At Consumers Power, Inc. we respect your privacy and
recognize the importance of keeping your personal information
confidential. This notice describes the privacy policy and
practices followed by CPI, as well as the types of information
we collect and the circumstances under which we may share
it.
Definitions
Personal information – general,
static information, such as name, address, telephone number,
Social Security number, and driver’s license number.
Account information – specific
service-related information, such as account number, meter
number, service location, and credit history.
Information We Collect
Application for service – We retain
personal information we receive from you at the time you
apply for electric service, including driver’s license
number and employment information.
Transactions – When you pay your
electric bill we retain pertinent details of your payment,
including credit card and/or bank account information.
Online – We retain any personal
information you voluntarily submit to us via our web site
or by email to respond to comments, requests for information,
etc.
When you visit our web site your identity remains anonymous
unless you register to access our secure eBill service, which
requires you to enter your e-mail address and password in
order that we may permit only authorized access to your eBill
information. If you choose to submit payments from our secure
eBill service, we retain the payment information you enter
for each payment, including your account number, credit card,
and/or bank account information.
Cookies
A “cookie” is a message given by a web server
to your web browser which your browser stores as a text file
on your computer’s hard drive. The message is sent
back to the server each time the browser requests a page
from the server. Cookies are used primarily to identify users
and possibly prepare customized web pages for them.
If you click the link contained in the message “(To
have the browser remember your password click here)” your
browser will place a cookie containing your eBill login information
on your PC’s hard drive, which will be sent to the
eBill server each time you enter the eBill web site. We do
not use cookies to track your visit to our web site.
Information We Share
Other Utility Companies – Upon
your request we receive from other utilities (or send to
them) credit-related information, such as the number of
late notices generated in the preceding 12 months, in order
to establish any required security deposits prior to receiving
electric service.
Third Party Service Providers –
We sometimes rely on services provided by other companies,
such as data processing companies, mailing services, collection
agencies, market research firms, and payment networks, to
conduct our operations. These service providers act on our
behalf and have agreed in writing to keep the personal information
we provide to them confidential.
We do NOT share your personal information with independent
third party marketers offering their own products and services.
Legal Requests – We may share your
personal and/or account information in response to a lawful
request issued by a court, government agency, or regulatory
authority, or as permitted by law in order to administer
or enforce your account.
Data Security and Confidentiality Safeguards
We maintain strict policies and security controls to assure
that member information in our information system is protected.
Our employees and certain third party service providers are
permitted access to member information that they may need
to perform their jobs and to provide service to you. All
employees and third party service providers are required
to respect member privacy. No one except our employees and
certain third party service providers has access to our information
systems.
We have established internal security controls using industry
guidelines and standards to protect the information you provide
us and the information we collect about you. These controls
include procedural, physical, and electronic safeguards,
such as firewalls, authentication procedures, digital certificates,
intrusion detection, and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption
technology. Periodically we hire qualified independent security
consultants to audit our internal security controls, and
we continue to review and adjust these controls as we employ
new technology in the future.
Children’s Privacy
Our online services are not designed for or directed toward
children. We do not knowingly solicit or collect data from
children. We recognize that protecting children’s identities
and online privacy is important, and that responsibility
rests with us and with parents.
Links to Other Sites
Our web site may contain links to other web sites. We have
no control over or any liability for the content or privacy
practices of these other web sites.
Questions or Comments
We welcome your questions or comments regarding this privacy
statement or any other services we provide to you. Please
direct questions and comments to our Customer
Service department.
