dcbel Privacy Policy

Effective date: 23 July 2024

dcbel Inc. and its affiliates (“dcbel,” “we,” “our,” and/or “us”) value the privacy of the individuals who use our Home Energy Stations and Home Simulator (collectively, our “Products”), mobile applications and App Hub, website, and other online services (our “Services”). This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) explains how we collect, use, and disclose personal information from users of our Services (“Users”, “you”, and/or “your”). If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or the United Kingdom (“UK”), “personal information” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. By using our Services, you agree to the collection, use, disclosure, and procedures this Privacy Policy describes. Beyond the Privacy Policy, your use of our Services is also subject to our General Terms and Conditions.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We may collect a variety of information from or about you or your devices from various sources, as described below.

If you do not provide your personal information when requested, you may not be able to use our Services if that personal information is necessary to provide you with our Services or if we are legally required to collect it.

Information You Provide to Us

Account Information. If you create an account on our Services, we ask you for personal information such as your name, address, email address, phone number, and information about your residence. We may also ask you to provide the Energy Information described below.

Reservations and Purchases. If you pre-order or purchase products through our Services, we ask for personal information such as your name, email address, phone number, billing and shipping address, and information about your residence. In addition, your payment-related information, such as your credit card or other financial information, is collected by our third-party payment processor on our behalf. We may also ask you to provide the Energy Information described below.

Communications. If you contact us directly, we may receive additional personal information about you. For example, if you contact us for customer support or communicate with us through the chat bot on our Services, we may receive your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and any attachments you send to us, and any other personal information you choose to provide. If you sign up for our newsletter or to receive updates, news, or other promotional information from us, we will collect certain personal information from you, such as your email address. To learn how to deliver a better customer experience and improve our Services, when we send you emails, we may use embedded pixels or other technologies to track information about your receipt of and interaction with our emails, such as whether and when you open them, whether you access any links included in them, whether you forward our emails and to whom, your Location Information (described below), and your Device Information (described below).

Your Contacts. We may provide you with the ability to invite other individuals such as friends or family to share access to your content. We will ask you for the email address of any such individuals and automatically send an email invitation on your behalf.

Energy Information. We may also ask for energy-related information such as information about your electric utility rate, electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle make/model and vehicle identification number (VIN), energy storage system, and rooftop solar system.

SHIP Application. If you apply to be a Smart Home Integration Partner (SHIP) through our Services, we ask for personal information such as your name, title, company name and website, phone number, email address, country, and zip code. We will also collect any additional personal information you choose to provide.

Information We Collect When You Use Our Services

Location Information. When you access our website, we may infer your general location information, for example, by using your internet protocol (IP) address. We also collect precise location information from users of our Products, such as during the installation and commissioning process.

Device Information. We receive information about the device and software you use to access our Services, such as your IP address, web browser type, operating system version, phone carrier and manufacturer, application installations, device identifiers, mobile advertising identifiers, and push notification tokens.

Usage Information. To help us understand how you use our Services and to help us improve them, we automatically receive information about your interactions with our Services, such as referring/exit pages, the pages or other content you view, the searches you conduct, the purchases you make, the products you consider purchasing, and the dates and times of your visits.

Information Automatically Collected from Our Products. If you have one of our Products, we automatically receive information related to your household energy consumption and production. For example, we collect information from sensors built into our Products such as time of day, instantaneous and total household loads, instantaneous and total charging loads, and instantaneous and total solar energy production. If you change settings like preferred time-of-use charging times, we will collect and use that information to learn your desired operating modes in different situations. Every time your system charges or discharges EVs or generates solar power, we collect the time and duration during which your system was on in order to offer you features such as usage history and total and net generation and consumption. In order to improve your experience over time and help troubleshoot any problem you may encounter with our Products, we may also record your unit’s model and serial number, software version, and technical information such as unit configuration.

Information from Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies. We and third-party partners collect personal information using cookies, pixel tags, SDKs, or other tracking technologies. Our third-party partners, such as analytics and advertising partners, may use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across different services. Cookies are small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to our Services. Cookies can be used for performance management, collecting information on how our Services are being used for analytics purposes. They can also be used for functionality management, enabling us to make your visit more efficient by, for example, remembering language preferences, passwords, and log-in details. We may also use pixel tags and web beacons on our Services. These are tiny graphic images placed on web pages or in our emails that allow us to determine whether you have performed a specific action. Below is an overview of the types of cookies we and third parties may use to collect personal information.

Strictly Necessary Cookies. Some cookies are strictly necessary to make our Services available to you. We cannot provide you with our Services without this type of cookie. We use the following necessary cookies:

Name	More Information	Retention

Functional Cookies. Functional cookies are used to recognize you when you return to our Services. This enables us to adapt our content for you and remember your preferences. We use the following functional cookies:

Name	More Information	Retention
sa-user-id sa-user-id-v2 sa-user-id-v3	StackAdapt sets this cookie as a third party advertising cookie to record information about a user’s website activity, such as the pages visited and the locations viewed, to enable us to provide users with interest-based content and personalised advertisements on external websites.	1 year
muc_ads	Twitter sets this cookie to collect user behaviour and interaction data to optimize the website.	1 year 1 month 4 days
personalization_id	Twitter sets this cookie to integrate and share features for social media and also store information about how the user uses the website, for tracking and targeting.	1 year 1 month 4 days
_vwo_uuid_v2	This cookie is set by Visual Website Optimiser and calculates unique traffic on a website.	1 year

Analytical or Performance Cookies. We also use cookies for website analytics purposes in order to operate, maintain and improve our Services. We may use our own analytics cookies or use third-party analytics providers. These providers may also collect information about your use of other websites, apps, and online resources. We also use the following analytical or performance cookies:

Name	More Information	Retention
_gid	Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website’s performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.	1 day
Bcookie	LinkedIn sets this cookie to track the use of embedded services.	1 year
li_gc	Linkedin sets this cookie for storing visitor’s consent regarding using cookies for non-essential purposes.	1 year
lidc	LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection.	1 day
Google Analytics “_ga_”	See: https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en-US and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11397207?hl=en	2 years
Google Analytics “_ga_(container-id)”	See: https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en-US and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/11397207?hl=en	2 years
_gat_UA-*	Google Analytics sets this cookie for user behaviour tracking.	1 minute
_fbp	Facebook sets this cookie to store and track interactions.	3 months

Please review your web browser’s “Help” file to learn the proper way to modify your cookie settings, but note that modifying your cookie settings will not affect other tracking technologies we utilize. Please note that if you delete or choose not to accept cookies from the Services, you may not be able to utilize the features of the Services to their fullest potential. You can find more information about your rights and choices, and how to block the use of certain cookies in the section Your Rights and Choices below.

Information We Receive from Third Parties

Smart Home Integration Partners (SHIPs). If you receive an Ara Device from one of our SHIPs, we may receive information about you, such as your address, the location and photos of the installation, or information about your house related to the installation, from our SHIP. We use this information to validate proper installation and improve performance of our Services.

Electric Utilities. With your consent, we may receive information from your electronic utility such as your name, service address, billing information, account information, and current and historical energy usage information.

Other Third Parties. We may also receive information from our partners and other sources and combine that with the information in your account. For example, in order to offer incentive programs, we might receive information such as which of our partners offers services where you live to determine eligibility for these programs. We may also receive information such as device telemetry and usage data from third parties such as automotive partners and residential battery partners.

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We may use the personal information we collect:

To provide, maintain, improve, and enhance our Services, including to make assessments and recommendations about products, safety, or energy use;
To personalize your experience on our Services, such as by providing tailored content and recommendations;
To understand and analyze how you use our Services and develop new products, services, features, and functionality;
To communicate with you and individuals you invite to access your account as an additional authorized user, provide you with updates and other information relating to our Services, products and services, provide information that you request, respond to comments and questions, and otherwise provide customer support;
For marketing and advertising purposes, such as developing and providing promotional and advertising materials that may be relevant, valuable or otherwise of interest to you;
To generate anonymized, aggregate data containing only de-identified, non-personal information that we may use for purposes such as research and development and publishing reports;
To send you text messages;
To facilitate reservations, transactions, and payments;
To facilitate the connection of third-party services or applications;
To find and prevent fraud, and respond to trust and safety issues that may arise;
For compliance purposes, including enforcing our Terms of Service or other legal rights, or as may be required by applicable laws and regulations or requested by any judicial process or governmental agency; and
For other purposes for which we provide specific notice at the time the personal information is collected.

LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING EUROPEAN INFORMATION

If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or the United Kingdom (“UK”), we only process your personal information when we have a valid “legal basis”, including as set forth below.

Contractual Necessity. We need your personal information to provide you with our Services, including but not limited to delivering our Terms of Service (URL). For example, we may need to process your personal information to respond to your inquiries or requests.
Legitimate Interests. We or a third party have a legitimate interest in using your personal information. Specifically, we have a legitimate interest in using your personal information for: offering and improving our products and Services; developing new products and Services; understanding how people use our products and Services; performing research that improves our Services for our users and benefits the public; sending you direct marketing and other communications from dcbel; protecting against harm to the rights, property, and safety of dcbel, our users, and the public; detecting, preventing or otherwise addressing fraud, abuse, security or technical issues with our Services; maintaining and improving the integrity of our computing systems, and protecting our users’ data security; and enforcing legal claims, including investigation of potential violations of applicable Terms of Service. We only rely on our or a third party’s legitimate interests to process your personal information when these interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.
Compliance with a Legal Obligation. We have a legal obligation to use your personal information. For example, we may process your personal information to comply with a legal process or an enforceable government request, or our tax, labor and accounting obligations.
Consent. You have consented to the use of your personal information. For example, we may use cookies where you have consented to such use.

HOW WE DISCLOSE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Authorized Users. We may provide you with the ability to enable additional authorized users to access your account. If you do so, the additional authorized users may view your information such as your name and address and control your device.

Vendors, Service Providers, and Technicians. We may disclose any information we receive with vendors, service providers, and technicians retained in connection with the provision of our Services.

Smart Home Integration Partners (SHIPs). If you receive our products from one of our SHIPs, we will disclose information such as your email address and phone number with the SHIP to help facilitate the installation and integration of our product. SHIPs may also use this information to send you promotional information about their products and services, as described below.

Business Partners. We may disclose your contact information with our business partners, such as SHIPs and developers who provide applications through our App Hub, so that they may send you promotional information about their products and services.

Analytics Partners. We use analytics services such as Google Analytics to collect and process certain analytics data. You can learn more about Google’s practices by visiting https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

Advertising Partners. We work with third-party advertising partners to show you ads that we think may interest you. Some of our advertising partners are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (https://optout.networkadvertising.org) or the Digital Advertising Alliance (https://optout.aboutads.info). If you do not wish to receive personalized ads, please visit their opt-out pages to learn about how you may opt out of receiving web-based personalized ads from member companies. You can access any settings offered by your mobile operating system to limit ad tracking, or you can install the AppChoices mobile app to learn more about how you may opt out of personalized ads in mobile apps.

As Required By Law and Similar Disclosures. We may access, preserve, and disclose your personal information if we believe doing so is required or appropriate to: (a) comply with law enforcement requests and legal process, such as a court order or subpoena; (b) respond to your requests; or (c) protect your, our, or others’ rights, property, or safety.

Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfers. We may transfer your personal information to service providers, advisors, potential transactional partners, or other third parties in connection with the consideration, negotiation, or completion of a corporate transaction in which we are acquired by or merged with another company or we sell, liquidate, or transfer all or a portion of our assets. The use of your information following any of these events will be governed by the provisions of this Privacy Policy in effect at the time the applicable information was collected.

Consent. We may also disclose your personal information with your permission.

THIRD PARTIES

Our Services may contain links to other websites, products, or services that we do not own or operate. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to your activities on these third-party services or any information you disclose to these third parties. We encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any information to them.

RETENTION

We take measures to delete your personal information or keep it in a form that does not permit identifying you when this information is no longer necessary for the purposes for which we process it, unless we are required by law to keep this information for a longer period. We generally store your personal information to our servers until you delete or edit it, or for as long as you remain a dcbel customer in order to provide you with our Services. We may also store your personal information to resolve disputes, establish legal defenses, conduct audits, pursue legitimate business purposes, enforce our agreements and comply with applicable laws. When we process personal information for our own purposes, we determine the retention period by taking into account various criteria, such as the type of Services provided to you, the nature and length of our relationship with you, possible re-enrollment with our Services, the impact on the Services we provide to you if we delete some information from or about you, and mandatory retention periods provided by law and the statute of limitations.

SECURITY

We make reasonable efforts to protect your personal information by using safeguards designed to improve the security of the personal information we maintain. However, as no electronic transmission or storage of information can be entirely secure, we can make no guarantees as to the security or privacy of your personal information.

CHILDREN

We do not knowingly collect, maintain, or use personal information from children under 16 years of age, and no part of our Services is directed to children. If you learn that a child has provided us with personal information in violation of this Privacy Policy, then you may alert us at privacy@dcbel.energy.

YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES

Energy Behavior. You can delete the information on your dcbel device by resetting it to the defaults (using Reset in the Settings menu). You can access, amend or delete your personal information from our servers through the controls in your account.

Marketing Communications. You can unsubscribe from our promotional emails and newsletters via the link provided in the emails. Even if you opt out of receiving promotional messages from us, you will continue to receive administrative messages from us.

If you choose not to provide us with the personal information we collect, some features of our Services may not work as intended.

Your California Privacy Rights. If you reside in California and have provided your personal information to us, you may request information once per calendar year about our disclosures of certain categories of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Such requests must be submitted to us in writing at privacy@dcbel.energy or our address in the “Contact Us” section, below.

Your European Privacy Rights. If you are located in the EEA or the UK, you have additional rights described below.

You may request access to the personal information we maintain about you, update and correct inaccuracies in your personal information, restrict or object to the processing of your personal information, have your personal information anonymized or deleted, as appropriate, or exercise your right to data portability to easily transfer your personal information to another company. In addition, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, including in your country of residence, place of work or where an incident took place.
You may withdraw any consent you previously provided to us regarding the processing of your personal information at any time and free of charge. We will apply your preferences going forward and this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before you withdrew your consent.

You may exercise these rights, as applicable, through controls in the dcbel application or by contacting us using the contact details at the end of this Privacy Policy. Before fulfilling your request, we may ask you to provide reasonable information to verify your identity. Please note that there are exceptions and limitations to each of these rights, and that while any changes you make will be reflected in active user databases instantly or within a reasonable period of time, we may retain personal information for backups, archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, analytics, satisfaction of legal obligations, or where we otherwise reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so. Also, exercising certain of these rights, such as the right to object to the processing of your personal information, may impact your use of the Services.

How to Block Cookies. You can block cookies by setting your internet browser to block some or all cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential Cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our Services. By using our Services, you consent to our use of cookies and our processing of personal information collected through such Cookies, in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You can withdraw your consent at any time by deleting placed cookies and disabling cookies in your browser, or as explained below. You can change your browser settings to block or notify you when you receive a cookie, delete cookies or browse our Services using your browser’s anonymous usage setting. Please refer to your browser instructions or help screen to learn more about how to adjust or modify your browser settings. If you do not agree to our use of cookies or similar technologies which store information on your device, you should change your browser settings accordingly. You should understand that some features of our Services may not function properly if you do not accept cookies or these technologies. Where required by applicable law, you will be asked to consent to certain cookies and similar technologies before we use or install them on your computer or other device.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS OF DATA

Our Services are hosted in the United States and intended for visitors located within the United States. If you choose to use the Services from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, then please note that you are transferring your personal information outside of those regions to the U.S. for storage and processing. We may transfer personal information from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland to the U.S. and other third countries based on approved Standard Contractual Clauses, or otherwise in accordance with applicable data protection laws such as based on an appropriate adequacy decision when transferring personal information to Canada. Also, we may transfer your personal information from the U.S. to other countries or regions in connection with storage and processing of personal information, fulfilling your requests, and operating the Services. By providing any information, including personal information, on or to the Services, you consent to such transfer, storage, and processing. For more information about the tools that we use to transfer personal information, you can contact us as described below.

UPDATE YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION

You can update your account information or close your account through your profile settings.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We will post any adjustments to the Privacy Policy on this page, and the revised version will be effective when it is posted. If we materially change the ways in which we use or disclose personal information previously collected from you through the Services, we will notify you through the Services, by email, or other communication.

CONTACT US

Dcbel is responsible as the data controller for processing your personal information. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about our processing activities, please email us at privacy@dcbel.energy or write to us at:

dcbel Inc.
attention: Legal Affairs
4700 de la Savane
Montreal, QC Canada H4P 1T7

Privacy Statement for dcbel Products and Services

At dcbel, we take your privacy seriously.

This Privacy Statement for dcbel Products and Services (“Privacy Statement”) describes information that dcbel Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively, “dcbel”) collect, use, share, and store, including personal information (i.e., information that personally identifies you, such as your name, email address or billing information, or other data that can be reasonably used to infer this information).

This document focuses on information related to the operation of dcbel products and services, including dcbel™, dcbel essential™, AuX™, Chorus™, Orchestrate™, Tempo™ and other products from dcbel (collectively, “dcbel Products”). In this Privacy Statement, the expression “dcbel Products” also includes our Web Apps, Mobile Apps, and Subscription Services as defined in our Terms of Service.

We provide additional details about how we collect and use information from our public web sites in our Privacy Policy for dcbel Web Sites

Our Pledge:

We will be transparent about the different types of information we collect and how we use them.
We will ask your permission before sharing your personal information with third parties for purposes other than at your request or to provide dcbel’s Products, and to do so only when we think they will provide you with a welcome additional service.
We will use best-in-class data security tools to keep your data safe and protect the dcbel Products from unauthorized access.

Your Permission: Permission for data collection and processing. By using dcbel Products, you agree to allow us to collect and process information as described in this Privacy Statement.

International data transfers. Your personal information may be collected, processed and stored by dcbel or its service providers in the United States and other countries where our servers reside. Please be aware that the privacy protections and legal requirements, including the rights of authorities to access your personal information, in some of these countries may not be equivalent to those in your country. If you are using dcbel Products in the European Economic Area or other regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from United States law, you agree to the transfer of your personal data to the United States and other countries where dcbel operates.

What information does dcbel™ collect?

dcbel™ collects:

Setup information you provide
Environmental data from the dcbel dcbel™’s sensors
Direct adjustments to the device.
Charger and inverter usage information
Technical information from the device

Setup information you provide: When you install the dcbel dcbel™, you’ll be asked several questions in order to help us create an initial program that will personalize your experience and be responsive to your needs and lifestyle. For example, we’ll ask for information like your home address or postal/ZIP code. This information helps us to customize your experience by, for example, retrieving weather information for your neighborhood. In addition, the dcbel dcbel™ gathers information about your house loads in order to always prioritize them over your mobility loads, unless you instruct otherwise.

Environmental data from dcbel dcbel™’s sensors: We collect data from several sensors built into dcbel™. These sensors collect data such as time of day, instantaneous and total house loads, instantaneous and total charging loads, instantaneous and total solar energy production.

Direct adjustments to the device: If you change settings like preferred time-of-use charging times on dcbel™ it records and feeds that information to the dcbel algorithms to learn your desired operating modes in different situations.

Charging and Discharging usage information and Solar Generation: Every time your system charges or discharges EV’s or generates solar power, dcbel™ records the time and duration during which your system was on in order to offer you features such as usage history and total and net generation and consumption

Technical information from the device: In order to improve your experience over time and help troubleshoot any problem you may encounter with the dcbel™, we record your unit’s model and serial number, software version, and technical information such as unit configuration.

Saved and Shared Content: dcbel™ enables you to determine the purpose and the means for which you save and share your data. You may save and may choose to share certain data for other parties, such as your utility to access using the Services. We will collect and store information that will allow us to save or share your data, at your instruction, through the Services.

How does my dcbel Product or account interact with third parties?
If I use dcbel™ to connect third-party products and services to dcbel, will information be shared? When you choose to connect third-party products and services through the dcbel API, you are shown details about any proposed exchange(s) of data between dcbel and the third party that is providing the product or service. dcbel or the third party will instead (or also) ask for consent to control the products that you have connected. Your consent is required to allow any of these exchanges or requests for control and you will be able to revoke it at any time.

Is information shared with or received from third parties, outside of the Chorus™ program? dcbel may share information with third parties with your permission. For example, when you enroll in a rewards program for dcbel Products offered by our partners such as your local utility you may be asked for your permission to share certain data between dcbel and our partner. dcbel requires your permission before sharing information in these circumstances. We may also receive information from our partners and other sources and combine that with the information in your dcbel account. For example, in order to offer incentive programs, we might receive information (such as which of our partners offers services where you live) to determine eligibility for these programs.

Any dcbel data that you choose to share with a third party is governed by that third party’s privacy policy while in that party’s possession.

Any data that dcbel receives from third-parties will be processed and stored by dcbel and will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Statement. This information may be processed in the same ways as any other data that is a part of your dcbel account or the dcbel logs.

What additional information does dcbel collect and store when a user connects a dcbel Product to the Internet or creates an account?

Wi-Fi Network Information: To connect your dcbel Product to dcbel Services, or to access your dcbel Product over the Internet from a computer, a smartphone or a tablet, you will need to connect it to your Wi-Fi network. During setup, the dcbel Product will ask for your Wi-Fi network name (SSID) and password to connect to the Internet. It will save this information on the device, along with your IP address, so that you can access it and control it from your computer, smartphone or tablet, and so that it can communicate with dcbel servers and download software updates.
Once connected to your Wi-Fi network, your dcbel Product regularly sends the data described in this Privacy Statement (excluding your Wi-Fi password) to dcbel to provide you with the Services.

Additional Authorized Users: dcbel may provide you with the ability to enable additional authorized users to access your account. If you do so, the additional authorized users may control and your device, so be careful to add only those you trust.

Email Addresses: When you create a dcbel account, we collect and store your email address. From that point forward, your email address is used for communications from dcbel. In addition, dcbel may provide you with the ability to enable individuals to access your account as additional authorized users, or to invite other individuals such as friends or family to share access to your content. We will ask you for the email address of any such individuals and automatically send an email invitation on your behalf. dcbel stores this information to send this email, to register your friend if your invitation is accepted, and to track the success of our invitation services.

Basic Profile Information: Your account allows you to provide certain basic profile information like your name and home address. Names and addresses may be shown to others in connection with the Services. In addition, if you download the dcbel Mobile App, we may collect and store your mobile device identifiers (such as IDFA, AAID, or other device identifiers). For example, if you invite someone as an additional authorized user, he or she will be able to see your name and address.

Mobile location data: You may be asked for permission to share location data from your mobile device. If you grant this permission, the dcbel app uses standard location services built into iOS and Android. This data may be processed or combined with data from other products.

Bluetooth data: Bluetooth-enabled dcbel Products may broadcast an identifying signal wirelessly. This is used to connect with your Bluetooth-enabled devices (such as a smartphone or tablet) in order to use the Product.

Remember that when you visit our Sites, we collect personal information as described in our separate Privacy Policy for dcbel Web Sites. Like most Internet sites, we routinely record log entries (including information such as your IP address) and technical information (such as your browser type and version) when your browser, mobile device or dcbel Product contacts our servers.

How does dcbel use the information it collects?

We use this information to provide, develop and improve dcbel Products and services, including to make assessments and recommendations about products, safety, or energy use. We may use your contact details to send you this information, or to ask you to participate in surveys about your dcbel use, and to send you other communications from dcbel.

We may also use this information in a non-identified form for research purposes and to help us make sales, marketing, and business decisions. For example, we use aggregated user information about the number of active dcbel™ units in a particular area to help us decide what energy companies might be good partners.

We may use service providers to perform some of these functions. Those service providers are restricted from sharing your information for any other purpose.

We use industry-standard methods to keep this information safe and secure while it is transmitted over your home network and through the Internet to our servers. Depending on your location and type of data, dcbel may process your personal information on servers that are not in your home country.

In general for purposes of applicable law (e.g., GDPR), dcbel is a controller of the information collected in connection with the Products and Services. However, in the case of “Video and audio signals and data” you are the controller of these data and dcbel is a processor.

Our legal bases for processing information

If European data protection law applies to the processing of your information, we process your information for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement, based on the following legal grounds:

When we’re providing a product or service

We process your data to provide and support a product or service you’ve asked for under a contract, including but not limited to delivering our Terms of Service.

When we’re pursuing legitimate interests

We process your information for our legitimate interests and those of third parties while applying appropriate safeguards that protect your privacy. This means we process your information for things like:

offering and improving dcbel Products and services
developing new products and features
understanding how people use our products and services
performing research that improves our services for our users and benefits the public
sending you direct marketing and other communications from dcbel
protecting against harm to the rights, property, and safety of dcbel, our users, and the public
detecting, preventing or otherwise addressing fraud, abuse, security or technical issues with our services
maintaining and improving the integrity of our computing systems, and protecting our users’ data security
enforcing legal claims, including investigation of potential violations of applicable Terms of Service

When we’re complying with legal obligations

We process your data when we have a legal obligation to do so, for example, if we’re responding to a legal process or an enforceable governmental request.
With your consent We ask for your consent to process your information for certain specific purposes and give you the right to withdraw that consent at anytime.

In what circumstances does dcbel share my information?

Under no circumstance do we share personal information for any commercial or marketing purpose unrelated to the activation and delivery of dcbel Products and services without asking you first. Period. We do not rent or sell our customer lists. The following are the limited situations where we may share personal information:

With your permission: We may share personal information when we have your permission. One example of this would be if you invite another user to access the Products on your account as an additional authorized user. Another example is if you sign up for programs offered by our partners (e.g., local load serving entities); if you do this, we may share certain information with the partner. This could include things like your enrollment information and the activation status of your device. If you connect third-party devices and services to your dcbel Products through the dcbel API, you are shown information about any proposed exchange of data. dcbel or the third party will request your consent to these exchanges on your behalf and you can change your mind at any time. When you use third-party products and services integrated with the dcbel Products, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those products and services.
For external processing: We have vendors, service providers, and technicians who help with some of our processing and storage, including helping to answer your questions. They may also assist with monitoring our servers for technical problems. These technicians (as well as dcbel employees) can access certain information about you or your account in line with this work but these technicians are not allowed to use this data for non-dcbel purposes.
As part of business transitions: Upon the sale or transfer of the company and/or all or part of its assets, your personal information may be among the items sold or transferred. We will request a purchaser to treat our data under the privacy statement in place at the time of its collection.
For legal reasons: We will share personal information with third parties if we have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to (i) meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable government request; (ii) enforce dcbel policies or contracts, including investigation of potential violations; (iii) detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; (iv) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of dcbel, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.

We may share non-personal information (for example, aggregated or anonymized customer data) publicly and with our partners. For example, we may publish trends about energy generation or EV charging and discharging a neighbourhood or region. This information may also be shared with other users to help them better understand their energy usage compared to others in the dcbel community, raise awareness about energy and climate issues, or help us generally improve our system. We may also share non-personal information with our partners, for example, if they are interested in providing demand-response services or other incentive programs. We take steps to keep this non-personal information from being associated with you and we require our partners to do the same.

If you select an outside party for the purchase, installation or service of your dcbel device and share your personal information, we cannot control the collection, storage or sharing of information collected by that party. For example, if you buy a dcbel™ from a retailer, the retailer may collect personal information as part of the transaction. Or the party that installed the device may retain information that you provided to them to assist them in servicing the device if needed. Always check the privacy policies for any company that collects your personal information.

What choices do I have and how can I delete my personal information?

dcbel generally stores your personal information on dcbel’s servers until you delete or edit it, or for as long as you remain a dcbel customer in order to provide you with dcbel Products. In addition, dcbel may store your personal information to resolve disputes, establish legal defenses, conduct audits, pursue legitimate business purposes, enforce our agreements and comply with applicable laws.

As described above, some information is processed and stored directly on the dcbel device. Personal information from dcbel devices is encrypted while it is being transmitted to dcbel.

You can delete the information on the dcbel device by resetting it to the defaults (using Reset in the Settings menu).

You can access, amend or delete your personal information from dcbel’s servers through the controls in your account. dcbel customers can also request their dcbel data by visiting dcbel.com/ca/privacy.

Individual Rights in the European Economic Area.

If you are located in the European Economic Area, you may seek confirmation regarding whether dcbel is processing personal information about you, request access to your personal information and ask that we correct, amend or delete your personal information. In addition, you may object to dcbel’s processing of your personal information at any time. However doing so may impact your use of the Products and Services.

If applicable law provides you the right to request access to, (receive) port, object to or restrict processing, seek rectification or request erasure of personal information held about you by dcbel, you may do so, as applicable, through controls in the dcbel application or by contacting dcbel. To protect your privacy, dcbel will endeavor to take commercially reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access to or making any changes to your personal information. Learn more at dcbel.com/ca/privacy.

How does dcbel protect my personal information when it is transferred internationally?

When we transfer personal data from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) Switzerland or the United Kingdom (“UK”) to other countries, including to the United States, we use a variety of legal mechanisms to help ensure your data is appropriately protected. dcbel Inc. complies with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss–US Privacy Shield Framework (the “Privacy Shield”) regarding the collection, use, sharing, and retention of personal information from the EEA, Switzerland or UK to the United States, as described in our Privacy Shield certification. dcbel adheres to the principles contained in the Privacy Shield (the “Principles”).

As part of our participation in Privacy Shield, if you have a dispute with us about our adherence to the Principles, you may refer a complaint to your local data protection authority and we will work with them to resolve your concern. (In certain circumstances, the Privacy Shield Framework provides the right to invoke binding arbitration to resolve complaints not resolved by other means, as described in Annex I to the Privacy Shield Principles.) If you have a Privacy Shield-related complaint, please contact us at privacy@dcbel.energy

Privacy Shield participants are subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the US Federal Trade Commission and other authorized statutory bodies. Under certain circumstances (i.e. personal data sharing under the Onward Transfer Principle with third parties for external processing on our behalf), participants like us may be liable for the transfer of personal information from the EEA, Switzerland, or UK to third parties outside the EU. Learn more about Privacy Shield here.

We may share, as described in this Privacy Statement, information with our affiliates and subsidiaries, and third parties. We may disclose information in response to legal process and lawful requests by public authorities in the United States and other countries for the purposes of law enforcement and national security.

Minors.
Only individuals aged 18 and older are permitted to act as Owners of dcbel Accounts. Authorised Users must be over the age of 16 (or equivalent minimum age in the jurisdiction where they reside) and may use the Products and Services under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian and only if they agree to be bound by these Terms on your behalf. dcbel Products and Services do not knowingly collect or store any personal information from anyone under the age of 13.

Can the Privacy Statement be changed?
Please note that this Privacy Statement may change from time to time. We will provide notice of any changes on the website or by contacting you.

How can I contact dcbel?
For users in the United States and other countries outside of the European Economic Area: dcbel Inc. 355 Peel Street, Montreal, Quebec Canada H3G 2C9

For users in the European Economic Area: dcbel (Europe) Limited

For users in the United Kingdom: dcbel UK Ltd.

If you have any questions, you may submit an inquiry to our Data Protection Office, led by our Data Protection Officer, by emailing privacy@dcbel.energy