Privacy policy

Updated on 22 March 2022

At EnergyID, we pay great attention to your privacy, to being transparent on how we store and use your data, and to safely share data with others.

This document helps you understand:

If you do not agree with this policy, do not access or use our Services or interact with any other aspect of our business.

Who are we?

EnergyID is a Belgian coöperative company that offers tools for energy management, analysis, visualisation and collaboration. These tools, that we’ll call “Services” in this document, are available online and offline, via web apps and on mobile.

We are active in different countries and our name is translated, so you might know us as EnergieID, EnergyID, EnergiaID, ID Energia, or something similar. You can find our official company and contact information on our contact page.

What information do we collect from you?

We collect information from you when you provide it to us, when you use our Services, and when other sources provide it to us. There are different types of information:

Information you provide to us

We store your information when you input it into our Services or otherwise provide it directly to us.

Account information

We save your information when you register for an account, modify an account or set preferences. For example, you provide your email address when you register for our Services.

Content you provide through our products

We store the content that you post, send, receive and share through our Services. Some examples are:

  • The name, location and physical properties of a Record
  • The name, number and properties of your Meters
  • Meter readings and other measurement data
  • Active integrations and their credentials
  • Group info, hyperlinks and image uploads
Information you provide through our support channels

We also offer customer support, where you may choose to submit information regarding a problem you are experiencing with a Service. Examples of such information include: contact information, description of the problem, documentation or screenshots that would be helpful in resolving the issue.

Information we collect automatically when you use our Services

We collect information about you when you use our Services and take certain actions.

Your use of our Services

We keep track of certain information about you when you visit and interact with any of our Services. This information includes the features you use; the records, meters and reports you click on; or the meter readings you enter, modify or delete.

Device and Connection Information

While using our Services, we anonymously collect information about your computer, phone, tablet or other devices you use. This information includes operating system, browser type, URLs of referring/exit pages, device identifiers, and crash data. This data is immediately anonymised and aggregated and therefore does not impact your privacy.

Information we receive from other sources

It is possible that we may receive information about you from other Users or from third party services.

Other Users of our Services

Other Users of our Services may provide information about you. For example, a group administrator that you have granted the permission to modify your Record may enter, modify or delete Record properties, Meters and Meter Readings. We may also receive your email address from other Users when they use it to invite you to our Services. Similarly, a Group administrator may provide your contact information when they designate you as administrator for a Group.

Other services you link to your account

We receive information about you when you enable third-party Integrations. For example, you may authorise us to automatically get your Meter Readings from a third party data provider; or a data provider may send us information via our Application Program Interface (API).

How we use information we collect

How we use the information we collect depends upon the Services you use, how you use them, and any preferences you have communicated to us. These are the specific purposes for which we use your information:

To provide our Services

We use your information to provide our Services, authenticate you when you log in, provide customer support, and operate and maintain our Services. For example, we use the location you provide when creating a Record to forecast your energy consumption, based on local weather information.

For research and development

We are always looking for ways to make our Services better, faster, more secure, more integrated and more useful to you. We use anonymised usage data to identify trends and activity patterns to make improvements. We also use anonymised energy data to analyse and test certain new features before the become available to all users.

To communicate with you

Depending on your settings, we may send you notifications, either via email or mobile notification. For example, we may send an email at the beginning of each month to remind you to log your Meter Readings. We may also notify you when another User interacts with you, for example when a Group administrator invites you to join a group. We may also provide tailored communications based on your activity, for example to notify you of an anomaly in your energy consumption. These notifications depend on your personal settings, and you can always choose not to receive them.

To inform you about new features or other news about EnergyID

Depending on your settings, we use your contact information and information about you to send periodical communications that may be of specific interest to you. These communications may include information about new features, survey requests, newsletters, or events that may be of interest to you. You will only receive these communications if you opt-in on receiving them, and you can always opt-out.

Customer support

We use your information to resolve technical issues you encounter, to respond to your requests for assistance, to analyse crash information, and to repair and improve our Services.

For safety, security and privacy

We use information about you and your activity to verify accounts and activity, to monitor suspicious or fraudulent activity and to identify violations of our policies. We also use your contact information to notify you ahead of the deletion of your information due to or data retention policy (See “How long we keep information”, below).

With your consent

We use information about you where you have given us consent to do so for a specific purpose not listed above.

Legal bases for processing

We collect and process information about you only where we have legal bases for doing so under applicable European Union laws. The legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. This means we collect and use your information only where:

  • We need it to provide you the Services, including to operate the Services, provide customer support and personalized features and to protect the safety and security of the Services;
  • It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as for research and development, and to protect our legal rights and interests;
  • You give us consent to do so for a specific purpose; or
  • We need to process your data to comply with a legal obligation.
  • If you have consented to our use of information about you for a specific purpose, you have the right to change your mind at any time, but this will not affect any processing that has already taken place.

How we share information we collect

A significant part of EnergyID is about working together. We want to create tools that allow you to share your information with others in a secure and user friendly manner. However, you will always be the owner of your own data. For us, this means that the only way your information is shared, is when you take the initiative to do so. We will never sell information about you to advertisers or other third parties.

Sharing with Users

When you use our Services, you have the choice to share your information with other Users for several purposes:

For collaboration

You can create content, which may contain information about you, and grant permission to others to to see, share, edit, copy or download that content. Whenever you grant such permission, for example when you join a Group, you will be prompted to review the types of information you are about to share, and are asked to consent to this information being shared. You can at any time withdraw your consent by leaving the Group, at which point the Group administrators will no longer have access to your information. If you become a Group's administrator, your name and profile picture may be made publicly visible. For private Groups, this information is made only visible for users within the Group.

For benchmarking

As part of our Services, we offer analytics that show you how your information compares to that of other, anonymous Users. In return, your anonymised information may be used in the reports of other Users. The information that is used is aggregated, anonymised and generalised and cannot impact your privacy. You can however still opt-out from these features, meaning that your anonymised information will no longer be used, but you can also not use the benchmarking features anymore.

Sharing with Third Parties
Third-Party apps and API

You may grant permission to certain third party apps to access your information, by activating an Integration or through use of our Application Program Interface (API). Doing so may give third party apps access to your account and information about you like your name and email address, and any content you choose to use in connection with those apps. Whenever you grant such permission, you will be prompted to review the types of information you are about to share, and are asked to consent to this information being shared. You can at any time withdraw your consent, at which point the third party will no longer have access to your information.

Donating to Science and Research

You may choose to share certain information with Science and Research projects that EnergyID supports or takes part in. We eliminate information that directly identifies you, and we only use the information that enables non-profit research. Your information will only be shared for scientific research if you opt-in, and you can opt-out at any time.

How we store and secure information we collect

Information storage and security

We use data hosting service providers in the European Union to host the information we collect, and we use technical measures to secure your data. While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, no security system is impenetrable and due to the inherent nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that data, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our systems or otherwise in our care, is absolutely safe from intrusion by others. If you have any requests or concerns about this, please do not hesitate to contact us.

How long we keep information

How long we keep information we collect about you depends on the type of information, as described in further detail below. After such time, we will delete your information or, if this is not possible (for example, because the information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your information and isolate it from any further use until deletion is possible.

Account information and Content

We retain your Account information and all associated Content; for example Records, Meters and Meter Readings; as long as you actively use our Services and for a period of 2 years following your last activity. A few weeks before this period expires, we will notify you about this event and give you the opportunity to reactivate your account. If you do not reactivate your account within this timeframe, your Account and its Content will be deleted.Users who subscribe to a paid Service, even if paid for by a third party, are always considered active and retain their Account.

Information about your use of the Services

The technical information we collect about your interaction with our Services will be stored for a maximum of 180 days.

How to access and control your information

You are the owner of your own data. That means that you can access and modify your data, or you can export your data and delete it from our systems if you choose so.

Access and update your information

You have the ability to access and update your information from within our Services. For example, you can access and modify a meter reading you previously entered. It is possible that you cannot modify certain information that has been automatically received from third parties: in that case the third party should allow you to modify that specific information at their side.

Delete your information

You have the ability to delete your information from within our Services. You can delete the Content you create, for example a Meter and its Meter Readings, or you can delete your entire Account. Note that it may take up to 10 business days before your Account is fully removed from our systems.

Data portability

Data portability means that you are able to export your information in a format so you can move from one service to another. Our Services allow you to download your Account information and all associated Content in file formats that can be imported into other services. You can also import certain data into our Services.

Lost access

If you believe you have lost access to your information, for example if you do not remember your password, or if you believe an account has been created for you without your permission, you can contact us and we will help you to resolve the issue.

Other important privacy information

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device, and are used to remember certain preferences or allow us to optimise our Services. We only use technical and analytical cookies that do not impact your privacy.

To opt-out of our use of cookies, you can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies. You can also instruct your browser to remove cookies that have already been saved.

Functional cookies

These cookies are used for essential parts of our Services, for example to remember that you have logged in.

Analytical cookies

We use Google Analytics cookies to help us understand how visitors arrive at and interact with our Services. The data collected by these cookies do not include any identifiable information, and is used solely to uncover collective insights about the use of our Services.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will require you to review and agree to them in order for you to keep using our Services.

If you disagree with any changes to this privacy policy, you will need to stop using our Services and delete your account, as outlined above.

Contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about how your information is handled, please contact us.

If you believe that we have treated your privacy in violation of any law or regulation, you can file a complaint with the Belgian Privacy Commission.

 

CHANGELOG
  • 2018-05-17: Started logging changes to the Privacy Policy in order to improve transparency.
  • 2022-03-22: To improve transparency for EnergyID users who want to share data through a Group, the names of administrators of non-private Groups will now be shown to all users. This way, users can know with whom they share data when joining a Group.
  • 2023-08-02: We now explicitly state that users who subscribe to a paid service, even if paid for by a third party, are always considered active, which has implications for the retention period of Account information and Content.