Privacy Notice

EFFECTIVE DATE: December 1, 2024

Version: US_1.7

Veolia North America and its subsidiaries (collectively, “our,” “us,” “we,” or the “Company”) take your privacy seriously.  This Privacy Notice applies to our customers and individuals that use our website, mobile website, and mobile applications (collectively, “Site”), as well as our products and services (collectively, “Services”).

This Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, disclose, and store (“Process”) information that you provide directly to us, through your interactions with our Site and through the sites of our partners, as well as information collected from other sources, including third parties, to enhance our Site and Services that best serve you.  By registering, accessing, using, and/or interacting with our Site or Services, you consent to the Company’s and our service providers’ collection, use, disclosing, and/or storing of your information in accordance with this Privacy Notice.  

Please be aware that third-party sites accessible through our Site(s) have their own privacy notices and data Processing practices.  The data Processing activities of those third-party sites linked to our Site(s) do not apply to this Privacy Notice.  Additionally, this Privacy Notice does not cover Personal Data that we collect on behalf of our clients in the role of a service provider.

This Privacy Notice is incorporated into and is part of the Legal Notice (Terms of Use for mywater.veolia.us customers) of our Sites. 

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

“Personal Information” is any information that identifies, locates, relates to, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with you as an individual or household.  Under certain circumstances, we may collect “Sensitive Personal Information” or “Private Information”, which is Personal Information that includes sensitive categories of data, such as your social security number, financial account or payment information, governmentally issued identification number (i.e., driver’s license or passport number), precise geolocation data, biometric data, characteristics of protected classification (i.e., race, gender, ethnicity,), or any information that gives rise to a high reasonable expectation of privacy by virtue of the context in which it is used or communicated.  In this case, we will provide you with this notice at the time of collection and ask you for your consent.  (For purposes of this Privacy Notice, Personal Information, Sensitive Personal Information and Private Information shall be collectively referred to as “Personal Data”). 

We collect most Personal Information directly from you in person, by telephone, text or email, when you create or modify your online account, through self-service transactions, from question, comments or suggestions submitted through surveys or online sources, in documents that include your Personal Data, and/or automatically from our Site or related Services.  We may also collect information from publicly accessible sources, third parties, and/or from our IT systems.  The table below describes the Personal Data we collect: 

USE OF COOKIES AND RELATED TECHNOLOGY (COOKIE POLICY) 

We use “cookies” and related technologies to collect information when you visit our Site in order to provide a more convenient experience for you.   

What is a cookie?  A cookie is a small data file containing unique identifiers that are stored, among other places, on your device when you visit a website and can later remember you when you revisit that website.  Cookies are widely used to make websites work or to work more efficiently, as well as to monitor a website’s performance using analytical information.  Certain cookies can store your information until you terminate the browser session (i.e., session cookies), whereas other cookies can permanently store your preferences for successive visits until you delete it or are deleted periodically by your browser (i.e., persistent cookies).

• Cookies set by the Company are called first-party cookies.  We use first-party cookies to provide basic functionality to our Site(s), such as logging into the system, maintaining session information, and enhancing access to the features of our Site(s).  
• Cookies set by parties other than the Company are called third-party cookies.  We use third-party cookies to enable features or functionality provided by third parties in connection with our Site for advertising, marketing, interactive content, promotion of our brand, and analytics. We allow third parties to place certain cookies on our Site, such as pixels, web beacons or clear gifs that can recognize your device when it visits our Site and/or when it visits certain other websites.  Based on your interactions with our Site or on other websites you may have visited before viewing our Site, third-party cookies may build a profile of topics that interest you and display information about us based on those interests on those other sites.  To a limited extent, we may use certain cookies to inform us if you opened an email.   
• One third-party service we use is Google Analytics, which is a service provided by Google.  Google utilizes the data collected to track and examine the use of our Site and may disclose this data to other Google services. You can learn more about Google Analytics and Google’s privacy practices by visiting https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. 

Why do we use cookies?  The use of cookies allows us to recognize devices that interact with our Site, analyze site traffic (through plug-ins, widgets, and embedded content), and optimize your user experience. Other cookies, including third-party cookies, enable more relevant advertising and better analytics. We collect this information mainly to generate aggregate data, statistical information, and to facilitate the operation of our Site, system administration, and computer forensic investigation. Additionally, we collect this information to improve our content and content delivery on the Site, as well as your experience with our Services.

How can I manage my cookies or opt-out?  

You can view a list of each cookie we use and manage our collection of your data through marketing or preference cookies: 

• by using our “Cookies Policy / Do not Sell or Share” link found on the bottom footer of our Site.  
• from your browser settings or from your mobile device’s settings. (please note: Since the means by which you can disable cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser-to-browser, you should visit your browser's or mobile device's settings for instructions on how to delete or disable cookies, and other tracking/recording tools).
• through your browser’s Global Privacy Controls.

Please be advised that deleting or disabling cookies will not prevent device identification and related data collection from occurring.  If you choose to disagree with the collection of any marketing or preference cookies, your access to some functionality and areas of our Site may be restricted or it may impair your user experience. 

USE OF INFORMATION

In addition to providing you with our Site and Services, we use the Personal Data we collect about you for the following purposes:

• to provide and improve our Site’s functionality and user experience, including processing, storing and delivering your communications; 
• to provide customer service, support and quality assurance (i.e., debugging, troubleshooting, or responding to your inquiries over the phone or through email); 
• to facilitate communications with you, we may send SMS or automated calls regarding your bills, training, surveys, complaint tracking, new business updates, and other corporate communications for both internal and external purposes; 
• to promoting business continuity;
• to evaluate use of the Site for our legitimate business purposes and to deliver our Services; to ensure the proper use of our Site and Services;
• to personalize your experience, which includes tailoring the content and information made available to you and our support services;
• to regularly review consumers’ interactions with our Site and third-party websites, including, but not limited to, cookies-related interactions, metrics related to the movement on our Site, and, if applicable, verifying the positioning and quality of ad impressions;
• to provide you with information you have requested or agreed to receive as described in our Legal Notice (Terms of Use for mywater.veolia.us customers), Legal Disclaimer, and this Privacy Notice;
• to investigate and respond to alleged fraud or illegal activity;
• to maintain a quality experience for business purposes or legal reasons, including to filter for spam and communications that violate our Legal Notice (Terms of Use for mywater.veolia.us customers) and this Privacy Notice;
• to enforce compliance with our Legal Notice (Terms of Use for mywater.veolia.us customers) and applicable law; to comply with our legal obligations; to prosecute or defend a lawsuit, arbitration or similar legal proceeding; and to respond to lawful requests by governmental authorities;
• to perform research and analysis for our legitimate business purposes; 
• to aggregate or de-identify Personal Data collected from various sources for analytical business-related purposes; 
• if you decide to participate, to administer surveys, opinion polls, or enroll you in rebate incentives or other incentive programs pursuant to applicable laws;
• to verify and confirm your identity when you or your authorized agent exercises a privacy right (to the extent permitted by applicable law); 
• to use your biometric data for authentication purposes, enhancing security in sensitive areas and facilities, and securing systems and equipment;
• for administrative purposes, such as auditing and compliance; 
• to utilize artificial intelligence for process optimization and automation, quality control, defect detection, employee performance evaluation, workplace safety monitoring, chatbots, fraud detection, and prevention, product design, and development, research, and related services;
• improving the security of our Site and Services;
• for use by our parent company and its global subsidiaries; 
• for advertising and marketing, including interest-based advertising, sequencing, audience categorization, cross-device mapping, and syncing online identifiers with existing Personal Data (provided that you have not elected to opt out); and
• for other purposes reasonably related to the Services provided.

DISCLOSING YOUR INFORMATION

While access to your information is restricted by default and access is granted to authorized persons on a need-to-know basis, we may disclose your information under the following instances: 

Internally. We may disclose your information with our parent company or its global subsidiaries, affiliate entity, joint ventures, and/or company personnel: 

• for our legitimate business purpose, such as managing our relationship with you, for compliance purposes, or system and network security; and
• under appropriate intercompany arrangements and confidentiality agreements (to the extent permitted by applicable law), as well as internal policies and security standards. 

Externally. We may disclose your information with our service providers or contractors (a service provider means any person or legal entity that we engage by contract that processes your Personal Data on our behalf with specific instructions to help assist us in providing services to you):

• if the third-party service providers we contract require access to your Personal Data, but only (i) to the extent necessary and proportionate to fulfill the Services and (ii) if they have agreed in writing to confidentiality, privacy and security obligations consistent with the terms of this Privacy Notice;
• to advertising and marketing service providers to deliver advertisements and/or marketing information, provided that you have not opted out;
• in the event of a reorganization, merger or sale and in accordance with applicable laws; or
• with professional advisors, including lawyers, auditors, and insurance companies to receive their services.

Other legitimate business purposes for which we may disclose your information may include:

• if we are required by law, such as to comply with a warrant, subpoena or similar legal process;
• if ordered by federal, state or municipal agencies with jurisdiction over us, who are legally entitled to such information; and if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to: (i) exercise or defend legal claims; (ii) protect our rights, your safety or the safety of others; (iii) investigate fraud, unlawful activity or a cybersecurity incident; and (iv) respond to lawful requests by governmental authorities (including national security and law enforcement agencies); or
• if you consent to disclosing your personal information for a specific purpose, in which case we will notify you and request your consent before doing so.

Please be aware that Veolia does not sell your Personal Data to third parties as described under applicable laws.  Additionally, we do not disclose your SMS opt-in or phone numbers, unless otherwise required by applicable law. However, our use of certain website cookies may be considered sharing of Personal Information under California law, which we describe in our Cookie Policy below.  We neither collect nor sell any Personal Data of children under the age of 16 and do not disclose it to third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising.

YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

Depending on the jurisdiction where you reside, you may have certain rights with respect to your Personal Data.  This section sets out—in a non-exhaustive manner—the range of rights you have with respect to your Personal Information and how you can exercise those rights. 

• Right to Know or Access: Except where applicable laws do not require us to do so, you have the right to know if and how we handle your Personal Data.
• Right to Delete: Except where applicable laws do not require us to do so, you have the right to request that Veolia, upon a verified request, delete your Personal information that we collected about you.  Please note that we may not be able to completely remove or delete all of your data from our systems, due to legal, administrative, or legitimate business reasons. 
• Right to Portability: To the extent required by applicable law, you have the right to receive a copy of your Personal Data in a structured and commonly used format, to the extent technically feasible. 
• Right to Correct / Rectification:  Except where applicable laws do not require us to do so, you have the right to request that Veolia, upon a verified request, correct inaccurate Personal Information that we maintain about you. 
• Right to Opt-Out of Sharing of Personal Information: Unless otherwise necessary to perform the Services provided or where applicable laws do not require us to do so, you have the right to request that Veolia, upon a verified request, opt-out of the selling or sharing of your personal information.  
• Right to Limit Use and Disclosure of Sensitive Personal Information: Unless otherwise necessary to perform the Services provided or where applicable laws do not require us to do so, you have the right to request that Veolia, upon a verified request, limit our use and disclosure of your Sensitive Personal Information.  
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Where required by law, you may also withdraw your consent to our use and disclosure of the Personal Information we hold about you.  However, we may no longer be able to offer you some of our Services.

How to Exercise Your Privacy Rights? You can exercise these privacy rights afforded to you under applicable laws by: 

• Calling our toll-free number 1(800) 422-5987; or
• Submitting your privacy rights request using our Privacy Rights Intake Form.  
• Your privacy rights request will be directed to the company’s regional data protection officer for review. 

Our Response to Your Privacy Rights Request: We endeavor to respond to a verifiable request within the time-period provided by applicable laws, unless we require additional time to confirm your identity or if your request is complex.  If we are unable to verify your identity using the information you provide us in your privacy rights request, we may not be able to action your request.  If you use an authorized agent to initiate a privacy rights request, you must email our Privacy Office directly and provide us with a valid power of attorney or other comparable document of written permission from you. Any decision relating to your privacy rights request will be disclosed to you in writing, and you can dispute this decision by contacting us at [email protected] (for U.S. residents) or [email protected] (for Canada residents), or by contacting your local regulatory authority.

Nothing in this Privacy Notice is intended to limit any additional rights you may have under applicable laws.  Additionally, the Company will not unlawfully discriminate or retaliate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

SECURITY

We align our security practices in accordance with industry standards and use reasonable administrative, physical, organizational, and technical measures to seek a level of security appropriate to the risk to the Personal Data we process.  These measures aim to protect the integrity, confidentiality and availability of our network and systems.  Such measures include, but are not limited to, firewalls, intrusion monitoring and Secure Sockets Layers / Transport Security Layer (SSL/TSL) to encrypt and protect certain sensitive transmissions of Personal Data.  Despite using reasonable measures, it is never possible to fully guarantee the security of your information against breaches in the security of the network and system.  If you believe your interaction with us is no longer secure, please contact us immediately as described in the Contact Us section.

COMMUNICATIONS

When you provide us with your telephone number or email address, we will consider this as consent for us to communicate with you by telephone or email.  We will use email periodically to communicate with you about your account, privacy and the Services we provide.  You will receive emails from us (or our authorized third-party providers) if you have signed up to receive email notifications of certain news or events, marketing or promotional content, or if you have requested certain information. If you are a customer with an online account, you may opt out of future mailings by changing your communication preferences at any time through your account or by clicking “unsubscribe” in our emails.  

Customers may not be able to opt out of receiving operational emails for non-promotional, utility-related purposes (such as billing, outage, conservation and safety), emergency alerts or communications, or  communications regarding updates to this Privacy Notice. 

YOUR CHOICES

When you make a request for information, correspond or interact with us or through the Site, email or Text/SMS messaging, you can choose whether you wish to continue to receive additional information and by what method of communication such information should be delivered.  You can unsubscribe directly from emails and/or Text/SMS messages sent to you or contact us using the address listed in the Contact Us section. 

Communications E-mail Alerts.  If you would like to receive company news alerts from us, we ask for your name and email address in order to send you the news alerts.  You may unsubscribe from any of our email communications by emailing the address below.

CUSTOMER SELF-SERVICE AND ACCOUNT TERMINATION 

If you are a customer with an online account, you may edit your profile information, including your email address and contact information.  If you are a mywater.veolia.us customer, you can deactivate your account in your profile settings.  When you deactivate your account, you will cease to provide ongoing or future data to us.  In order to request permanent closure of your account, please contact us using the address listed in the Contact Us section.  We will require proof of your identity before responding to any request from you as described in this section.

RETENTION

We will retain your Personal Data only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we are processing your Personal Data, unless the law permits or requires us to retain your Personal Data for a longer period. For example, we may need to keep your Personal Data for quality assurance for our Site or to defend future legal claims.  Additionally, we reserve the right to retain aggregated or pseudonymized information after your account is closed to ensure the integrity and quality of our systems remain operational. 

For customer self-service, the information you have shared with others will remain visible after you have closed your account or deleted the information from your own profile or account, and we do not control information or content that others have copied out of our Site.  Please be aware that copies of information that you have updated, modified or deleted may continue to reside in our systems for a defined period, and we may maintain copies of this information as part of our business records.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Our Site includes links to other websites neither owned nor managed by the Company.  We are not responsible for these third-party websites and this Privacy Notice does not apply to the privacy practices of those sites or of any company that we do not own or control.  We cannot guarantee the privacy of any information that may be obtained by third parties at these other websites. We strongly encourage you to review the privacy policies of any website you visit before supplying personal information through that website.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

If you are under the age of 16, you are not authorized to use our services or the Site, unless we have written consent from your parental or legal guardian. Our Site is intended to provide general information about the Company and its Services.  In the event we learn that we have collected Personal Data from a child under the age of 16, we will take appropriate steps to delete that information.  If you become aware or believe that a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately as provided in the Contact Us section located below. 

INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

The Company is headquartered in the United States, but has a parent company with corporate affiliates and operations overseas, including in the Economic European Area (“EEA”).**  We may transfer your Personal Data to the EEA or other countries where our parent company, corporate affiliates, agents and service providers operate.  Data protection laws differ among jurisdictions, and these other jurisdictions may not provide the same level of protection for Personal Data as the United States or where you live.  If you live in Québec, your Personal Information may be transferred outside of Québec.  By using the Services, or providing us with your information, you consent to the transfer to, and processing, use, disclosure, and retention of your information, including Personal Data, in other countries as set forth in this Privacy Notice.  If we transfer your Personal Data to countries outside of the United States, we will endeavor to use reasonable measures to protect your information in compliance with this Privacy Notice.  

**The European Economic Area currently comprises the Member states of the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

REGION-SPECIFIC PRIVACY LAWS 

While your privacy rights and our business obligations vary by region, this Privacy Notice intends to serve as a single source of reference for how we process your Personal Data so that it is easier for you to navigate and exercise those rights that apply to you. We encourage you to review the privacy laws that are applicable to you for additional information. 

EUROPEAN RESIDENTS

If you are a European Resident, please visit our parent company’s Privacy Policy for more information about our data protection practices. 

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

If you are a California resident, there are some additional privacy rights that you may have available to you.  Under the California “Shine the Light” law, you may request that we provide you with a list of categories of personal information we have disclosed to third parties for their direct marketing purposes during the last 12 months.  In addition, the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by California Privacy Rights Act) (“CCPA”) requires that we provide California residents with additional information about their rights and our information handling practices, which you may exercise using our Privacy Rights Intake Form.  

U.S. RESIDENTS

If you are a  resident of a U.S. state that has enacted a comprehensive privacy law (e.g., California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Utah), then you have specific privacy rights under these state’s laws.  You have the right to opt-out of (i) the “sale” of your personal information, (ii) targeted advertising, and (iii) profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.  If you are accessing any of our Sites using your web browser, you may request to opt out using the “Manage My Cookies” found on the bottom of our Sites. 

CANADIAN RESIDENTS

Residents of Canada have specific privacy rights regarding the Processing of their Personal Information under federal and provincial law.  This includes the right to be informed, right to access, right to rectification, right to erasure, right to object/opt-out, right to data portability, and the right to not be subject to automated decision-making.  While the laws vary, we encourage you to review the privacy laws that are applicable to you for additional information. 

Please review our Canadian Privacy Notice, which supplements this Privacy Notice. 

UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Notice and its email practices at any time. If we decide to make material changes to this Notice regarding privacy and/or email practices, we will notify you on our Site or by email prior to the changes taking effect, so that you are aware of the changes in advance. When an update is made, the date at the top of this page will change to reflect the date on which new content was posted.  Use of our website and mobile website after the posting of a revised Privacy Notice constitutes your agreement with the revised Notice. Use of this website and mobile website after the posting of a revised Privacy Notice constitutes your consent of our privacy practices. 

CONTACT US

If you have questions or comments about our Privacy Notice, please contact us using the information below: