Privacy

North Shore Gas ("NSG")

(Revised August 9, 2012)

North Shore Gas (also referred to as "we" or "us") is concerned about preventing unauthorized disclosure of customer information. We understand the importance you place on the privacy and security of information that personally identifies you or your account information. We refer to this information as "personal information." We want you to know what personal information we collect and how we use it. We have therefore adopted the following Privacy Policy to explain our commitment to your privacy. If you have any questions about our policy after reading it, please contact us.

By using the website, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy. Please check this policy frequently, as we may amend it from time to time to reflect changes in our services and our policies relating to customer information. Amendments will become effective at the time they are posted on our website. We will not provide notice of changes in this Privacy Policy.

Creating an Online Profile

If you create an online profile to access various services related to your residential account or other applications involving your business account on the website, you may be asked to submit personal information such as your account number, name, last 4 of SSN/FEIN and email address. You may also be asked to submit additional personal information or financial information to use specific services. We will protect all information that you provide us on the website, as set forth below:

  1. The personal information you provide us enables you to access self-service options offered on our website. To better serve you, we may use your email address to contact you in response to inquiries, or provide you with energy-related information. This information will be accessible to anyone who has access to your email. You will have the option to opt out of email marketing messages at anytime.
  2. In order to provide you with services offered on the website, or to complete transactions or requests initiated by you on the website, we may transfer you to a website operated by third parties that help us provide services to you. In such cases, we will have agreements with those parties under which they will agree to maintain the confidentiality of your personal information and to use it only for the purpose of helping us serve you. We only transfer or share information to those who have a privacy policy at least as stringent or substantially similar to North Shore Gas.
  3. Other than as set forth herein, we will not disclose your personal information to third parties without your written consent (which consent may be obtained electronically, such as by email), unless we reasonably believe that the disclosure is essential to the conduct of North Shore Gas' business, including but not limited to where such disclosure is necessary to (a) comply with the law, legal process or our regulators, (b) collect unpaid bills, (c) enable North Shore Gas' employees or consultants to provide service to you and to otherwise perform their duties, (d) comply with interchange functions, (e) obtain and provide credit reporting information, or (f) resolve customer disputes or inquiries. We do not provide your personal information to third parties for the purpose of telemarketing, email or direct-mail solicitation.
  4. You should protect the confidentiality of your username and password. You are responsible for all activity on the website accessed by your username and password. Access by North Shore Gas' employees or consultants to any personal information you provide is limited to only that necessary to provide the business service offered and to otherwise allow such employees or consultants to perform their duties.

We try to ensure that the personal information we maintain about you is accurate, current and complete. If you discover that your personal information is incorrect, not current or incomplete, you should update your online profile.

Once you have logged in using your online profile, any account information that you enter or that is displayed in your browser window is secured using an industry standard security technology known as Secure Socket Layer ("SSL"). By using SSL, we attempt to safeguard the confidentiality of your personal and financial information. Your browser must be capable of supporting SSL; please check with your browser manufacturer for details.

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Visitor Information

We do collect information about the website use, such as the number of visitors to the website and the number of users that click on certain links or services. For some applications, we link usage information with the particular customer visiting the website. We use industry standard software to create summary statistics of the usage data we collect, which may then be used to highlight what our visitors find interesting, to improve our website design specifications, to identify system performance issues, and for other internal purposes.

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Our Use of Your IP Address

An Internet Protocol ("IP") address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer every time that you browse the Internet. When you visit the website, our servers log your current IP address. We may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our servers and to administer our website. Data gathered from logging your IP address is not tied to your personal information and is not used to identify you.

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Our Use of Cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer's hard drive by Web page servers. When you visit the website, our server may create "session" cookies, making it more convenient for you to use our site by verifying when you travel from page to page that you have signed up with our online services.

The website may use cookies and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our website people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches.

North Shore Gas and our partners also use cookies and other technologies to remember personal information when you use our website and applications. Our goal in these cases is to make your experience with North Shore Gas more convenient and personal.

As is true of most websites, we gather some information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information to understand and analyze trends, to administer the site, to learn about user behavior on the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.

In some of our email messages, we use a "click-through URL" linked to content on the North Shore Gas website. When customers click one of these URLs, they pass through a separate web server before arriving at the destination page on our website. We track this click-through data to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our customer communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click text or graphic links in the email messages.

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While browsing the website, you may encounter hypertext links to other websites operated by third parties. These other websites may send their own cookies to you, log your IP address, and otherwise collect data or solicit personal information.

We do not control and are not responsible for what third parties do in connection with their websites, or how they handle your personal information. Please exercise caution and consult the privacy policies posted on such websites for further information.

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us.

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MOBILE APP Incorporation of NSG Privacy Policy

The terms identified in the NSG - Privacy Policy set forth above are incorporated into the Mobile App Terms and Conditions and continue to apply when using the MOBILE APP.

Information We Collect and Why We Collect It

  • Information You Provide To Us. We collect certain personal information when you provide it to us, such as when personally identifiable information is voluntarily provided when you use NSG, register for an account, and when you electronically communicate with us. This information may consist of the following: your name, address, telephone number, your e-mail address, the last four digits of your social security number. The information you voluntarily supply will be used by NSG to respond to your inquiries, supply you with requested information on NSG services, to issue reminders for or to track appointments you have made with NSG. Your information is considered private and confidential and treated with the strictest confidence. We will not sell or divulge any of your private information to any third parties.
  • Information We Collect Automatically. None.
  • Information Collected Through Google Analytics. We use a tool called "Google Analytics" and may use other third party analytic tools to collect information about use of NSG. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit NSG MOBILE APP and what pages they visit when they do so. We use the information we get from Google Analytics only to improve NSG MOBILE APP. Google Analytics does not collect your name or other identifying information. We do not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with personally identifiable information. Although Google Analytics plants a permanent cookie on your device to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit NSG MOBILE APP, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but Google. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics about your usage of NSG MOBILE APP is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and the Google Privacy Policy.
  • Information Collected Through Cookies and Similar Technologies. None.

How We Use and Share Your Information

  • To Provide Products, Services, and Information. As described above, we collect information from you so that we can communicate with you, and provide and deliver the information and services you have requested. We use your personal information to contact you about your service, or to inform you about our other services available from NSG.

    Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy, we do not share, rent, license, or sell your personal information to third parties.
  • Legal Proceedings. We will share personal information with third party companies, organizations or individuals outside of NSG if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to: (a) meet any applicable law, regulation, subpoena, legal process or governmental request; (b) enforce applicable Terms, including investigation of potential violations; (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of NSG, our users, clients, or the public as required or permitted by law.
  • Transfer in the Event of Sale or Change of Control. If the ownership of all or substantially all of our business changes or we otherwise transfer assets relating to our business, NSG, or NSG to a third party, such as by merger, acquisition, bankruptcy proceeding or otherwise, we may transfer or sell your personal information to the new owner. In such a case, unless permitted otherwise by applicable law, your information would remain subject to the promises made in the applicable privacy policy unless you agree differently.

Terminating the MOBILE APP - OPT Out

You can close your MOBILE APP account by deleting it from your mobile device.

You can deactivate these messages at any time by changing the notification settings on your device (iOS).

Security of Your Information

We use industry standard physical, technical and administrative security measures and safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information. However, since the Internet is not a 100% secure environment, we cannot guarantee, ensure, or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. There is no guarantee that information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. It is your responsibility to protect the security of your login information. Please note that e-mails and other communications you send to us through NSG are not encrypted, and we strongly advise you not to communicate any confidential information through these means.

Security Monitoring

For security purposes and to ensure that the services available through our MOBILE APP Site remain available to all users, our MOBILE APP Site may employ industry-standard methods to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information on our MOBILE APP Site are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Infrastructure Protection Act.