The financial information you share with us is important and private. We treat information submitted on the Parents' Financial Statement and follow-up tax documents you send to us -- with the ultimate in protections for confidentiality and security.
All document handling is performed in secure facilities. Tax documents are stored in fire-safe vaults. Six months after receipt, paper documents are destroyed through a certified shredding process. Electronic copies of the documents are stored for use while applicants are in school.
The data we store is protected by multiple layers of information-security protections. The facilities that store and process this information maintain SAS 70 certifications. (Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70 represents a certification that a service organization has been through an in-depth audit of their control objectives and control activities, which often include controls over information technology and related processes.)
All processing facilities are secured with a state-of-the-art physical security system, which includes nationwide access controls and 24 X 365 monitoring.
All processing systems are protected by a sophisticated, enterprise-class network of hardware and software which monitors system performance, safeguards data, and identifies and prevents malicious or unwanted intrusions such as denial-of-service attacks and unauthorized network access.
