Michigan Education Savings Program privacy policy

Please read this notice carefully. It gives you important information about how the Michigan Education Savings Program (the "Program") uses and protects personal information when you visit MIsaves.com or when you submit documents via mail, email, or in-person in connection with the Program through its Program Manager, TIAA-CREF Tuition Financing, Inc. ("TFI" or "we"). Subject to the "Changes to our Privacy Policy" section below, this policy applies to all account owners in the Program and MIsaves.com website visitors.

Information We May Collect

We, on behalf of the Program, may collect personal information about you, the successor account owner, and beneficiary from various sources to provide information requested by you about the Program, as well as to transact business with you, including to service and maintain your account in the Program. We may obtain this personal information (which may include Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) and date of birth belonging to the account owners, successor account owner, and beneficiary) in any of the following ways:

you provide it on MESP application;
you provide it on other MESP forms;
you provide on the MESP website, or it is collected through "cookies" and similar text files;
you provide it during consultations;
you provide on sweepstakes or promotional materials;
we obtain it to complete your requested transactions;
third parties the account owner authorizes to provide information to the Program; or
third parties the account owner designates to have access to the Program.

How Your Information Is Shared and Used

We do not disclose your personal information to any third parties so that they can market their products and services to you.

As permitted by law or contract, we may disclose your information to those service providers, affiliated and non-affiliated, hired by us on behalf of the Program and which need the information to respond to your inquiries and/or to service, maintain your account, and improve the Program's ability to serve you and enhance your Program benefits.

The affiliated and non-affiliated service providers who receive your personal information may use it to:

process your Program transactions;
provide you with Program materials;
mail you Program account statements;
mail, email, or digitally provide you Program communications; and
maintain the Program website.

These service providers provide services at TFI's direction and include marketing agencies, fulfillment companies, printing, and mailing facilities. These service providers are required to keep your personal information confidential and to use it only for providing the contractually required services.

In addition, we may be required by law to disclose your personal information to government agencies and other regulatory bodies (for example, for tax reporting purposes or to report suspicious transactions).

Security of Your Information

TFI protects the personal information you provide against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, destruction, loss, or misuse. Your personal information is protected by physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards in accordance with federal and state standards. These safeguards include appropriate procedures for access and use of electronic data, provisions for the secure transmission of sensitive personal information on the Program's website, and telephone system authentication procedures.

Changes in Our Privacy Policy

TFI will periodically review this Privacy Policy and its related practices and procedures. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will become effective upon posting of the revised Privacy Policy on MIsaves.com. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by means of a prominent notice on the Program's website prior to the change becoming effective.

Notice About Online Privacy

The personal information that you provide through the Program’s website is handled in the same way as the personal information that you provide by any other means, as described above. This section of the notice gives you additional information about the way in which personal information that is obtained online is handled.

Online Enrollment, Account Access, and Online Transactions

When you visit the Program’s website, you can go to pages that are open to the general public or log on to protected pages to enroll in the Program, access information about your account, or conduct certain transactions on your account. Once you have opened an account in the Program, access to the secure pages of the Program’s website is permitted only after you have created a User ID and password by supplying your Social Security Number or Taxpayer Identification Number and Account Number. The User ID and password must be supplied each time you want to access your account information online. This information serves to verify your identity.

When you enter personal data into the Program’s website (including your Social Security Number or Taxpayer Identification Number and your password) to enroll or access your account online, you will log in to secure pages where we use Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol for protecting information.

To use this section of the Program website, you need a browser that supports encryption and dynamic web page construction.

If you provide personal information to effect transactions on the Program website, a record of the transactions that you have performed while on the site is retained by the Program.

Other Personal Information Provided by You on the Program Website

If you decide not to enroll online and you want to request Program enrollment materials to be mailed to you, speak with a consultant, attend an MESP webinar, or you want to subscribe to receive additional Program information, you can click on various sections of the Program’s website (i.e., the Request Information page in the Help Desk section, MESP At Work, or request e-communications directly from the homepage) to provide your name, mailing address, and email address, respectively. The personal information you provide on the Programs's website will be stored and used to market the MESP more effectively.

When you visit the Program's website, we may collect information about your use of the site through "cookies." Cookies are small bits of information transferred to your computer's hard drive that allows us to know how often a user visits our site and the activities they are most interested in performing. By visiting the Program's site, you are deemed to accept such cookies to enable you to take full advantage of specific services offered. We may also require you to accept cookies placed by a third party supporting this activity on behalf of the Program.

The cookies collect certain technical and navigational information only, such as computer browser type, internet protocol address, pages visited, and average time spent on our websites. In addition, we capture the paths taken as you move from page to page (i.e., your "click stream" activity). This information allows us to enhance your experience while on our site.

Finally, we use cookies to establish and maintain a logged-in connection while you are in the secure section(s) of our website. For example, when you visit your account, perform transactions, update contact information, or perform other activities, the cookie allows you to navigate from page to page in a secure fashion without having to repeatedly log in.

External Links

The Program may, from time to time, contain links to external sites operated by third parties. We are not responsible for these third-party sites or the content of such third-party sites. Once you have left the Program website, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information that you provide. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy policy of any website you visit.

Internet Tracking Disclosure

We do not have the protocol that offers you the choice to opt out of Internet tracking. You may reset your web browser to enable do not track functionality if your browser supports it.

Online Behavioral Advertising

Online Behavioral Advertising is a marketing approach where information is collected about consumers and their browsing behavior and used to share ads targeted at their interests.

You may opt out of Online Behavioral Advertising by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) and following the opt-out instructions.

Note: Opting out of Online Behavioral Advertising will not remove advertisements from the pages you visit. You will simply see general advertisements that aren’t targeted at your interests.

Obtaining Additional Information

You may call the Program toll-free at 877-861-6377 or write to the Program at MESP, P.O. Box 55451, Boston, MA 02205-5451.