Privacy Policy
Revised Effective: June 27, 2008
MetroPCS Communications, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, "MetroPCS," "we,"
"our," or "us") understand that your privacy is important, and we have adopted this
privacy policy (this "Policy") to describe what information may be collected about
you by us when you access or use our website or our service, as well as any electronic
information collected by MetroPCS as a result of your use of our network (the "Service").
This Policy also describes how that information may be used or disclosed by us.
This Policy does not apply to information about you that may be collected by us
other than through the access or use of our website or our service.
Personal Information
"Personal Information" is information about you, and includes your name, address
or credit card, PIN, birth date, email address, telephone number or other information
such as cookies, described below in "Website" (collectively "Basic Personal Information")
as well as other information, such as usage, calling patterns, numbers dialed, and
features, that we may collect through your use of the Service. Personal Information
also includes customer proprietary network information "CPNI," which relates to
the quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location, and amount of
your use of the Service. Personal Information does not include aggregate customer
data (collective data about our customers from which customer names or other identifiers
have been removed) or other information not deemed CPNI by the Communications Act
of 1934, as amended, or the Federal Communications Commission’s rules and regulations,
as they may be changed from time to time.
How We Collect Personal Information
Personal Information is collected when you purchase our products or services online or otherwise
interact with us online, for example when you visit our website, complete an online customer satisfaction
survey, correspond with us, or submit a resume electronically. Personal Information about you may also be
provided to us by third parties, such as consumer reporting agencies, vendors, dealers or application service
providers.
We may also collect or purchase certain Personal Information such as names, postal addresses and
phone numbers from third parties for marketing purposes. (You should always check the privacy policies
of other service providers to ensure you understand your privacy choices before subscribing to or purchasing
any service.)
If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about one of our job postings, we will ask you
for your friend’s name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting
him or her to visit the site and view the job posting. We store this information for the sole purpose of
sending this one-time email.
CPNI, as defined above, is collected solely by virtue of your customer relationship with us and your use of
our network for wireless web access and voice and data services.
How We Use Personal Information
MetroPCS will not use or disclose Personal Information, other than as set forth herein or as described in our customer
service agreements with you.
We may collect, use, and disclose your Personal Information for the following reasons:
- to provide you access to the Service or to initiate, render, bill or collect for
our products and services or to complete a transaction;
- to market, sell, offer or provide you with products and services you have purchased
or subscribed to, including phones, related equipment, additional services, or information
services to you;
- to provide services necessary to, or used in, the provision of our services, including
the publishing of directories;
- to protect our rights or property or to protect customers or other telecommunications
carriers from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of, or subscription to, our services;
- to provide information regarding products or services, referrals, or administrative
services to you when you contact us and approve of our use of the information during
the course of the call;
- to enforce or apply our service agreements with you;
- to our vendors and suppliers who bill, provision, and provide us with services we
use to provide you with services;
- to affiliates, agents, contractors, employees, suppliers, vendors, service providers,
and joint venture partners who provide communications-related products or services
("Affiliates") but not for their promotional use;
- to provide call location information about wireless subscribers in emergency situations
or in connection with services you purchase or subscribe to; and
- to comply with governmental laws, regulations and orders (including subpoenas relating
to personal or private electronic communications transmitted on our networks and/or
other information about our business or our subscribers) and to cooperate with governmental
investigations.
MetroPCS is constantly striving to enhance the quality and selection of the products
and services that we offer to you as our customer. As a result, we may also share
information, including Personal Information, about you with others such as retailers
and direct marketers that we select in an effort to make you aware of additional
products and services that may be of interest to you. Unless you change your communications
preferences or opt out as set forth below in the paragraph entitled "Access to Personal
Information," we or our Affiliates may contact you for marketing purposes via phone,
email, text message, picture message, auto dialer, fax or direct mailing or otherwise
via our website.
From time to time you may be able to participate in contests, giveaways or other
promotions. All Personal Information you provide will be used in accordance with
this Policy except as otherwise set forth in such promotions. In addition, from
time to time we may request users to participate in customer satisfaction surveys.
These surveys are voluntary. Any Personal Information you provide in connection
with these surveys will be used for our internal business purposes for improving
the use and satisfaction of our products and services, our website and our network.
Information about our users, including Personal Information, may also be disclosed
as part of any merger, acquisition, sale of company assets, contribution, or formation
of joint ventures, or transition of service to another provider, as well as in the
unlikely event of an insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership in which Personal Information
would be transferred as one of the business assets of the company. MetroPCS may
also disclose Personal Information to credit reporting agencies. Additionally, MetroPCS
may disclose Personal Information to other carriers in connection with preventing
fraud or to collect amounts due. Finally, Personal Information may be disclosed
to other carriers to provide you with services provided by such carriers, such as
roaming, toll service, and international calling.
Upon your request, MetroPCS may disclose your Personal Information to an individual
designated by you.
In addition, MetroPCS may create and share aggregate data about our customers.
Your Rights
Collection, use, disclosure, and protection of Personal Information may be subject
to different regulation outside the United States.
You are not required to participate in promotional activities or survey questionnaires,
and you have the right to opt out of our use of your Personal Information for marketing
purposes. You may change your preferences for marketing communications or choose
to be added to our do not call or do not email lists by contacting our privacy office
as listed below in the paragraph entitled "Access to Personal Information", or by
following the unsubscribe instructions included in each promotional email. If, however,
you choose to opt out of receiving marketing communications from MetroPCS, it will
make it more difficult for us to offer you products and services tailored to your
needs and may prevent you from receiving offers beneficial to you which require
use of your Personal Information.
Please know that you will continue to receive invoices, customer service-related
notifications, technical or network-related notifications, MetroPCS product and
service offers (including those related to your Service, phones, information services,
or related equipment) and information from us related to the Service electronically
or otherwise. Generally, you may not opt out of receiving these service related
emails.
Our Service Providers
We use other third parties to provide various services on our site and in connection
with our services, including credit card processing, bill payment services, billing,
and operational support, email service and shipping services. When you purchase
a product or service, we will share Personal Information as necessary for the third
party to provide these services. In addition, we will use and share your email address
with our email service provider in order for them to provide email services on our
behalf.
It is MetroPCS’ general policy to include contractual terms which prohibit these
third parties from using your Personal Information for any other purpose including
their own marketing purposes.
Please note that when you utilize EMAIL SIGN-UP on our website you will be taken
to a page hosted by our email service provider. Note that this page is framed to
appear as if you are on www.metropcs.com when you are actually on our service provider’s
site. Our email service provider is collecting your email to provide you on our
behalf with special offers and information from MetroPCS. The Personal Information
collected for this email sign-up is governed by this Policy.
However, should you visit or interact with other websites even via links from our website,
you may be providing Personal Information to those companies. Any information about
you received by those third parties will be governed by their privacy policies,
not this Policy. MetroPCS is not responsible for any links posted to our website
or any information you provide as a result of clicking on such links. We encourage
you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally
identifiable information.
Access to Personal Information
If any of your Basic Personal Information changes, or if you no longer desire our
service, you may correct, update, delete or deactivate it by writing to MetroPCS,
P.O. Box 601119, Dallas, Texas, 75360-1119, Attention: Customer Service or by contacting
us by telephone at MetroPCS Customer Service (888-863-8768) or postal mail at the
contact information listed below.
Additional Rights Regarding CPNI
MetroPCS does not disclose CPNI without your consent or direction, except: (i) to
affiliates, agents, contractors, suppliers, vendors, and joint venture partners
who provide you with communications-related products and services and who are bound
by confidentiality agreements with us; (ii) as required or allowed by law; (iii)
as described in the paragraph entitled "Location and Tracking Information" below;
and (iv) to third parties who we may use to provide customer service, billing, or
other services to you and who are bound by confidentiality agreements with us. Under
federal law, you have a right, and we have a duty, to protect the confidentiality
of information about your telephone usage, the services you buy from us, who you
call, and the location of your device on our network when you make a voice call.
Before sharing CPNI in a way other than as described in this Policy, we will notify
you of your rights under the law, describe how we intend to use the CPNI, and give
you an opportunity to opt out of such usage (or, when required by law, to opt in).
Denial of approval regarding uses and disclosures of your CPNI will not affect your
access to the Service. However, some services will not work without CPNI and may
require your consent in order for you to access them, such as GPS services.
Location and Tracking Information
As an integral part of enabling wireless communications, information regarding the
general location of your phone or wireless device is collected and used by the MetroPCS
network. Your wireless device sends out periodic signals to the nearest radio tower/cell
site providing information, including information regarding the location within
the network, which allows the network to properly route an incoming call or message,
and to provide the services that you may have subscribed to. This network location
information derived from providing our Service, in addition to being covered by
this Policy, is CPNI and is protected as described above.
However, if you dial 911 for emergency services, we are required by Federal Communications
Commission regulations to provide your network location to a public safety answering
point (PSAP), emergency medical service provider or emergency dispatch provider,
public safety, fire service, or law enforcement official, or hospital emergency
or trauma care facility. The law also permits us to disclose the location of a device
on our network without a user’s consent (1) to a user’s legal guardian or members
of a user’s immediate family in an emergency situation that involves the risk of
death or serious physical harm, (2) to database management services or information
providers solely to assist in delivering emergency services, or (3) to a governmental
entity if we reasonably believe that an emergency involving immediate danger of
death or serious physical injury to any person requires or justifies disclosure
of a device’s location on the network without delay.
Website
MetroPCS is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent,
non-profit organization whose mission is to build user’s trust and confidence in
the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. This Policy covers
the website www.metropcs.com. Because this website wants to demonstrate its commitment
to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its
privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this Policy, you should first contact
MetroPCS Web Operations at metropcsweb@metropcs.com. If you do not receive acknowledgement
of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should
contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php TRUSTe
will then serve as a liaison with us to resolve your concerns.
The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through this website,
and does not cover information that may be collected through software downloaded
from the site or through the use of the Service.
When you visit our website to learn more about MetroPCS products and services, access
your account, pay your bill, or submit other information to us, we automatically
receive and record information on our server logs from your browser, including your
IP address and the page you request. We use this information for the following general
purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, to fulfill your requests
for products and services, to improve our services, to contact you, to conduct research,
and to provide anonymous reporting for internal and external clients.
We may also set and access MetroPCS cookies on your computer. A cookie is a small
amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent
to your browser from a website's computers and stored on your computer's hard drive.
This data identifies your computer and records the web pages you visit so that when
you return the site knows who you are and can personalize your visit.
MetroPCS uses cookies for a number of purposes, including to:
- access your information when you "sign in," so that we can provide you with customized
content;
- keep track of preferences you specify while you are accessing our website;
- estimate and report our total audience size and traffic;
- conduct research to improve MetroPCS’s products and services; and/or
- require you to re-enter your password after a certain period of time has elapsed
to protect you against others accidentally accessing your account contents.
You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify
you when a cookie is set. (Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of
your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.) If you reject all
cookies, you may not be able to access or order certain MetroPCS products and services
that require you to "sign in," and you may not be able to take full advantage of
all offerings or features or services available on our Website.
Advertisers that serve ads on our site may also use their own cookies. Such outside
cookies are governed by the privacy policies of the entities placing the ads, and
are not subject to this Policy. MetroPCS may also place advertisements about our
products and services on other websites. These companies may use cookies and other
technology such as web beacons or tagging to measure the effectiveness of our ads.
The use of such cookies is also subject to the privacy practices of the ad serving
companies, not this Policy. We have no access or control of the cookies or web beacons
set by third parties.
In addition to cookies, we use Web beacons (also known as "Web bugs," "clear gifs"
or "one-pixel gifs"). A web beacon is a tiny image (only 1-by-1 pixel) on a Web
page or in an e-mail message that allows a site owner to collect the IP address
of the computer to which the Web beacon is sent, the URL of the page from which
the Web beacon comes, and the time it was viewed. Web beacons can also be linked
to your personal information. Web beacons are often invisible to the user. However,
because Web beacons are represented as HTML IMG tags in the Web page; users can
click on "view profiles" of the Web page to see whether the page is using a Web
beacon. MetroPCS, or a third party acting on our behalf, may use Web beacons in
certain Web pages and e-mails to monitor how visitors are interacting with the website
and to determine the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and e-mail correspondence.
MetroPCS generally does not permit unaffiliated third parties to place Web beacons
on our website.
Finally, should you take advantage of service and products offered by other companies,
or visit or interact with other websites utilizing our wireless service, you may
be providing Personal Information to those companies. Any information about you
received by those third parties will be governed by their privacy policies, not
this Policy. MetroPCS is not responsible for any links posted to our website or
any information you provide as a result of clicking on such links. We encourage
you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally
identifiable information.
Children’s Online Privacy
MetroPCS understands that parents often purchase our products and services for family
use, including for use by minors. MetroPCS’s website is for use by individuals 13
years of age or older. We will not knowingly collect Personal Information from children
under the age of 13. Individuals under 13 years of age are not permitted to use
our website or even submit their Personal Information at our Website.
IF A PARENT OR GUARDIAN BECOMES AWARE OF ACCESS TO THE SERVICE BY A MINOR, PLEASE
WRITE TO US AT THE ADDRESS BELOW SO WE MAY DELETE INFORMATION ABOUT SUCH UNDERAGE
PERSON FROM OUR ELECTRONIC RECORDS. MetroPCS encourages parents and guardians to
spend time online with their children and to participate and monitor the interactive
activities of their children.
Security
We use commercially reasonable efforts to protect the Personal Information submitted
to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. For example, when you enter
sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number)
on our registration or order forms on our website, we encrypt that information using
secure socket layer technology (SSL). However, at this time, we do not utilize encryption
technology for all Personal Information transmitted via the Service. Moreover, no
method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100%
secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially reasonable safeguards to
protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its security. If you have
any questions about security on our website, you can send email us at Web_privacy@metropcs.com.
MetroPCS makes no representation or warranties about the security of its wireless
Web access services or that your use will be error-free, uninterrupted, or free
of infection by viruses or other malicious codes or acts of third parties beyond
our control. In addition, MetroPCS has no control over the security of other sites
on the Internet you might visit or from which you might purchase products or services.
Security Measures You Can Implement
It is your responsibility to keep your user name, password or other access information
safe and confidential to protect against unauthorized access to your account information.
It is important to also maintain control over your password and PIN to prevent unauthorized
access to your wireless device, your service account and your voicemail. If you
write your password and PIN down, keep it in a secure location. You should also
change your password and PIN periodically. Do not give your password and PIN to
someone else unless you intend them to have the same full access and ability to
make changes to your account.
Third Party Solicitations
Not all advertisements appearing on your mobile phone or device may be authorized
by MetroPCS. We take steps to reduce unsolicited bulk messages, but we cannot block
all unsolicited wireless advertising.
In addition, please note that it is unlawful for any third party to make an unsolicited
telemarketing call using an autodialer or to send a prerecorded message to a wireless
phone or device. You should report any unsolicited calls to the Federal Communications
Commission.
Consumer Protection Notice
If anyone calls you soliciting a "too good to be true offer," simply hang up and
contact the MetroPCS Customer Service (888-863-8768) to validate the promotion.
Do not give out your credit card information, PIN, password, bank information, or
other Personal Information over the phone or via email unless you are the one who
initiated contact with MetroPCS and are confident such disclosure is being made
to an authorized representative of MetroPCS. Be sure to type anytime you wish to
access our site. Do not rely on links contained in an unsolicited email or provide
Personal Information as a result of clicking on any links contained in an unsolicited
email.
Record Retention
MetroPCS retains all of the information it collects under this Policy for as long
as there is a business need for such information.
Policy Updates
If we decide to change this Policy, we will post those changes to this Policy, the
home page, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information
we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
We reserve the right to change, modify, add or remove portions of this Policy at
any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this Policy,
we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page.
All Policy changes will take effect ten (10) days after their posting on the website.
Your continued use of the website and/or Service following that period after the
posting of changes to this Policy will mean that you accept such changes.
Contact Us
If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this Policy, please contact
us at MetroPCS, P.O. Box 601119, Dallas, Texas, 75360-1119, Attention: Privacy Office.
Should you need to change your contact, phone or account information, contact MetroPCS
Customer Service at 888-863-8768.
California residents have a right to obtain a list of general Personal Information
that MetroPCS has disclosed and the companies (both affiliated and unaffiliated
third parties) among which such information is shared. This request must be sent
to MetroPCS, P.O. Box 601119, Dallas, Texas, 75360-1119, Attention: Privacy Office
and we will respond within 60 days.
MetroPCS Wireless, Inc.
2250 Lakeside Blvd.
Richardson, TX 75082