Privacy

Last updated: 01/28/2020

FBS respects your right to privacy.  This Privacy Notice explains who we are, how we collect, share and use personal information about you, and how you can exercise your privacy rights.  If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Notice.

What does FBS do?

FBS is a software company, headquartered in the United States, serving real estate Agents, Brokers, and Multiple Listing Service (MLS) providers (“FBS’s customers”) with our Flexmls® Platform, Spark® API, and FloPlan™  System software (“Services”). FBS’s customers use our Services to manage their real estate listings and share them with their customers. FBS does not own or control our customers’ content and we keep it private for our customers. For more information about FBS, please see our website at https://wearefbs.com.

What personal information do FBS’s customers collect using FBS Services and why?

The personal information our customers may collect using our Services broadly falls into the following categories:

Information you provide voluntarily

Our customers may ask you to provide certain information voluntarily.  The types of information you may be asked to provide, and the reasons why, include:

Types of personal information Why it is collected
Contact Information, including name, email address, phone number, address, or other related information To create or maintain your account  and to respond to correspondence and service-related inquiries you send
Information regarding your property To list your property for sale, help you execute a transaction regarding your property or a property you want to purchase
Messages exchanged with your broker or agent Communication history
Information regarding properties or property searches you view or save To send you updates and collaborate with you on your property search
Messages exchanged with your broker or agent Communication history

Information collected automatically

We may also collect certain information automatically from your device.  In some countries, including countries in the European Economic Area, this information may be considered personal information under applicable data protection laws.

Specifically, the information we collect automatically may include information like your IP address, device type, unique device identification numbers, browser-type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city-level location) and other technical information.  We may also collect information about how your device has interacted with our Services, including the pages accessed and links clicked.

Collecting this information enables us to better understand the visitors who use our Services, where they come from, and what content on our Services is of interest to them.  We use this information for our internal analytics purposes and to improve the quality and relevance of our Services to our visitors. In addition, this information is used to secure the Services from unauthorized use.

Some of this information may be collected using cookies and similar tracking technology, as explained further under the heading “Cookies and similar tracking technology” below.

The Flexmls app allows MLS members to upload photos to their property listings so that MLS members and their customers can view the photos on property listings in the app.

Who does FBS share my personal information with?

Personal information collected by our customers through our Service is not disclosed by FBS to any third parties for any purpose, except:

  • to our third party services providers who provide data processing services to us, or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Notice or notified to you when we collect your personal information.
  • to any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person; or
  • to any other person with your consent to the disclosure.

Legal basis for processing personal information (EEA visitors only)

If you are a visitor from the European Economic Area, our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.

However, we will normally collect personal information from you only where we have your consent to do so, where we need the personal information to perform a contract with you, or where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.  In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you or may otherwise need the personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person (e.g. security of the information provided through the Services).

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information).

Similarly, if we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.

Cookies and similar tracking technology

Some Services store cookies on your computer for authentication, session management, and to help improve your experience with our Services. We do not disclose any information collected or stored in cookies to third parties except as required by law.

How does FBS keep my personal information secure?

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information our customers collect and process about you.  The measures we use are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal information. Specific measures we use include encrypting your personal information in transit.

International data transfers

FBS’s servers are located in the United States, and our group companies and third party service providers and partners operate in the United States as well. If you are not a United States resident, your personal information may be transferred to, and processed in, the United States, which may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country. We have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

Data retention

We retain personal information we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements).

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

Your data protection rights

You have the following data protection rights:

  • If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal information, our Service allows you to do so at any time by contacting the agent or broker providing you access to the Services.
  • In addition, if you are a resident of the European Union, you can object to the processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. Again, you can exercise these rights by contacting the agent or broker providing you access to the Services.
  • You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time.  You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the listing alert or other marketing e-mails we send you.  You may also use in-app functions while logged in to opt-in or opt-out of automated communications.
  • Similarly, if we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time.  Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect the processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
  • If you are one of our Customers (a broker, agent, or MLS) accessing the Services directly from FBS as opposed to a consumer (buyer or seller) using our Service through one of our Customers, you may exercise your data protection rights by contacting us as indicated below.

Updates to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make.  We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.

You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the top of this Privacy Notice.

How to contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, please email us at privacy@fbsdata.com.