Privacy Policy for Services

 

WATERSMART SOFTWARE, INC.


It’s important to us that you understand when and how we use your personal data. This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) explains what kind of data we collect, where it comes from and how we may use it. WaterSmart Software, Inc. (“WaterSmart”, “Company”, “us”, “our”, and “we”) is committed to protecting your privacy. We have prepared this Privacy Policy to describe to you our practices regarding the personal information (as defined below) we collect from customers of the utilities we work with. If you have questions about our practices, please contact privacy@watersmart.com.

INFORMATION WE RECEIVE VIA YOUR WATER UTILITY IF THEY ARE A WATERSMART PARTNER

In order to provide your utility, or you, with our services, WaterSmart Software receives, stores, uses, and processes information, personal information you make available to your water utility based on your business relationship. This information includes, but is not limited to:
  • Information used to visit, register for, manage, or access your water utility account: name, account number, service and mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email address.
  • Billing and payment information, you use to view and pay your water utility bill, including bill details, bill amounts, payment amounts, and outstanding balance.
  • Programs, like rebate offers, you have enrolled in with your utility.
  • Information used to help you understand your water use: meter read data, the volume and frequency of this data dependent on the specific meter hardware employed by your water utility.
WaterSmart Software may supplement the aforementioned information with additional information obtained from 3rd party sources such as publicly available property data.

INFORMATION WATERSMART SOFTWARE OBTAINS FROM YOUR USE OF OUR UTILITY CUSTOMER PORTAL

  • Information you provide on any form on our website, such as your name, email, and phone number. Or, signing up for paperless billing or submitting service requests.
  • Information we store to personalize your experience and/or provide services:
    • Leak resolution interactions – when we alert you to a leak, we track your responses to that alert.
    • Water-saving actions tracking – actions you indicate you are interested in, we track for your convenience.
    • Event tracking – we store what actions you take on the website.
    • Conversation tracking – communications you have with your utility via this website


HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

WaterSmart Software receives, stores, uses, and processes the information that you provide or otherwise make available to us in addition to the information supplied by your water utility for the following general purposes:
  • To provide your water utility with tools to efficiently manage customer interactions and view operational analytics.
  • To provide you, on behalf of your utility, tools to understand and manage your water use and interact with your utility.
  • To send you information about programs and services your utility offers that may be of interest to you.
  • To authenticate and confirm your identity when you access your water service account or make a request.
  • To enable your utility to send you messages and information related to your water utility services, support and administrative messages, technical notices, updates, alerts, and other information.
  • To prevent potentially fraudulent, prohibited, or illegal activities, and enforce our Terms of Use.


WITH WHOM WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

WaterSmart does not sell your personal information. In order to provide you with services or to complete transactions requested by you, we may share your personal information with Service Providers, including the following:
  • Our group of companies, affiliates, and related companies in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
  • Service Providers to provide, maintain, and improve our services, including third party service providers who assist us with network infrastructure, payment processing, security, customer support, data analytics, marketing, or otherwise.
  • Service Providers with whom you have requested that we share information, in order to fulfill services you request.
  • Companies in connection with, or during the negotiation of, any merger, sale of company stock or assets, financing, acquisition, divestiture, or dissolution of all or a portion of our business.
  • Other parties as reasonably necessary: (a) to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request; (b) to enforce or comply with our Terms & Conditions or other applicable agreements or policies, (c) to protect our rights or property, or the security or integrity of our services, or (d) to protect us, users of our services or the public from harm or potentially prohibited or illegal activities. These parties may include a public utility commission, your water utility, or other city, state or federal government agency with legal authority to obtain the personal information from WaterSmart.

Service Providers acting on WaterSmart’s behalf are required to follow the same privacy and security policies as WaterSmart and its employees and are subjected to an extensive review of their data handling processes before WaterSmart shares personal information with them. WaterSmart does not share or release personal information to any other person or entity without your prior consent, including electronically, except as necessary for WaterSmart to:
  • Provide the services contracted by your water utility.
  • Comply with a valid warrant, subpoena, or court order.
  • Comply with a valid request from the California Public Utilities Commission, or other state or federal government agency with legal authority to obtain the personal information from WaterSmart.
  • Enable Service Providers to provide services to you on behalf of WaterSmart, but only to the extent necessary to render those services and subject to confidentiality and security requirements imposed by WaterSmart on the Third Parties.
  • To protect the personal safety of our customers or employees, or the public.
  • Assist emergency responders in situations of immediate threat to life or property.
  • To protect and defend the rights and property of WaterSmart.


EXERCISING YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) and other state or federal laws may provide you with certain rights, which WaterSmart honors. You have the following rights with respect to the personal information we collect, subject to certain exceptions and limitations:
  • The right to know the categories and/or specific pieces of personal information we collect, use, disclose, and sell about you, the categories of sources from which we collected your personal information, our purposes for collecting or selling your personal information, the categories of your personal information that we have either sold or disclosed for a business purpose, and the categories of third parties with which we have shared personal information;
  • The right to request that we delete the personal information we have collected from you or maintain about you.
  • The right not to receive discriminatory treatment for the exercise of your privacy rights under the CCPA.

For deletion requests, we will remove the requestor’s portal account and all personally identifiable information (name, email, phone number, mailing address, program participation info) from our system. The requestor’s water use as associated to their service address and account number will remain in our system and be available to the water utility via the dashboard product. Certain information, however, may be re-transmitted to WaterSmart automatically, so if you wish for your information to be permanently deleted, contact your water utility for their policy on deleting information. Additionally, we may not delete personal information to: 1) complete the transaction for which personal information was collected, provide you with a service you requested, or one that is reasonably anticipated within the context of a business’s ongoing business relationship with us, or to perform a contract between us; 2) detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for that activity; 3) debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality; 4) comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act; 5) engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, which the businesses’ deletion of the information is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of such research, if the consumer has provided informed consent; 6) to enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with the expectations of the consumer based on the consumer’s relationship with the utility partner; 7) comply with a legal obligation; 8) otherwise use your personal information internally, in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in with the consumer provided the information.

We will delete your personal information not subject to the above exceptions by de-identification. If you have a utility account with WaterSmart, you should submit your deletion request using our Personal Information Request form. If you are unable to do so, please contact us at privacy@watersmart.com.

If you have comments or questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please e-mail us at privacy@watersmart.com.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY. This Privacy Policy is subject to occasional revision in accordance with our posted Terms of Use. Continued use of our Site or Services, following notice of such changes in accordance with the Terms of Use shall indicate your acknowledgement of such changes and agreement to be bound by the terms and conditions of such changes.

This Privacy Policy was last revised on April 8, 2020.