Acorns (Acorns Grow Inc., a private Delaware corporation headquartered in Irvine, CA) is a U.S. micro-investing app that rounds up purchases and invests spare change through affiliated brokerage, IRA, checking, and UGMA/UTMA products. Its GLBA privacy notice discloses standard financial-account data collection and answers "Yes" with no opt-out to sharing customer data with affiliates for marketing; its App Store privacy label separately discloses a broader in-app data set (location, contacts, user content) and explicitly flags data "used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies." Acorns Earn, its shop-and-earn rewards program, spans 10,000+ merchant partners and a browser extension that tracks purchases across sites. Ownership is privately held and traceable only through SEC Form D filings rather than public 10-K disclosure. Its FINRA-regulated broker-dealer subsidiary, Acorns Securities, LLC, was censured and fined $200,000 by FINRA in a September 2022 settlement over inaccurate customer account statements and supervisory failures — a remediated, non-privacy-specific enforcement action, not a data breach.
TRACK RECORD
1 ENFORCEMENT ACTION
[2022-09-02]
FINRA's BrokerCheck report for Acorns Securities, LLC (CRD #168172) documents a September 2, 2022 regulatory settlement in which the firm was censured and fined $200,000 for sending customers account statements with inaccurate cash and ETF-share balances and for failing to maintain a supervisory system reasonably designed to prevent it.
The Acorns iOS App Store privacy label (self-reported by the developer) lists Purchases, Financial Info, Location, Contact Info, User Content, Identifiers, Usage Data, and Diagnostics as data categories collected and linked to the user's identity.
Acorns' GLBA Consumer Privacy Notice states the personal information it collects and shares can include Social Security number and account balances, transaction history and income, and account transactions and checking account information; the same policy discloses that Acorns uses Plaid Inc. to gather user data directly from linked financial institutions.
Acorns Grow Inc.'s SEC Form D filing identifies the issuer as a Delaware corporation headquartered at 5300 California Avenue, Irvine, CA, confirming Acorns is a privately held company rather than a public filer.
Acorns' own Acorns Earn page states the program offers 10,000+ merchant offers and includes a browser extension that automatically tracks purchases while the user shops online in order to credit bonus investments, meaning purchase/browsing activity is shared with or observed across a large network of third-party brand partners.
Acorns' GLBA notice discloses that Acorns shares personal information with its affiliates so they can market to the customer, and that customers cannot limit this particular category of sharing.
FINRA's BrokerCheck report for Acorns Securities, LLC (CRD #168172) documents a September 2, 2022 regulatory settlement in which the firm was censured and fined $200,000 for sending customers account statements with inaccurate cash and ETF-share balances and for failing to maintain a supervisory system reasonably designed to prevent it.
The Acorns iOS App Store privacy label discloses that Purchases, Identifiers, and Usage Data collected by the app may be used to track the user across apps and websites owned by other companies, under Apple's 'Data Used to Track You' category.
Acorns' privacy policy states that some cookies on its services allow third parties, including its service providers and advertising partners, to collect data needed for the services they provide, including support for online behavioral advertising.