dcbel Privacy Policy

Effective date: [28/04/2022]

dcbel Inc. and its affiliates (“dcbel,” “we,” “our,” and/or “us”) values the privacy of the individuals who use our website, mobile apps, and other online services (our “Services”). This privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) explains how we collect, use, and share 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 Terms of Service ([https://www.dcbel.energy/uk/terms-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.

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.

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. When we send you emails, we may track whether you open them to learn how to deliver a better customer experience and improve our Services.

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. We may infer your general location information, for example, by using your internet protocol (IP) address.

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 it, 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 from Cookies and Similar Technologies. We and third-party partners collect personal information using cookies, pixel tags, or similar 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 cookies.  We use the following necessary cookies:

• 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:

• 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:

Please review your web browser’s “Help” file to learn the proper way to modify your cookie settings. Please note that if you delete or choose not to accept cookies from the Service, you may not be able to utilize the features of the Service 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.

HOW WE USE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We may use the personal information we collect:

• To provide, maintain, improve, and enhance our Services;
• 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, 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 research and development purposes;
• To send you text messages;
• To facilitate reservations, transactions, and payments;
• 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.

• Consent.  You have consented to the use of your personal information.  For example, we may use cookies where you have consented to such use.
• Contractual Necessity.  We need your personal information to provide you with our Services.  For example, we may need to process your personal information to respond to your inquiries or requests.
• 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 tax, labor and accounting obligations.
• 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 product development and internal analytics purposes, and otherwise to improve the safety, security, and performance of our Services.  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. 

HOW WE SHARE THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Vendors and Service Providers. We may share any information we receive with vendors and service providers 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 share 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 share your contact information with our business partners, such as SHIPs and developers who provide applications through our app store, 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.  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

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 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 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.

 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 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 or the UK to the U.S. and other third countries based on approved Standard Contractual Clauses, or otherwise in accordance with applicable data protection laws.  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.

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 share personal information previously collected from you through the Services, we will notify you through the Services, by email, or other communication.

CONTACT US

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
355 Peel Street suite 307
Montreal, QC Canada H3C 2G9