<?php
require_once __DIR__ . '/includes/functions.php';

$pageTitle       = 'Privacy Policy - US Business Funding Solutions';
$pageDescription = 'How US Business Funding Solutions collects, uses, discloses, and protects personal information, and the privacy choices available to you.';
$activePage      = 'privacy.php';

/** Shown in the header block and used for the table of contents. */
$effectiveDate = 'August 5, 2026';
$lastUpdated   = 'August 5, 2026';

$sections = [
    'scope'            => '1. Scope',
    'information'      => '2. Personal Information We Collect',
    'use'              => '3. How We Use Personal Information',
    'disclosure'       => '4. How We Disclose Personal Information',
    'no-sale'          => '5. No Sale or Targeted Advertising',
    'retention'        => '6. Data Retention',
    'security'         => '7. Information Security',
    'rights'           => '8. Your Privacy Rights',
    'state-disclosures' => '9. Supplemental State Disclosures',
    'children'         => '10. Children',
    'third-parties'    => '11. Third-Party Websites and Funding Sources',
    'changes'          => '12. Changes to This Privacy Policy',
    'contact'          => '13. Contact Us',
];

require __DIR__ . '/includes/header.php';
?>
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      <section class="section section--top" style="padding-bottom: 2rem">
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            <h1 class="title-xl">
              Privacy <span class="gradient-text">Policy</span>
            </h1>
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              Effective Date: <?= e($effectiveDate) ?> &middot; Last Updated: <?= e($lastUpdated) ?>
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      <!-- =========================================================== policy -->
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            <div class="card" style="margin-bottom: 3rem">
              <div class="card__body card__body--pad">
                <h2 class="title-sm font-semibold" style="margin-bottom: 1rem">Contents</h2>
                <ol class="legal-toc">
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            <div class="legal">
              <p>
                US Business Funding Solutions, Inc., a Utah corporation doing business as US Business Funding
                Solutions (&ldquo;USBFS,&rdquo; &ldquo;we,&rdquo; &ldquo;us,&rdquo; or &ldquo;our&rdquo;), respects
                your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it,
                how we use and disclose it, and the choices available to you.
              </p>

              <h2 id="scope">1. Scope</h2>
              <p>This Privacy Policy applies to personal information collected through:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>
                  <a href="https://usbusinessfundingsolutions.com">https://usbusinessfundingsolutions.com</a>, the
                  USBFS member portal, and other USBFS websites or online services that link to this Privacy Policy
                  (collectively, the &ldquo;Site&rdquo;);
                </li>
                <li>
                  Our funding research, business-plan preparation, application review, coaching, educational,
                  customer-support, and related services (collectively, the &ldquo;Services&rdquo;);
                </li>
                <li>
                  Client profiles, business-plan templates, funding questionnaires, agreements, payment records,
                  email, telephone calls, text messages, and other communications with USBFS; and
                </li>
                <li>
                  Our interactions with current, prospective, and former clients, their partners or authorized
                  designees, vendors, and other individuals whose personal information we process.
                </li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                This Privacy Policy does not govern a third-party funding organization, government agency, lender,
                foundation, investor, application platform, or website that maintains its own privacy policy.
              </p>

              <h2 id="information">2. Personal Information We Collect</h2>
              <p>
                The information we collect depends on how you interact with USBFS and the Services you request.
              </p>

              <h3>A. Client and Contact Information</h3>
              <p>
                We may collect your name, mailing or physical address, city, state, ZIP Code, telephone number, email
                address, occupation, age, gender, income, and other contact or profile information you choose to
                provide.
              </p>

              <h3>B. Partner and Authorized-Designee Information</h3>
              <p>
                If you identify a partner or another person who may participate in the program, we may collect that
                person's relationship to you, name, telephone number, email address, age, gender, occupation, income,
                and related information.
              </p>
              <p>
                You should provide another person's information only when you are authorized to do so. Please direct
                that person to this Privacy Policy. A partner or designee may contact us directly to exercise
                applicable privacy rights concerning their information.
              </p>

              <h3>C. Funding Profile and Research Preferences</h3>
              <p>We may collect information about:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>The amount of funding you are seeking;</li>
                <li>The intended use of the funding;</li>
                <li>Your project, vision, anticipated beneficiaries, and funding goals;</li>
                <li>The length of time you have considered the project and prior funding efforts;</li>
                <li>
                  Requested research categories, such as business, education, transportation, housing, nonprofit,
                  veteran, minority, women, medical, dental, disability-related, or other funding opportunities;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Business ownership, location, nonprofit status, employee-training plans, research activities,
                  veteran-related activities, and similar funding eligibility factors;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Voluntarily provided demographic or eligibility information, such as age, gender, veteran status,
                  ethnicity, family status, and income; and
                </li>
                <li>
                  Prior funding applications, awards, special considerations, and other information you want your
                  coach or funding professional to consider.
                </li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                Selections such as Medical, Dental, or Disability-related are instructions concerning the categories
                of funding opportunities USBFS should research. They do not necessarily describe your personal
                characteristics or health. USBFS does not request or collect medical records, medical diagnoses,
                treatment information, or details about an illness or disability through these category selections.
              </p>

              <h3>D. Business-Plan and Business Information</h3>
              <p>To prepare or revise a business plan, we may collect:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>
                  Business and owner names, addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses, and websites;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Business type, industry, start-up status, ownership structure, nonprofit status, products, services,
                  manufacturing, retail, and operational information;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Business descriptions, company history, objectives, funding requests, and planned uses of funding;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Ownership percentages, management responsibilities, education, experience, qualifications, licenses,
                  staffing, hiring plans, and management philosophy;
                </li>
                <li>Product, service, sales, fundraising, customer-service, and pricing information;</li>
                <li>Market, industry, geographic, customer, and demographic information;</li>
                <li>Advertising, marketing, sales, and growth strategies;</li>
                <li>Competitor information and competitive advantages;</li>
                <li>Implementation plans, milestones, dates, budgets, managers, and departments; and</li>
                <li>
                  Executive summaries, narrative answers, supporting documents, and other content submitted for
                  inclusion in a business plan.
                </li>
              </ul>

              <h3>E. Financial and Projection Information</h3>
              <p>We may collect business and project financial information, including:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>Requested funding and planned uses of funds;</li>
                <li>
                  Beginning balances, owner contributions, investments, grants, loans, sales, fundraising, and other
                  projected income;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Payroll, rent, utilities, cost of goods sold, advertising, operating expenses, taxes, loan payments,
                  asset purchases, and other projected expenses;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Monthly and annual budgets, cash-flow projections, growth estimates, and financial-plan
                  explanations; and
                </li>
                <li>
                  Other information reasonably needed to prepare the financial portions of a business plan.
                </li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                Unless we specifically request otherwise for a particular Service, business-plan financial sections
                are intended for business projections rather than personal bank-account credentials or complete
                payment-card information.
              </p>

              <h3>F. Account, Agreement, and Transaction Information</h3>
              <p>We may collect:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>Member account identifiers and authentication credentials;</li>
                <li>Enrollment dates, agreement numbers, program selections, and service history;</li>
                <li>
                  Electronic signatures, contractual acknowledgements, and records showing your acceptance of an
                  agreement;
                </li>
                <li>Purchase, billing, payment, cancellation, renewal, and transaction information; and</li>
                <li>Records associated with our ongoing contractual relationship.</li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                Payment-card or bank-payment information may be collected directly by a payment processor. When that
                occurs, USBFS may receive a transaction identifier, payment status, and limited billing information
                rather than complete payment credentials.
              </p>

              <h3>G. Communications and Recordings</h3>
              <p>
                We may collect messages, emails, letters, support requests, questionnaire answers, documents,
                feedback, and other communications you send to us.
              </p>
              <p>
                Telephone calls or other communications with USBFS representatives, funding professionals, or
                business-plan writers may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance, training, customer service,
                security, dispute resolution, and compliance purposes. When required, we provide additional notice or
                obtain consent before recording.
              </p>
              <p>USBFS does not use voice recordings to create biometric identifiers or voiceprints.</p>

              <h3>H. Site and Technical Information</h3>
              <p>
                When you use the Site, we and our service providers may automatically receive information such as your
                Internet Protocol address, browser and device type, operating system, referring page, pages viewed,
                dates and times of access, account or session activity, and security and diagnostic logs.
              </p>
              <p>
                The Site may use cookies or similar technologies that are necessary to operate the Site, maintain
                sessions, authenticate members, remember settings, prevent fraud, and protect security. You may be
                able to block cookies through your browser, but doing so may prevent member or account features from
                working correctly.
              </p>

              <h2 id="use">3. How We Use Personal Information</h2>
              <p>We may use personal information to:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>Respond to inquiries and determine which Services you request;</li>
                <li>Enroll you in the program and administer our agreement with you;</li>
                <li>Create, authenticate, maintain, and secure your member account;</li>
                <li>
                  Understand your project, business, funding goals, and requested research categories;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Research grants, loans, tax credits, reimbursements, sponsorships, investments, and other potential
                  funding opportunities;
                </li>
                <li>
                  Prepare, revise, format, and deliver your business plan in Word, PDF, or another agreed format;
                </li>
                <li>Review and assist you with funding applications and proposals;</li>
                <li>
                  Provide coaching, education, customer service, technical support, and program communications;
                </li>
                <li>Process payments, renewals, cancellations, refunds, and other transactions;</li>
                <li>Monitor or record communications for the purposes described above;</li>
                <li>Maintain the quality, security, reliability, and operation of the Site and Services;</li>
                <li>
                  Detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, security incidents, and unlawful activity;
                </li>
                <li>Maintain business, accounting, tax, contractual, and legal records;</li>
                <li>Resolve complaints and disputes and enforce our agreements;</li>
                <li>Comply with applicable law and lawful government or court requests; and</li>
                <li>
                  Create aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably identify an individual.
                </li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                We will not use personal information for a materially different purpose without providing any
                additional notice or obtaining any consent required by law.
              </p>

              <h2 id="disclosure">4. How We Disclose Personal Information</h2>
              <p>We may disclose personal information as follows.</p>

              <h3>USBFS Personnel and Contractors</h3>
              <p>
                We may provide information to USBFS employees and contractors, including coaches, funding
                professionals, researchers, business-plan writers, customer-support personnel, and administrative
                personnel, when they need it to provide the Services or perform their duties.
              </p>

              <h3>Service Providers</h3>
              <p>
                We may disclose information to providers that support our website, member portal, hosting, data
                storage, document preparation, payment processing, email, telephone, call recording, customer support,
                cybersecurity, accounting, and other business operations. These providers are permitted to use
                information only as necessary to provide services to USBFS or as otherwise allowed by law and
                contract.
              </p>

              <h3>At Your Direction</h3>
              <p>
                We may disclose information when you direct or authorize us to do so. USBFS does not ordinarily submit
                funding applications for clients or disclose a client's profile or business-plan information directly
                to funding organizations. Clients are responsible for completing and officially submitting their
                applications. If you separately ask USBFS to transmit particular information to a third party, we will
                do so only as authorized.
              </p>

              <h3>Professional Advisers</h3>
              <p>
                We may disclose information to attorneys, accountants, auditors, insurers, and other professional
                advisers when reasonably necessary.
              </p>

              <h3>Legal, Security, and Safety Purposes</h3>
              <p>
                We may disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law or legal process; protect or
                enforce our rights or agreements; investigate fraud, abuse, security incidents, or illegal activity;
                or protect USBFS, our clients, or others.
              </p>

              <h3>Business Transactions</h3>
              <p>
                Information may be disclosed or transferred in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing,
                reorganization, bankruptcy, sale of assets, or similar business transaction, subject to applicable
                law.
              </p>

              <h3>Aggregated or De-identified Information</h3>
              <p>
                We may use and disclose aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably identify you.
                We will not attempt to re-identify information maintained in de-identified form except as permitted by
                law.
              </p>

              <h2 id="no-sale">5. No Sale or Targeted Advertising</h2>
              <p>
                USBFS does not sell personal information for money. USBFS also does not disclose personal information
                to third parties for their own direct marketing or use personal information for cross-context
                behavioral or targeted advertising.
              </p>
              <p>
                USBFS does not use funding profiles, business-plan answers, financial projections, demographic
                information, or requested research categories for advertising.
              </p>
              <p>
                If our practices change, we will update this Privacy Policy and provide any required privacy choices
                before using personal information for those purposes.
              </p>

              <h2 id="retention">6. Data Retention</h2>
              <p>We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary to:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>Provide the Services and maintain our relationship with you;</li>
                <li>
                  Maintain your account and deliver business plans, research, and program materials;
                </li>
                <li>Satisfy contractual, accounting, tax, recordkeeping, and legal obligations;</li>
                <li>Establish, exercise, or defend legal rights;</li>
                <li>Resolve disputes and enforce agreements; and</li>
                <li>Maintain security and prevent fraud.</li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                Retention periods depend on the type and sensitivity of the information, the duration of our
                relationship, whether your account remains active, applicable legal requirements and limitation
                periods, and whether information is needed for an actual or anticipated dispute.
              </p>
              <p>
                When personal information is no longer reasonably necessary, we may delete, destroy, anonymize, or
                de-identify it. Information stored in backups may remain until the backup is overwritten or deleted in
                the ordinary course, subject to applicable law.
              </p>

              <h2 id="security">7. Information Security</h2>
              <p>
                We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal
                information against unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. We limit access
                to personnel and providers who reasonably need the information for the purposes described in this
                Privacy Policy.
              </p>
              <p>
                No website, transmission method, or storage system is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute
                security. You are responsible for protecting your account credentials and promptly notifying us if you
                believe your account has been compromised.
              </p>

              <h2 id="rights">8. Your Privacy Rights</h2>
              <p>
                Depending on where you live and subject to applicable exceptions, you may have the right to:
              </p>
              <ul>
                <li>Confirm whether we process your personal information;</li>
                <li>Access personal information we maintain about you;</li>
                <li>Correct inaccurate personal information;</li>
                <li>Request deletion of personal information;</li>
                <li>Obtain a portable copy of certain personal information;</li>
                <li>Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;</li>
                <li>Appeal a decision concerning a privacy request; and</li>
                <li>Exercise your rights without unlawful discrimination.</li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                Because USBFS does not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising, we do not
                currently engage in processing that is subject to sale or targeted-advertising opt-out rights.
              </p>
              <p>To submit a request:</p>
              <ul>
                <li>
                  Email <a href="mailto:support@usbusinessfundingsolutions.com?subject=Privacy%20Request">support@usbusinessfundingsolutions.com</a>
                  with the subject line &ldquo;Privacy Request&rdquo;; or
                </li>
                <li>Call <a href="tel:+18008581052">(800) 858-1052</a>.</li>
              </ul>
              <p>
                Describe the right you wish to exercise and provide enough information for us to locate your records.
                We may request information reasonably necessary to verify your identity or authority. Verification
                information will be used only for verification and compliance.
              </p>
              <p>
                We will respond within the period required by applicable law. If we deny a request and your state
                provides a right to appeal, email
                <a href="mailto:support@usbusinessfundingsolutions.com?subject=Privacy%20Appeal">support@usbusinessfundingsolutions.com</a>
                with the subject line &ldquo;Privacy Appeal.&rdquo;
              </p>
              <p>
                These rights are not absolute. We may retain or continue processing information when permitted by law,
                including when necessary to complete a transaction, provide requested Services, protect security,
                comply with legal obligations, maintain required records, or establish or defend legal claims.
              </p>

              <h2 id="state-disclosures">9. Supplemental State Disclosures</h2>
              <p>
                During the preceding 12 months, USBFS may have collected the categories described in Section 2 from
                clients, partners or designees, the Site, communications, payment and technology providers, and public
                sources used for funding or business research. We used this information for the purposes described in
                Section 3 and disclosed it to the recipients described in Section 4.
              </p>
              <p>
                We did not sell these categories of personal information or share them for cross-context behavioral
                advertising. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of individuals younger than
                16.
              </p>
              <p>
                Coverage thresholds, definitions, exemptions, and specific rights vary by state. This section applies
                only to the extent an applicable state privacy law governs USBFS or a particular request.
              </p>

              <h2 id="children">10. Children</h2>
              <p>
                The Site and Services are intended for adults and are not directed to children. USBFS does not
                knowingly enroll an individual younger than 18 as the contracting client or knowingly collect personal
                information from children through the Site.
              </p>
              <p>
                If you believe a child submitted personal information to USBFS, contact us so we can review and, where
                appropriate, delete it.
              </p>

              <h2 id="third-parties">11. Third-Party Websites and Funding Sources</h2>
              <p>
                The Site and Services may contain links to funding organizations, government resources, application
                platforms, or other third-party websites. USBFS does not control their privacy or security practices.
                Information you submit directly to a third party is governed by that party's privacy policy and terms.
              </p>
              <p>Review a third party's policies before submitting personal information.</p>

              <h2 id="changes">12. Changes to This Privacy Policy</h2>
              <p>
                We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our Services, technology, information
                practices, or legal obligations. When we do, we will revise the &ldquo;Last Updated&rdquo; date above.
                If a change is material, we may provide additional notice through the Site, your account, email, or
                another appropriate method.
              </p>

              <h2 id="contact">13. Contact Us</h2>
              <p>Questions or requests concerning this Privacy Policy may be directed to:</p>

              <div class="card" style="margin-top: 1.5rem">
                <div class="card__body card__body--pad">
                  <address class="legal-address">
                    <span class="font-semibold" style="color: hsl(var(--foreground))">
                      US Business Funding Solutions, Inc.
                    </span>
                    <span>P.O. Box 910481</span>
                    <span>St. George, UT 84791</span>
                  </address>

                  <dl class="legal-contact">
                    <dt>Toll-free</dt>
                    <dd><a href="tel:+18008581052">(800) 858-1052</a></dd>

                    <dt>Fax</dt>
                    <dd>(801) 880-6195</dd>

                    <dt>Email</dt>
                    <dd>
                      <a href="mailto:support@usbusinessfundingsolutions.com">support@usbusinessfundingsolutions.com</a>
                    </dd>

                    <dt>Website</dt>
                    <dd>
                      <a href="https://usbusinessfundingsolutions.com">https://usbusinessfundingsolutions.com</a>
                    </dd>
                  </dl>
                </div>
              </div>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </section>
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