Privacy Policy

Southern Haulers means Southern Haulers LLC, a Georgia limited liability company operating as a motor carrier under USDOT 3418762 and MC 1105194. Our principal place of business is Vidalia, Georgia.

This policy governs our public website at southernhaulers.net, our hiring portal at southernhaulers.net/drivers/apply, and any affiliated digital surfaces we operate. It is a binding statement of how we handle personal information — meaning any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated with an individual.

From driver applicants: name, contact information (phone, email, mailing address), date of birth, CDL number, CDL class, CDL state of issue, CDL photographs (front and back), years of experience, route preference, residency history (3 years), employment history (10 years for CDL applicants), accident and violation history, drug and alcohol testing history, medical certification status, legal right to work in the U.S., signed Clearinghouse query consent, signed PSP authorization, signed previous-employer release.

We do not collect Social Security Numbers on the public application form. SSN is requested only after a conditional offer of employment and is collected through a secure, separate channel as required by 49 CFR §391.21. See §3 for more.

From customers and shippers: name, company, contact information, shipment origin/destination, cargo type, requested service date.

Automatically from your device: IP address, browser type, operating system, referring URL, pages visited, timestamps. We use this strictly for security monitoring and site-performance analytics. We do not sell or share this data with advertisers.

Driver-applicant information is collected primarily to satisfy the federal regulations that govern our operating authority. These are not discretionary:

• 49 CFR §391.21 requires us to maintain a complete application for employment for every driver before that driver operates a commercial motor vehicle for us.
• 49 CFR §391.23 requires us to investigate every applicant's driving record (MVR), accident history, and prior drug/alcohol testing history. We do this by querying state DMVs and previous DOT-regulated employers, with your signed consent.
• 49 CFR §382.701requires us to query the FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse before hire and annually thereafter. You must register with the Clearinghouse and provide electronic consent before we can perform this query.
• 49 CFR §391.51 requires us to maintain a Driver Qualification File (DQF) containing all of the above for the duration of your employment plus three years after separation.

We also use applicant information for non-regulatory purposes that are directly related to the hiring decision: scheduling interviews, evaluating qualifications, fraud prevention, and responding to your inquiries. We do not use applicant information for marketing.

Before a conditional offer of employment becomes final, we will obtain a consumer report on you. This may include an MVR, criminal background, employment verification, and a Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP) record from FMCSA. We use a third-party Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) to obtain these reports.

Because we are a DOT-regulated motor carrier, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) provides a regulated-DOT variant of its notice-and-consent process. You will receive a clear disclosure naming the CRA before the report is ordered, and you have the right under FCRA §615(a)(3) to a copy of any report we use to make an adverse decision about your application.

Clearinghouse query results are confidential and are not disclosed to insurers or third parties beyond what FMCSA permits.

We share applicant and driver information only with:

• Previous DOT-regulated employers, as required by §391.23 investigation;
• The FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, per §382.701;
• DOT-certified drug and alcohol testing laboratories and medical review officers;
• Our third-party Consumer Reporting Agency;
• Federal, state, and local regulators when legally required (subpoena, audit, accident investigation);
• Our insurance carriers in the event of an accident or claim involving the driver;
• Successor entities in the event of a sale, merger, or restructuring of Southern Haulers LLC.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share applicant or driver information with advertisers, data brokers, or any third party for marketing or commercial purposes.

Retention follows the federal minimums applicable to each record type:

• Driver Qualification File: 3 years after separation of employment (§391.51).
• Drug and alcohol testing records: 1 year for negative results, 5 years for positive results, refusals, or violations (§382.401).
• Applications from non-hired applicants: 1 year (FCRA minimum), then securely destroyed.
• Web analytics data: session-level for the duration of the session; aggregated data may be retained up to 12 months.

Under §391.23 and FCRA, you have the right to:

• Review information provided about you by previous DOT-regulated employers;
• Correct any factual error in that information;
• Attach a written rebuttal that becomes part of your investigation file;
• Receive a copy of any consumer report we obtained about you;
• Receive written notice if we take adverse action (decline to hire, decline to promote, terminate) based on a consumer report, with the name of the CRA that supplied it.

We will respond to requests under §391.23 within 5 business days of receipt.

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) gives you the right to request access to, deletion of, or correction of your personal information held by us. Note that records subject to FMCSA retention minimums (DQF, drug/alcohol records, applications) cannot be deleted on request before the federal minimum has elapsed.

Georgia residents have analogous rights under Georgia consumer protection statutes. To exercise any state-law right, contact us at compliance@southernhaulers.net.

Information in transit is encrypted via TLS 1.3. Information at rest in our application and DQF systems is stored with access controls limited to staff whose job duties require it (recruiting, safety, dispatch). Paper records are kept in locked file storage at our Vidalia, GA office.

Sensitive fields such as date of birth and (when collected post-offer) Social Security Number are stored as tokenized references: the raw value is exchanged for an opaque token at the point of collection, and only that token is stored in our application database. The raw value lives in a separate, access-restricted vault.

No system is perfectly secure. If we ever discover a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you per applicable state breach notification law.

Our hiring portal is intended for individuals 21 years of age or older (interstate CDL minimum). We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will bump the effective date at the top of the page. Material changes (those that expand the categories of information we collect, the purposes we use it for, or the parties we share it with) will be communicated to active drivers via email and posted on this page for at least 30 days before taking effect.

Privacy questions, requests, complaints, or concerns:

• Email: compliance@southernhaulers.net
• Phone: 912-616-9831
• Mail: Southern Haulers LLC, Compliance Officer, Vidalia, Georgia