Privacy Policy – California Residents

FORDHARRISON LLP ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY – CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

Last Updated November 2025

This California Privacy Policy describes how FordHarrison collects and processes personal information about our consumers who reside in California. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requires us to provide our California consumers with a privacy policy that contains a comprehensive description of our online and offline practices regarding our collection, use, sale and sharing of their personal information, along with a description of the rights they have regarding their personal information. This Privacy Policy provides the information the CCPA requires, together with other useful information regarding our collection and use of personal information. Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this policy. This California Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with our general privacy notice at: https://www.fordharrison.com/privacy.

This California Privacy Policy does not apply to our collection and use of personal information in an employment capacity. Employees, job applicants, contractors, interns, or other workers seeking more information our employment-related personal information policies and practices should see our employee privacy notice on the company intranet. 
This California Privacy Policy does not apply to our collection and use of personal information from residents outside of California. Consumers residing in other locations should see our general privacy notice at: https://www.fordharrison.com/privacy. 

PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED

We collect and use information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household (“personal information”). Personal information does not include: 

  • Publicly available information, including from government records, through widely distributed media, or that the consumer made publicly available without restricting it to a specific audience.
  • Lawfully obtained, truthful information that is a matter of public concern.
  • Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope.
  • Deidentified or aggregated consumer information.
  • Personal Information Categories Collected in the Preceding 12 Months. 

Personal Information Categories Collected in the Preceding 12 Months. 
The following are categories of personal information we may have collected during the preceding 12 months:

A.  Identifiers:

  • Name
  • Postal address
  • Email address 
  • Telephone number 
  • Country
  • Information relating to events captured through event-related forms, such as dietary restrictions, and hotel and flight information
  • Information pertinent to fulfilling our services to you
  • Any other personal data that you voluntarily choose to provide to us

B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e) (“California Customer Records”):

  • Name
  • Postal Address
  • Telephone number
  •  Employment (including job title, job level, or job function or role and company or organization)

C.    Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law (“Protected Classes”):

  • None

D.    Commercial Information:

  • None

E.    Biometric Information:

  • None

F.    Internet or other similar network activity:

  • Electronic communications with us
  • Postings on our social media sites
  • Our web servers and/or the Analytics Technologies may collect and store the following general information about you:
    • the originating name of the domain from which you access the Internet;
    • the date and time you access the Site; 
    • the pages of the Site you visit; 
    • your search queries; 
    • the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to us; and 
    • the type of device, device ID and web browser you use to access the Site.
  • We may also use “cookies” and “web beacons.” Cookies are small files stored on your computer's hard drive that are used to store and track personal information. Cookies are used to remind us of who you are in order to deliver you better service. Web beacons are small electronic files (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit FordHarrison, for example, to count users who have visited certain pages and for other related Site statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain Site content and verifying system and server integrity).

G. Geolocation Data:

  • None

H.    Sensory Data:

  • None

I.    Professional or employment-related information:

  • Employment (including job title, job level, or job function or role and company or organization)
  • Company data
  • Industry

J.    Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)) (“FERPA Information”):

  •  None

K.    Inferences drawn from other personal information:

  • None

L.    Sensitive Personal Information

  • None. Please note, we do not intentionally collect sensitive category personal data, unless you provide us with such data. Sensitive category personal data is personal information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership; genetic and biometric data; and data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation. While there may be free text boxes on the Subscription page where you are able to enter additional information, we do not intend to process sensitive information. You are not required to provide, and should not disclose, sensitive personal information in the free text boxes. If you choose to provide any sensitive personal information in this manner, you acknowledge your consent to the collection and processing of this sensitive information.

SOURCES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

  • Personal information that you provide voluntarily through our Site, by, for example, completing online forms to contact us, subscribing to a newsletter, subscribing to receive marketing communications from us, registering for events that we are organizing, or inquiring about material available for purchase.
  • Information you provide to us in electronic communications. 
  • Information you provide to us through postings on our social media sites. 

HOW WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION

As a general rule, we use personal information only for the purpose for which you have divulged the data to us, such as to answer your inquiries or to grant you access to password protected portions of the Site. The information you provide through our Subscriptions page is used only to provide you with the content in the area(s) you have selected. If you register for one of our events (including webinars and in-person events), we use information you provide solely for contacting you about the event, and to let you know about our future events if you have indicated that you would like to receive that information. Users of our Site are under no statutory or contractual requirement or other obligation to provide personal information to us via our website.

In addition to the uses discussed above, we may use the information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information, in the following ways:

  • To present and improve Site content and functionality;
  • To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us, including newsletters, Legal Alerts, event and webinar invitations and other material in which you have indicated an interest (for more information on our marketing practices, see the Additional Marketing Notice in our general Privacy Policy);
  • To determine user interests, needs, and preferences;
  • To manage and maintain the security of our Site and services;
  • To respond to an email from you to receive information on open positions with FordHarrison;
  • To comply with our legal and compliance obligations;
  • To exercise and defend our legal rights, or to comply with court orders;
  • For any other purpose related to and/or ancillary to any of the purposes and uses described in this California Privacy Policy for which your personal information was provided to us;
  • In any other way we may describe when you provide the information; and
  • For any other purpose to which you have consented.

How We Use Sensitive Personal Information. 
FordHarrison does not use or disclose sensitive personal information.

Additional Categories or Other Purposes. 
We will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice. If required by law, we will also seek your consent before using your personal information for a new or unrelated purpose.

We may collect, process, and disclose aggregated or deidentified consumer information for any purpose, without restriction. When we collect, process, or disclose aggregated or deidentified consumer information, we will maintain and use it in deidentified form and will not attempt to reidentify the information, except to determine whether our deidentification processes satisfies any applicable legal requirements.

DISCLOSING, SELLING, OR SHARING PERSONAL INFORMATION

Business Purpose Disclosures. 
We have not disclosed consumers’ personal information to third parties for a business purpose in the preceding 12 months.

Selling or Sharing Personal Information. 
We do not sell your personal information (including sensitive personal information) to third parties and have not sold it in the preceding 12 months. We do not share your personal information with third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes and have not shared your personal information in the preceding 12 months. We do not collect, sell or share personal information about individuals we know are under age 16. 

YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES

If you are a California resident, the CCPA grants you the following rights regarding your personal information:

Right to Know and Data Portability Requests.
You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information (the “right to know”), including the specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you (a “data portability request”). Our response will cover the 12-month period preceding the request, although we will honor requests to cover a longer period that do not extend past January 1, 2022, unless doing so would be impossible or involves disproportionate effort. You may exercise your right to know twice in any 12-month period. Once we receive your request and confirm your identity we will disclose to you:

  • The categories of
    • personal information we have collected about you; and 
    • sources from which we have collected personal information 
  • Our business or commercial purpose for collecting and, if applicable, selling or sharing your personal information 
  • If applicable, the categories of persons, including third parties, to whom we have disclosed your personal information 
  • When your right to know submission includes a data portability request, a copy of your personal information subject to any permitted redactions

Right to Delete and Correct.
You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions and limitations (the “right to delete”). Once we receive your request and confirm your identity, we will delete your personal information from our systems unless an exception allows us to retain it. We will also notify our service providers, if any, to take appropriate action.

You also have the right to request correction of personal information we maintain about you that you believe is inaccurate (the “right to correct”). We may require you to provide documentation, if needed, to confirm your identity and support your claim that the information is inaccurate. Unless an exception applies, we will correct personal information that our review determines is inaccurate and notify our service providers, if any, to take appropriate action.

Right to Limit Sensitive Personal Information Use and Disclosure to Permitted SPI Purposes. 
You have a right to ask businesses that use or disclose your sensitive personal information to limit those actions to just the CCPA's Permitted SPI Purposes (the “right to limit”). As we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information beyond the CCPA's Permitted SPI Purposes, we do not currently provide this consumer right.

Personal Information Sales or Sharing Opt-Out and Opt-In Rights. 
You have the right to request that businesses stop selling or sharing your personal information at any time (the “right to opt-out”), including through a user-enabled opt-out preference signal. Similarly, the CCPA prohibits businesses from selling or sharing the personal information of consumers it actually knows are under 16 years old without first obtaining consent from consumers who are between 13 and 15 years old or the consumer’s parent or guardian for consumers under age 13 (the “right to opt-in”). As we do not sell or share consumers’ personal data, and do not collect data from individuals we know are under age 16, we do not currently provide these consumer rights.

Right to Nondiscrimination.
You have the right not to be discriminated or retaliated against for exercising any of your privacy rights under the CCPA.

HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS

Exercising the Rights to Know, Delete, or Correct. 
To exercise the right to know, data portability, delete, or correct described above, please submit a verifiable request to us by one of the following:  

  • Sending a request to FordHarrison LLP, 271 17th Street NW, Suite 1900, Atlanta, Georgia 30363
  • Emailing us at clientservice@fordharrison.com
  • Calling 1-404-888-3800

Please describe your request with sufficient detail so we can properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it. You or your authorized agent may only submit a request to know, including for data portability, twice within a 12-month period.

Verification Process and Authorized Agents. 
Only you, or someone legally authorized to act on your behalf, may make a request to know, delete, or correct related to your personal information. To designate an authorized agent, we may require proof of your written authorization or evidence of a power of attorney. We cannot respond to your request to know, delete, or correct if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relating to you. We will only use personal information provided in the request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Responding to Your Requests to Know, Delete, or Correct.
We will confirm receipt of your request within ten business days. If you do not receive confirmation within the ten-day timeframe, please contact clientservice@fordharrison.com. We endeavor to substantively respond to a verifiable request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to another 45 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. We will deliver our written response to your verified email address.

Our substantive response will tell you whether or not we have complied with your request. If we cannot comply with your request in whole or in part, we will explain the reason, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions. Applicable law may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all of the personal information that we hold about you, or we may have destroyed, deleted, or made your personal information anonymous in compliance with our record retention policies and obligations.

Any disclosures we provide will cover information for the 12-month period preceding the request’s receipt date. We will consider requests to provide a longer disclosure period that do not extend past January 1, 2022, unless providing the longer timeframe would be impossible or involves disproportionate effort.

For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

PRIVACY POLICY CHANGES

We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will update the policy’s effective date and post the updated policy on our website at http://www.fordharrison.com/privacy.

CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have any questions or comments about this policy, the ways in which we collect and use your information described here, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under California law, please do not hesitate to contact us at:

Phone: 1-404-888-3800
Email:  clientservice@fordharrison.com 
Postal Mail: FordHarrison LLP, 271 17th Street NW, Suite 1900, Atlanta, Georgia 30363

If you need to access this Privacy Policy in an alternative format due to a disability, please contact clientservice@fordharrison.com or 1-404-888-3800.