FLORIDIANS AGAINST INCREASED RATES, INC. PRIVACY POLICY

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY

Floridians Against Increased Rates, Inc. is serious about protecting your online privacy. This website privacy policy tells you how we and our website collects, stores, processes, uses, and protects information and data, including personal information (the “Privacy Policy”). By visiting our website fairfl.org (the “Website”), you accept and agree to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy. In particular, you consent to our collection, storage, processing and use of your personal information and data as described in this Website Privacy Policy.  “You” or “your” means and refers to you as a user of the fairfl.org Website. “We,” “our,” “us” or “FAIR” refers to Floridians Against Increased Rates, Inc. and our Website.

Our Privacy Policy is designed to provide transparency into our privacy practices and principles, in a format that our visitors can navigate, read and understand. We are dedicated to treating your personal information with care and respect. Please review the following Privacy Policy and contact us at info@fairfl.org if you have any questions or concerns.

PRIVACY POLICY SCOPE

This Privacy Policy describes:

 

  1. Information We Collect From You and How We Collect It
  2. Parents and Children
  3. Third Party Information Collection
  4. How We Use Your Information
  5. Accessing and Changing Your Preferences
  6. California Privacy Rights
  7. Consent
  8. Third-Party Services
  9. Regarding Information and Persons Covered by the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
  10. Sensitive Data
  11. Email and Marketing Communications
  12. Information Retention
  13. Your Legal Rights
  14. Data Security
  15. Changes to our Privacy Policy
  16. Questions or Concerns

 

INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU AND HOW WE COLLECT IT

 

When you use the Website, certain types of data may be collected from you, including: (1) Personal Information; and (2) Non-personal information (collectively referred to as “Information”). For more detailed  information on the collection of personal information from children, please refer to the “Parents and Children” section below.

Personal Information

If you express an interest in obtaining additional information about our services or becoming a member of FAIR, we generally require you to provide us with your contact information, including your first and last name or business name, address, email address and utility company.

 

When you become a member of FAIR through our Website, we collect the personally identifiable information you give us such as your name, business name, mailing address, and email address (collectively, “Personal Data”). We use this information to enable us to provide certain services to you and on your behalf, including representing your interests in proceedings before the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC). By providing Personal Data, you acknowledge that you understand our collection, use and disclosure of it, as described in this Privacy Policy. Personal Data may include, without limitation, Communication Data, Customer Data, User Data and Technical Data as described below.

 

Automatically gathered information

FAIR automatically tracks certain information about you based upon your behavior while using the Website. This information is used to better understand and serve you by responding to your particular interests and needs.

Usage Details

When you access and use the Website, we may automatically collect certain details of your access to and use of the Website, including User Data, Technical Data, traffic data, date and time you access the Website, the number of links you click within the Website, any third party website and sections within the Website that you access, logs, resources and other communication data that you access and use on or through the Website.

Device Information

When you access the Website, we may collect information about your device and internet connection, including the device’s unique device identifier, IP address, operating system, browser type, and network information.

Use of Cookies (or mobile cookies)

Our Website may use cookies to enhance the user experience while using our Website. Cookies are pieces of information that some apps and websites transfer to the computer or mobile device that is browsing that app or website and are used for record-keeping purposes by many apps and websites. Use of cookies makes web browsing easier by performing certain functions such as saving your passwords, saving personal preferences regarding your use of the particular app or website, and ensuring that you don’t see the same advertisement repeatedly. It may be possible to refuse to accept cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your device. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website.

By continuing to use our Website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. We may choose to use any or all of the following cookies:

 

  • Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our Website. They may include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our Website or our services.

 

  • Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our Website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our system works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

 

  • Functionality cookies. These are used to recognize you when you return to our Website. This enables us to personalize our content for you and remember your preferences.

 

  • Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our Website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We may use this information to make our Website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests.

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

 

Use of Web Beacons

A “web beacon,” “clear GIF,” “web bug,” or “pixel tag” is a tiny graphic file with a unique identifier that is similar in function to a cookie, but allows us to count the number of users that have visited certain pages or screens of our Website, and to help determine the effectiveness of promotional or advertising campaigns, and for other related app statistics.

 

PARENTS AND CHILDREN

 

Our Website is not intended for minors or children under 13 years of age and no part of our Website is designed or intended to attract anyone under the age of 13. We will never ask for or knowingly collect information from children, if you are a child under the age of 13, you are not permitted to use this Website and should immediately exit our Website, or get an adult. Consistent with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, we will not knowingly collect any information from children under the age of 13. If you think that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13 through this Website, please contact us at info@fairfl.org and we will dispose of the information. Parents or guardians of minors may provide information pertaining to their minor children.

 

THIRD PARTY INFORMATION COLLECTION

When you use the Website, and certain third party sites linked from the Website, third parties may use automatic information collection technologies to collect information, including location information about you or your device. These third parties may include: advertisers, ad networks, and ad servers, your mobile device manufacturer, your mobile service provider, or other service providers.

The information they collect may be associated with your personal information and location or they may collect information, about your online activities over time and across different websites, apps, and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content.

We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.

HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We use your Information to operate our Website’s business activities. For example, we may use your Information to contact you in response to a request from you or regarding your membership, or to provide information about changes to our Website, new services, resolve disputes, troubleshoot issues, or to enforce our Website’s terms and conditions.

 

For individuals that sign up for a membership with FAIR through the Website you consent to FAIR’s collection and use of your Personal Information including your name, your business name if joining as a business customer, address, email address and your utility company to be shared in order to advance FAIR’s purposes, including, but not limited to (a) advocating by all lawful means for the lowest possible electric rates that are consistent with utilities providing safe and reliable electric service; and (b) opposing by all lawful means utility proposals for rates and rate increases that are greater than necessary for utilities to provide safe and reliable services (“Fair’s Purposes”).

 

In order to carry out Fair’s Purposes, FAIR may be required to prove that its members are customers of utilities in proceedings before the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), including cases before the PSC where a member’s utility is seeking to increase rates.  If we are required to provide your information to the PSC or pursuant to a PSC order for such purposes, we will seek to protect the confidentiality of your information by applicable legal procedures.

 

As a general rule, beyond the use set forth above that assists us in carrying out FAIR’s Purposes, we will not give your Information to third parties without your permission. However, there are some important exceptions to this rule:

 

We may have to share your Information with the parties set out below:

  • Other companies with whom we have contractual relationships to support FAIR’s Purposes who provide services to FAIR consistent with FAIR’s Purposes.
  • Service providers who provide IT and system administration services to FAIR.
  • Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers.
  • Government bodies that require us to report processing activities.
  • The PSC in the course of official proceedings where FAIR is opposing rate increases.

 

We may, in our sole discretion, provide information about you to law enforcement or other government officials for purposes of fraud investigations, alleged intellectual property infringement, or any other suspected illegal activity or matters that may expose us to legal liability. In some cases we may need to disclose your Information to comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any lawful government or regulatory request.

 

We require all third parties to whom we transfer your Information to respect the security of your Information and to treat it in accordance with the law. We only allow such third parties to process your Information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

 

ACCESSING AND CHANGING YOUR PERSONAL PREFERENCES

 

Opt-In/Opt-Out

We provide users of the Website the opportunity to sign up for a FAIR membership using their name or business name, email address, address and utility company. Users are not obligated to sign up for a membership, however if you do not provide certain information, some or all parts of the Website may not be accessible or function properly. You may revoke your consent to contact or the other use and disclosure of your Information at any time by ceasing use of the Site or directly contacting us at info@fairfl.org.

Request a change to your Information

You may also send us an email at info@fairfl.org to request access to, correct, or delete any Information that you may have provided to us. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

Do Not Track Signals

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the Information you provide to us. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies or block the use of other tracking technologies, some parts of the Website may then be inaccessible or not function properly.

 

CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

If you are a California resident, California law may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your Information. To learn more about your California privacy rights, visit  https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/privacy-laws

 

CONSENT

 

When you provide us with Personal Information through our Website, through a hard-copy membership application or over the phone to complete a membership application, we imply that you consent to our collecting it and using it to carry out FAIR’s Purposes set forth above.

 

IMPORTANT: Except as stated herein as necessary to carry out FAIR’s Purposes and to provide requested services, we do not sell, share or rent your personal information to any third parties, including but not limited to advertisers, strategic partners or vendors. Again, we take your privacy very seriously.

THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

In general, the third-party providers used by us, if any, will only collect, use and disclose your information to the extent necessary to allow them to perform the services they provide to us. However, certain third-party service providers, such as payment gateways and other payment transaction processors, have their own privacy policies in respect to the information we are required to provide to them for your purchase-related transactions. For these providers, we recommend that you read their privacy policies so you can understand the manner in which your Information will be handled by these providers.

 

At no point during the online transaction does FAIR take custody of or store your credit card information. Payments are processed by a third-party payment processor. You can read their terms of service, privacy policy and security compliance information by visiting their sites.

 

Our Website may contain links to other websites, applications, and services maintained by third parties in which case the privacy policy of such third party applies and this Privacy Policy does not apply. The information practices of such other services are governed by the third-party privacy policies, which we encourage you to review to better understand those third parties’ privacy practices.

 

In particular, remember that certain providers may be located in or have facilities that are located a different jurisdiction than either you or us. Therefore, if you elect to proceed with a transaction that involves the services of a third-party service provider, then your information may become subject to the laws of the jurisdiction(s) in which that service provider or its facilities are located.

 

Once you leave our Website or are redirected to a third-party website or application, you are no longer governed by this Privacy Policy or our Website’s Terms of Use. When you click on links on our store, they may direct you away from our Website. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites and encourage you to read their privacy statements.

REGARDING INFORMATION AND PERSONS COVERED BY THE GDPR (GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATION)

Personal data means any information capable of identifying an individual. It does not include anonymized data.

 

We may process the following categories of personal data about you:

 

  • Communication Data that includes any communication that you send to us whether that be through a contact us form on our Website, through email, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you send us. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuance or defense of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to reply to communications sent to us, to keep records and to establish, pursue or defend legal claims.

 

  • Customer Data that includes data relating to the use of our services, or application for FAIR membership, such as your name, address, email address, utility company, phone number and other contact details, details. We process this data to advocate for FAIR’s Purposes described above. Our lawful ground for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps at your request to enter into such a contract.

 

  • User Data that includes data about how you use our Website and any online services together with any data that you post for publication on our Website or through other online services. We process this data to operate our Website and ensure relevant content is provided to you, to ensure the security of our Website, to maintain back-ups of our Website and/or databases and to enable publication and administration of our Website, other online services and business. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our Website and our business.

 

  • Technical Data that includes data about your use of our Website and online services such as your IP address, your login data, details about your browser, length of visit to pages on our Website, page views and navigation paths, details about the number of times you use our Website, time zone settings and other technology on the devices you use to access our Website. The source of this data is from our analytics tracking system. We process this data to analyze your use of our Website and other online services, to administer and protect our business and Website, to deliver relevant Website content and advertisements to you and to understand the effectiveness of our advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interests which in this case are to enable us to properly administer our Website and our business and to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.

 

We may use Customer Data, User Data and Technical Data to deliver relevant Website content to you and to measure or understand the effectiveness of the services we provide you. Our lawful ground for this processing is for contractual and legitimate interests, which include providing and delivering goods and services to our customers under a contract and to grow our business.

SENSITIVE DATA

We do not collect any Sensitive Data about you. Sensitive data refers to data that includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, or information about your health and genetic and biometric data. We do not collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

 

Where we are required to collect Personal Information by law, or under the terms of the contract between us and you do not provide us with that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract (for example, advocate on your behalf).

 

We will only use your Personal Information for a purpose it was collected for or a reasonably compatible purpose if necessary. In case we need to use your details for an unrelated new purpose we will let you know and explain the legal grounds for processing.

 

We may process your Information without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.

EMAIL AND MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

Our lawful ground of processing your Personal Information to send you marketing communications is either your consent or our legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).

 

We may send you electronic mail communications if: (i) you signed up for a FAIR membership; or (ii) you agreed to receive marketing communications; and in each case you have not opted out of receiving such communications since. However you can still opt out of receiving marketing emails from us at any time by scrolling to the bottom of any of our emails and clicking on “Unsubscribe.”

INFORMATION RETENTION

We will only retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. When deciding what the correct time is to keep the data for, we look at its amount, nature and sensitivity, potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, the processing purposes, if these can be achieved by other means and legal requirements.

 

In some circumstances we may anonymize your Personal Information for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS 

The following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are available to you if you are located in the European Union (EU) or European Economic Area (EEA). If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please email info@fairfl.org. We will respond to your request within 30 days of accepting it. Before accepting your request, we may need to ask for some identifying documentation from you, to make sure we don’t inadvertently provide your personal information to someone else. If you are not in the EU or EEA, you can still apply for any of these rights, and we will comply where the request is reasonable in our discretion.

Editing and updating Personal Information

If you find that your Personal Information needs to be edited or updated, you can ask us to update it by contacting us at info@fairfl.org. Please make sure to provide us with all the information we need to be able to address your request, including both the old and new information.

Accessing Personal Information

You can request details of your personal information we hold. We will confirm whether we are processing your Personal Information and provide additional details including what kind of information we have about you, where we collected it, how we use it (including the legal basis for our processing), how long we expect to keep it, details of any automated decision making or profiling and the safeguards regarding data transfers to non-EEA or non-EU countries, subject to the limitations set out in applicable laws and regulations. If you ask us, we will provide you with a copy of your personal information free of charge. We may charge you a fee to cover our administrative costs if you request multiple copies of the same information or if the requests are manifestly unfounded or excessive.

Deletion of Personal Information

At your request, we will delete your Personal Information if: (i) it’s no longer necessary to retain your personal information; (ii) you withdraw the consent which formed the basis of your Personal Information processing; (iii) you have successfully objected to the processing of your Personal Information (see below); (iv) your Personal Information was processed unlawfully; or (v) we are required to delete your Personal Information to comply with any of our legal obligations.

We will review requests on a case by case basis and we might not be able to comply with your request if we need to process your Personal Information (i) for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; (ii) to comply with our legal obligations; (iii) to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim; or (iv) to perform a task in the public interest. If we are unable to comply with your request for any of the forgoing reasons, we will notify you of the reasons why your request was rejected.

Restriction of processing of Personal Information

You have the right to request us to limit the processing of your Personal Information if: (i) you dispute the accuracy of your Personal Information; (ii) your Personal Information was processed unlawfully and you request a limitation on processing, rather than a deletion of your Personal Information; (iii) we no longer need to process your Personal Information, but you need your Personal Information in connection with a legal claim; or (iv) you object to the processing of your personal information based on our legitimate interests pending verification as to whether we have an overriding legitimate ground for such processing. To the extent needed, we may still keep some of your data to ensure we comply with your request to limit processing, or for other legal purposes.

Objecting to certain types of processing including automated decision making

Where we process your Personal Information based upon our legitimate interests, you have the right to object to this processing on grounds relating to your particular situation if you feel it impacts your fundamental rights and freedoms. Where we process your Personal Information based upon our legitimate interests and where decisions are made by automated processing which has a legal or other significant effect on you, you may also object to such automated decision making.

Portability of Personal Information

You can request us to send you your Personal Information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format so that it can easily be transferred and used by a third party if: (i) you provided us with the Personal Information; (ii) the processing of your Personal Information is based on your consent or required for the performance of a contract; or (iii) the processing is carried out by automated means.

Withdrawing consent

We primarily rely on legitimate business interests to process your data, but to the extent we use consent to process your data, you have the right to withdraw any consent you may have given us at any time. We will comply with your request promptly. If you withdraw your consent, we might not be able to provide some of our services to you. At any point, you have the right to object to processing of your Personal Information for direct marketing purposes and we will promptly comply with your request.

Filing a complaint with a data protection authority

We will try to resolve any problems that you have but you are always able to contact your local data protection authority for assistance or to make a complaint.

 

DATA SECURITY

We have implemented measures designed to secure your Personal Information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Be sure not to let others access your device. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet and mobile platforms is not 100% secure. Although we do our best to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information transmitted through our Website. Any transmission of Personal Information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for the circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures we provide.

 

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

 

We reserve the right to change the terms of this Privacy Policy at any time by posting those changes to this Privacy Policy, so that you are always aware of our processes related to collection, use and disclosure of your Information. For significant changes, we will notify you by posting a prominent notice on our Website indicating at the top of the Privacy Policy when it was most recently updated.  Please consult this portion of the Website regularly for important changes to the Privacy Policy as they occur.

 

You agree to be bound by all the provisions of the Privacy Policy that are displayed on the Website on the date you use the Website. Your continued use of the Website, indicates your acceptance of all of the provisions of this Privacy Policy displayed on the Website on the date of such use.

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS

To ask questions or comments about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

info@fairfl.org

LAST UPDATED: April 13, 2021