring the HFC Virtual Convention website. We gather information about you when you provide it to us, or interact with us directly, for instance engaging with our staff or registering for an event. We may also in certain cases collect or receive information about you from other sources, such as from an administrative user in your organization.

 4. How do we use the personal data we Collect?

HFC collects personal data for the following principal purposes. We have also set out below the legal basis that we rely on to justify each use of your personal data.

Legal Bases

  • To provide the HFC Virtual Convention website to you
  • For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the HFC Virtual Convention website) and, depending on the circumstances, to perform a contract between you and us
  • To determine eligibility to register for and attend the HFC Virtual Convention
  • To register you for HFC Virtual Convention events
  • To provide you with attendee benefits, products or services that you have requested and related information about those products and services;
  • To communicate with you and to respond to questions that you have raised with us
  • To develop lists of attendees of the HFC Virtual Convention
  • To administer and improve the HFC Virtual Convention website
  • We may request your consent in circumstances where a legal justification over and above legitimate interest is required by applicable law (e.g., in relation to our use of certain cookies)
  • To process your registration payment for the HFC Virtual Convention
  • To administer surveys about the HFC Virtual Convention
  • To prevent and detect fraud;
  • To protect and enforce our legal rights.

 5. Who do we share your personal data with?

HFC reserves the right to disclose and/or transfer personal data to a third party if HFC has reason to believe that disclosing the personal data is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property, other website users or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities. Additionally, HFC may disclose personal data in response to a subpoena, warrant or other court order, or when we believe in good faith that a law, regulation, subpoena, warrant or other court order requires it – or authorizes us to do so – or to respond to an emergency situation.

We may share information with affiliated entities.

We may share your information with professional advisors, such as accountants and lawyers, who assist us in carrying out our business activities.

HFC may share personal data with third parties engaged to assist HFC in providing services to you or to carry out one or more of the purposes described above. These service providers are prohibited from using your personal data for any purpose other than to provide this assistance and are contractually required to protect personal data disclosed by HFC and to comply with law and the general privacy principles described in this Privacy Policy. We share your information with service providers, contractors and sub-contractors to help us provide the website, products, events and services. For example, we may use a service provider to process payment information, manage our events, provide a platform for our events, provide analytics or use third party software to manage our customer relationship management (CRM) system.

In addition to the uses and disclosure of personal data noted above, personal data of HFC registrants at our events may be shared with the following entities based on our legitimate interest to do so:

We share your personal data with our event sponsors so they may contact you with information about the sponsor’s activities, services and products. For example, personal data of registrants of the HFC Virtual Convention may be shared with exhibiting vendors for promotional purposes. You will have the option to opt out of sharing this information when you register for the programs or by contacting hfc.privacy@gohfc.com at any time. In some instances, if you opt out of allowing us to share your personal data, you will be unable to participate in a program or event. The information provided will contain your name, title, company and mailing address.

6. Security

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we use reasonable efforts to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal data transmitted to our website and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your personal data, we will use reasonable and appropriate procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized processing.

 7. Your Rights, including Removing, Correcting or Updating Personal Information

If you change your mind on how HFC discloses or uses your information, or wish to access, correct or update personal data (such as your address), we will endeavor to correct, update or remove the personal data you give us.

If you are a California resident, the California-specific privacy policy applies to you.

8. How Long will we Keep your Personal Data?

We will keep your personal data for the period of time that you are a franchisee of or otherwise affiliated with the HFC Group.

 9. Links to Other Websites

The HFC Virtual Convention website may contain links to other sites. These sites are not controlled by HFC and HFC is not responsible for any content contained on any such website. We are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by other sites, and the privacy practices employed by such sites may not be the same as HFC’s practices. As with our website, you should become familiar with any external party's privacy policy before visiting and/or providing any personal data through any such site.

10. Cookies

HFC uses cookies to manage the HFC Virtual Convention website. A cookie is a small file placed on your computer when you visit a website. Cookies are used to store information to manage your website experience such as your type of web browser. A cookie can also store preference information to customize your website experience.

Cookies help us understand how consumers use our websites and emails so we can design better services in the future.

Web browsers can be adjusted to disable cookies. However, HFC may not be able to provide you with all the service or functionality you require on the HFC Virtual Convention website if you choose to disable cookies.

You may also remove cookies from your browser. Please refer to your browser’s help menu for instructions.

11. Contacting HFC with Questions, Concerns or Complaints

Should you have any questions, concerns or a complaint about this Privacy Policy, please contact HFC’s Privacy Office at +1.866.216.2175, hfc.privacy@gohfc.com, or via mail at 19000 MacArthur Blvd, Suite 100, Irvine CA 92612.

You are entitled to make an anonymous complaint or inquiry in relation to this Privacy Policy or your privacy rights; however, we may require you to identify yourself if required by law or it is impracticable for us to deal with your matter otherwise.

We will acknowledge receipt of any complaint within five business days and will endeavor to provide you with a written response within 30 days of receipt of your complaint. There may be instances where this is not possible due to the contents of the complaint. In such circumstances, we will respond to your complaint in a reasonable and practical time.

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of your complaint you may contact the appropriate authorities in your jurisdiction.

12. HFC Virtual Convention Website and Communications Terms of Use

Please refer to HFC’s Terms of Use on all issues related to accessing, posting and sharing information through the HFC Virtual Convention website and communication services.

13. Changes to our Privacy Policy

Any material changes to this Privacy Policy will be posted on this page. Subject to any applicable legal and/or regulatory requirements, the updated Privacy Policy will take effect and be binding on you as soon as it has been updated.

HFC reserves the right to amend the terms of this Privacy Policy from time to time at its absolute discretion.

This Privacy Policy was last updated as of December 10, 2020.