• Limit access to customer information to those people who need to know that information to provide or maintain products and services to you.
• Are bound by our privacy policy requiring confidential treatment of customer information.
• Maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect customer information.
• Continually adopt new technology for protecting information.

At NorthStar, we only collect information that is needed to serve you and administer our business. This information comes to us from a variety of sources, including:

• Information we receive directly from you or at your request, such as:
  • Contact information such as name, address, e-mail address and telephone number. We use this, to, among other things, identify you as a NorthStar customer, send you information about our products and services, and call or write you about your accounts.
  • Identification information such as a social security number. We may need your social security number, for example, to administer your education loan, obtain a consumer credit report when you apply for credit with us, report student loan interest payments to the IRS, or to comply with other legal requirements.
  • Financial information such as income, assets, liabilities. We may use this to process loan applications and make recommendations regarding the products or services that might benefit you.
• Information about your transactions and experiences with us, such as account balances and payment history. This permits us, for example, to process your requests quickly and recommend appropriate products.
• Information about you from consumer reporting agencies, such as credit history and credit scores. We use this when we process loan applications, monitor and collect existing accounts, and as otherwise permitted by law.
• Information from other outside sources such as cosigners and references regarding their relationship with you. We use this information to process your loan requests and as otherwise permitted by law.

We carefully limit and control the sharing of your information. To protect your privacy, we do not disclose information about our current or former customers to anyone, except as outlined in this policy or as permitted or required by law. To provide our customers with comprehensive and effective service, we may use customer information to determine whether they might want to know about certain financial products and services. We may share information in these limited circumstances:

• Our Affiliates. We share information among the NorthStar companies as necessary to process, administer and service your loans and transactions you have authorized.
• Third Party Service Providers. NorthStar may use outside companies or suppliers to perform services, such as printing, mailing, or processing customer transactions. These service providers are contractually required to adhere to our strict confidentiality policies and may use the information only to provide the intended service.
• Joint Venture Partners of NorthStar. We may enter into joint marketing agreements with carefully selected financial institutions outside of NorthStar to bring special opportunities to our customers. We may provide these financial institutions with customer contact information, such as name, address, and telephone number and account information, such as the amount of the loan, maturity date, and monthly payment amount. Joint Venture partners are required to keep our customer information confidential and use it only as authorized by us.
• Other Circumstances. We share customer information with unaffiliated third parties when our customers specifically request it or give us permission to do so. In connection with education loans, we are required to make disclosures to various guaranty agencies, your schools and the U.S. Department of Education. Other examples where we share personal information include: reporting to consumer reporting agencies, transfer information in connection with a proposed sale or actual sale of a business unit, when we suspect fraud or criminal activity, or when otherwise required by law.
• VERMONT RESIDENTS ONLY. If you are a resident of Vermont, the information set forth above about your information sharing choice does not apply to you. Under Vermont law, we are not permitted to share information you give us or information we receive from others unless you consent.