Privacy Policy

                                         

Information we collect and why

In order to provide a high-quality service, Betterment collects various types of information when you visit the website or mobile app, sign-up as a customer, or otherwise engage with Betterment.

Visitor information

We collect various types of anonymous information about visitors to Betterment, such as device-related information (including browser type and IP address) and server log information (including the date and time of day of your visit, average time spent on the Betterment site, browsing activity, and any site that referred you to Betterment). We also collect information that you input into our website, such as your name, phone number, or email address when you begin the account application process or comment on the Betterment blog. We use this information to better understand our visitors and our business, facilitate site navigation, provide the services or information you request, and enhance the Betterment service. To the extent you enter identifying information as part of the account application process, we are required by law to store that information to comply with federal regulations.

Customer information

When you choose to create an account with Betterment, we will also collect certain personal information, including your full legal name, email address, permanent address, date of birth, social security number and information about financial status. We are required by law to collect and store this information to provide you with financial services. If you do not wish to provide this information, you cannot become a Betterment customer.

Betterment conducts identity verification through Socure, which may also require the collection of facial images, such as headshots from your identification card and selfie photographs. Socure also collects information about the device accessing a Betterment account to analyze the risk of fraud. By creating an account with Betterment, you acknowledge and agree that the terms of Socure’s Privacy Policy will govern Socure’s use of such information.

Additionally, by creating an account with Betterment, you authorize your wireless carrier to use or disclose information about your wireless account and your wireless device, if available, to Betterment. We and certain service providers use this information solely for security purposes and fraud prevention, including to identify you or your wireless device.

Betterment offers account linking and aggregation services through Plaid Inc. ("Plaid"). By using account linking and aggregation services, you acknowledge and agree that the terms of Plaid's Privacy Policy will govern Plaid's use of such information, and you expressly agree to the terms and conditions of Plaid's Privacy Policy. Further, you expressly grant Plaid the right, power, and authority to access and transmit your information as reasonably necessary for Plaid to provide these services to you. Betterment will collect information about the transactions associated with, and the cash flows into and out of, accounts linked through Plaid.

Betterment uses Stripe, Inc. (“Stripe”) to process customer payments. By using these payment services, you acknowledge and agree to the terms of Stripe’s Privacy Policy. Further, you expressly grant Stripe the right, power, and authority to access, store, and transmit your payment information as reasonably necessary for Stripe to provide these services to you.

If you open or maintain a Betterment Checking account, you authorize MX Technologies, Inc. ("MX") to collect information about your Betterment Checking account transactions. You acknowledge and agree that the information collected, and the services provided to you, by MX are subject to certain terms and conditions.

If you receive customer support by telephone from any of Betterment’s business lines, you acknowledge and agree that those support calls may be recorded. If you use Zoom to initiate a screenshare with Betterment’s customer support or human advice teams, you acknowledge and agree that Zoom may collect certain information about your location, as well as the timing and your use of its services, in accordance with Zoom's Privacy Policy.

If you use a Betterment Visa® Debit Card, you acknowledge and agree that Betterment will, on behalf of Dosh Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Cardlytics, Inc. (“Dosh”), our cash rewards partner, collect certain transaction information about purchases made with your Betterment Visa® Debit Card. The transaction information includes information about your purchases and the vendors with which you transacted, but does not contain personally identifying information such as name, address, date of birth or social security number. Additionally, if you enable the location services feature, Betterment collects information about your location through your phone to provide you with cash back offers in your vicinity. You acknowledge and agree that the collection of information to offer cash back rewards is also subject to the Dosh Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Betterment at Work employer and employee information

We collect information from companies, including retirement plan sponsors and plan participants, that use the Betterment at Work platform. When a company creates an account with Betterment as a retirement plan sponsor, we will collect information on both the company and its employees as plan participants, including but not limited to, the company’s name, the company’s employer identification number, details about the company’s existing retirement plans, an email address of the company’s contact person and other relevant plan information. We will also collect certain personal and financial information about the plan participants, including, but not limited to, names, social security numbers, dates of birth, annual incomes, addresses, length of service with the company, gender, marital status, dates of hire, email addresses and other contact information, occupation, industry, personal interests, bank account balance, salary information, contribution rates and tax bracket.

Betterment at Work employers may also offer 529 education savings services through a joint offering between Betterment and Ascensus College Savings Recordkeeping Services, LLC (“Ascensus”). If you open or maintain an integrated 529 account through Betterment, Betterment will share certain personal information collected from you, including your full legal name, phone number, email address, mailing address, date of birth, social security number, and U.S. residency status with Ascensus and with your selected 529 plan for the purpose of opening your 529 account. The services provided by Ascensus and your 529 plan are subject to Ascensus’s Privacy Policy as well as the privacy policy of your 529 plan.

If you initiate a rollover using Capitalize Money, Inc. (“Capitalize”), Capitalize will share with Betterment information necessary to create a user profile for you, including full legal name, phone number, email address, mailing address, date of birth, and social security number. By initiating a rollover, you also authorize Betterment to share certain personal information collected from you, including your IRA account number(s) and user ID, with Capitalize for the purpose of completing your rollover. You acknowledge and agree that the information collected, shared, and the services provided to you by Capitalize are subject to Capitalize’s Privacy Policy.

Advisor information

We collect information from advisory firms that use the Betterment for Advisors platform, as well as from individual advisors, including but not limited to advisory firm and advisor names, email addresses, and other relevant information pertaining to advisors’ businesses. We also collect certain personal and financial information about advisory firm customers, who are Betterment customers, as described above in the “Customer Information” section. Additionally, we collect information from advisors who are considering partnering with Betterment.

Other ways we collect information

Apart from through the account opening process and from visitors to the site, we may collect various other types of personal information if you or a friend engages with Betterment. We collect your email address as part of our customer referral service or if you subscribe to the Betterment blog. We may also collect personal information if you enter it into our live chat program or contact us or otherwise give it to us (e.g., in an email, phone call, or live chat with a member of our customer support team). Further, we may collect information regarding your browsing activity when you visit Betterment’s websites and actions you take within your Betterment account while logged in to your Betterment account.

Cookies and pixels

Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored on your computer, mobile phone or any other device used to access the internet. Pixels are small code blocks on a website that allow for another server to measure viewing of a webpage and often are used in connection with cookies.

We use these technologies to customize Betterment and improve your experience with the site. Cookies store information, such as whether you viewed the site from your mobile device. We may store some personal information in a cookie and/or pixel, such as the site that you visited immediately prior to visiting Betterment and relevant financial information that allows us to enhance your user experience and for marketing purposes. Additionally, we may use a cookie and/or pixel to track visitors across various websites or devices to better customize our marketing and advertising campaigns. We also offer certain tools from third-party service providers that may use cookies and/or pixels.

Certain cookies, pixels, and similar technologies are not required for site functionality. You are not required to accept non-functional cookies or pixels to use this site. However, refusing to accept these cookies or pixels will make the use of Betterment more cumbersome and less accessible.

You may opt out of the use of cookies and pixels for behavioral advertising through the privacy controls on the Betterment website. 

Advertising companies

Betterment advertises our services on websites not affiliated with Betterment, and we contract with third-party advertising companies to display these ads. These third-party advertising companies, along with data exchanges and similar providers, may use cookies and similar technologies to collect technical and web navigational information, such as device type, browser type, IP address, and pages visited. We do not provide personally identifiable information to these advertising companies.

Betterment and third-party advertising companies may use the data collected to provide you with ads relevant to you and personalized content while you are on Betterment or other sites. If you prefer to not receive targeted advertising, you can opt out of some network advertising programs that use your information by visiting the NAI Opt-Out Page. You may also contact these third party companies directly to opt out of targeted advertising from Betterment and/or any other firm. Please note that even if you choose to remove your information by opting out, you will still see advertisements while you are browsing online.

Additionally, many network advertising programs allow you to view and manage the interest categories they have compiled from your online browsing activities. These interest categories help determine the types of targeted advertisements you may receive. The NAI Opt-Out Page provides a tool that identifies its member companies that have cookies on your browser and provides links to those companies. Because mobile devices may vary in how they operate and may not use cookies, the choice management options listed above may not work for all mobile devices and mobile apps.

Analytics services

We use third-party analytics tools, including Google Analytics (such tools collectively referred to as “Analytics Services”) to collect information about the usage of this site. The Analytics Services collect information about how often users visit this site, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to this site, among other information. We use the information we get from these Analytics Services to improve this site.

These Analytics Services collect the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, along with other anonymized information (e.g., browser type and type of device used to visit the site), but not your name or other personally identifiable information. The Analytics Services’ ability to use and share information about your visits to this site is restricted by their terms of use and privacy policies. You can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on return visits to this site by disabling cookies on your browser. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

 

 

                                         

How we share your information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information with any third parties other than with your consent or as required by law.

In order to provide financial services and in connection with our everyday business purposes and activities, we may share your personal information with third parties who perform services on our behalf. Examples of these third parties and services include consumer identification verification services, public accounting firms and other professional firms, and certain other vendors and service providers who perform marketing, advertising, research and analytics services on our behalf. We have entered into agreements that require that these third parties keep this information confidential. We may also disclose your information to other third-party financial institutions, e.g., if you ask to transfer assets from Betterment to such financial institutions or if you make student loan repayments using Betterment's student loan management services. If you choose to use Betterment’s charitable giving feature, we will share your name and email address with the recipient charity, which the recipient charity may use to contact you.

We may also disclose personal information in response to service of legal process, such as a court order, summons, or subpoena, or as permitted or required by law when we reasonably believe it is necessary or appropriate to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud (including identity theft), frontrunning or scalping, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, or suspected violations of our Terms of Service or customer agreements. We also may disclose information about you if necessary to determine your eligibility to recover compensation in connection with class action lawsuits.

Furthermore, we may disclose personal information in specific other cases with your consent.

If you conduct business with us through Betterment for Advisors, we may exchange information we collect with your investment professional or with others they may authorize.

If you open a Betterment Checking account, Betterment will share information with nbkc bank and/or its agents for purposes relating to your account.

If you use a Betterment Visa® Debit Card, Betterment will share the transaction information described above with Dosh, Betterment’s cash rewards partner, and/or its agents for purposes of generating cash back rewards offers for your account. Dosh is prohibited from selling this data. Dosh also may not use this data for any purpose other than providing cash back rewards or another authorized purpose. If you do not wish for this information to be shared, you may disable cash back rewards by emailing [email protected]. Betterment also will share information about your location with Dosh if you allow Betterment to access your location through your phone. If you do not wish this information to be shared, you may choose not to enable location services on your phone.

If you choose to import your Betterment tax information into TurboTax, Betterment will share your tax documents from your Betterment account with Intuit TurboTax. You acknowledge and agree that the terms of Intuit’s Privacy Policy will govern Intuit’s use of such information.

In order to provide workplace services to employers or plan sponsors through the Betterment at Work platform, such as retirement savings plan services, recordkeeping services, and student loan management services, we may exchange any information received in connection with such services with the employer or plan sponsor or others they may authorize, such as an employer-selected investment professional. We may also share information, including but not limited to account positions, contributions, distributions, and cash flows, with a third-party financial institution that serves as a directed trustee to 401(k) plans serviced by Betterment for Business and its affiliates.

Further, if your employer has engaged a third-party advisor to provide advisory and/or investment management services to the 401(k) plan, Betterment is authorized by your employer to share your information with the third-party advisor, and the third-party advisor may use your information to provide investment advisory services or market its other services to you.

We may also share information, including but not limited to account positions, contributions, distributions, and cash flows, with a third-party financial institution that serves as a directed trustee to 401(k) plans serviced by Betterment for Business and its affiliates.

If you contact Betterment Support, information you provide may be collected and used by third-party service providers to Betterment or their service providers, which may process that information using generative artificial intelligence technology, including but not limited to large language models. Betterment has received assurances that your personal information will not be used to train any of these models.

How we share your personal information for marketing and research analytics

As disclosed above, we use certain vendors and service providers who perform marketing, advertising, research and analytics services on our behalf.

These include platforms that monitor and provide analytics on our systems, applications that support automated emails for marketing efforts, applications that allow us to build personalized social media campaigns, and tools to record customer communication and interaction history. We use these service providers to comply with regulatory requirements, provide financial services, enhance your customer experience, improve our products and features, and provide customer support. These vendors and service providers with whom we share your personal information are bound by agreements with us to keep your personal information confidential and we never rent or sell your information to anyone.

We use reasonable efforts to limit the sharing of personally identifiable information with vendors and service providers when it is not reasonably required for the service and share anonymized or hashed information in lieu of personal information when it is practicable. Certain experiences on Betterment's website and applications may entail engaging directly with third-party service providers. In such situations, you will be presented with terms and conditions that apply to the use of that service, which may include authorizing such service providers to use anonymized data from your engagement to improve their own products or services. For more information about anonymized information, see details below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

Other important information

Former customers

If you are a former customer, these policies also apply to you; we treat your information with the same care as we do information about current customers. We preserve former customer data in order to comply with regulatory obligations.

How we respond to do not track signals

Online tracking is the collection of data about an individual’s Internet activity used to deliver targeted advertisements and for other purposes. Customers using certain modern browsers have the ability to activate a “Do Not Track” signal. Betterment currently responds to the “Do Not Track” signal as required by certain states' laws.

How you accept this policy

By using and continuing to use the Betterment websites, mobile apps and/or services, or otherwise providing us with personal information (such as an email address) you agree to the terms and conditions of this privacy policy and any updates thereto. This policy may change from time to time. This is our entire and exclusive privacy policy and it supersedes any earlier version. Our Terms and Conditions take precedence over any conflicting privacy policy provision.

Changes to the policy

We may modify this privacy policy over time without prior notice by posting a new version of this privacy policy, which is your responsibility to review. Any changes to the privacy policy will be reflected on this page and will become effective immediately upon posting. We encourage you to periodically review this privacy policy to stay informed about how we are protecting the personally identifiable information we collect. If changes to the privacy policy are material, we will do our best to notify you via email or through a notification on the site or app. Please check the effective date below to determine if there have been any changes since you have last reviewed the Betterment privacy policy.

Children

Our service is not directed towards anyone under the age of 18. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that their child under the age of 18 has created an account with Betterment and/or provided us with personally identifiable information, please contact us at [email protected]. Additionally, if we become aware at any point that a child under the age of 18 is using our service, we will terminate their account. 

U.S. State Privacy Notice and California Notice at Collection

Several U.S. states, including California, have enacted or will soon enact consumer privacy laws that grant their residents certain rights and require additional disclosures (collectively, “State Privacy Laws”). If you are a resident of one of these states, this section applies to you and supplements the information contained in Betterment’s Full Privacy Policy.

As explained in our privacy policy above, both federal and state laws require us to tell you how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal information. As a result, our data collection practices are generally governed by federal law, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”). However, certain information collected is covered by State Privacy Laws. This may include information related to cross-contextual behavioral advertising or targeted advertising. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) of 2020 and other California laws (collectively, the “CCPA”), this may also include information about employees and employee applicants as well as enterprise data (such as business-to-business).

This notice is intended to provide information required under State Privacy Laws, including the CCPA. This notice applies to the data collection and processing practices of Betterment LLC, Betterment Securities, Betterment for Business LLC, and Betterment Financial LLC (collectively, “Betterment” or “we”).

We do not and will not sell consumer personal information in the traditional and colloquial sense of the word “sale.” We do use advertising technology on our website, which under some State Privacy Laws may be considered a “sale” or “share” of your information. We do not exchange our clients’ personal information for monetary payments. As discussed below, you may opt-out of targeted advertising at any time on our website. We also do not offer financial incentives, preferential service agreements, or any other differences in our prices or services in exchange for your data. For more information see below “Right to Opt-Out of Sale/Sharing.”

We disclose the following categories of personal information to third parties for the purpose of engaging in targeted advertising and other marketing activities, including to expand the reach and effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. These disclosures may be considered “sales” or “sharing” or use of personal information for “targeted advertising” under certain State Privacy Laws.

 

 

Your privacy choices and rights

 

Under the State Privacy Laws, you may have the rights to access, delete, and correct your personal data, to opt out of “sales” or “shares” of your personal data, and to limit the use and disclosure of your sensitive personal information, subject to certain exceptions under federal law, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”). We may deny your Data Subject Requests to delete if your data is:

 

 

Under certain State Privacy Laws, 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. Once we receive and verify your Data Subject Requests, we will delete your personal information from our records (and direct our service providers to delete your personal information from their records), unless an exception applies.

Certain personal information that we collect and use to provide you with financial services, and which Betterment is obligated by federal law and/or regulations to retain, cannot be deleted upon request. 

 

Under certain State Privacy Laws, you have the right to request that we correct any inaccuracies about your personal information. If we provide you with financial services, you can do so through our application.

Under certain State Privacy Laws, you have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we confirm your Data Subject Request, we will disclose to you, upon specific request:

 

 

Certain State Privacy Laws require that we provide transparency about personal information we use for targeted advertising. Betterment shares personal information with marketing vendors for the commercial purpose of placing relevant content and advertisements for you on our own websites and apps, as well as other websites, online media channels, and apps. As noted above, although this use of personal information may constitute a “sale” of personal information under certain State Privacy Laws, Betterment never receives monetary payments in exchange for personal information that we collect from you. 

 

We already limit the use of sensitive personal information only to the purpose of providing you with the financial services we offer. Therefore, our use of this information cannot be further limited by request. 

We cannot respond to your Data Subject Request or provide you with personal information if we are unable to verify your identity, or unable to verify the authority for the person making the request as your agent. We will use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer Data Subject Request to verify your identity or authority to make the Data Subject Request, and not for any other purpose.

 

We will acknowledge your Data Subject Request within 10 days. We attempt to respond to every Data Subject Request within 45 days. If we require more time, we will inform you of the reason and how much additional time we require (up to 90 days in total). Any disclosures we provide may only cover the 12-month period preceding the Data Subject Request’s receipt. If we are unable to satisfy your Data Subject Request, or a part of your Data Subject Request, we will explain why.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to Data Subject Requests.

 

Only you, or a person you have designated in writing as your authorized agent, or who is registered with the applicable Secretary of State to act on your behalf, or to whom you have provided power of attorney pursuant to applicable laws, (“Authorized Agent”), may make a verifiable consumer request to access, port, correct, or delete your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

If you wish to have an Authorized Agent make a request on your behalf, they will need to provide us with sufficient written proof that you have designated them as your Authorized Agent, and we will still require you to provide sufficient information to allow us to reasonably verify that you are the person about whom we collected personal information.

 

If you are a California resident, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits you to request a list of all third parties to which we, during the immediately preceding calendar year, have disclosed certain personally identifiable information for direct marketing purposes.

We are only required to respond to a customer request for this list once during any calendar year. To make such a request, please see above under the section “Exercising Your Privacy Choices and Rights.” Please be aware that not all information sharing is covered by the California privacy rights requirements and only information sharing that is covered will be included in our response.

The following chart shows details about the Data Subject Requests we received under CCPA from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023:

 

 

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights. Unless permitted by the State Privacy Laws, we will not: