Columbia Gas of Maryland, Inc.

Version: August 30, 2024

Mailing Address

Columbia Gas of Maryland

P.O. Box 2318

Columbus, OH 43216-2318

Customer Contact Center

1-888-460-4332

Columbia Gas of Maryland (referred to as the “Company”, “we”, “our” or “us”) understands how important customer privacy is to you. We hope this notice will answer your questions about our information and privacy practices. Generally, this Privacy Notice does not apply to information which is already available to the public, or which becomes available to the public hereafter. Any dispute related to this Privacy Notice will be governed by our Terms of Use. Maintaining the confidentiality of your personal data is important to us and the Company takes steps to protect it from public disclosure. Note, however, no safeguards can guarantee complete security or privacy of your personal data.

The Categories of Personal Data We Collect About You

We obtain personal data that you provide us through a variety of channels (e.g., telephone, online, etc.).  This information includes among other things, your name, service address, mailing address, social security number, and telephone number. By submitting a telephone number to us you agree that a representative of the Company can contact you at the number(s) you provide, potentially using automated technology (including texts/SMS messaging) or a pre-recorded message. The Company does not use texts/SMS messaging to send marketing messages. By following the Company's opt-out instructions, a Customer may opt-out of receiving certain non-emergency communications. In addition, we may collect and maintain other information volunteered by you, such as survey information, job applications, or website registrations. We may also collect information from your interaction with chatbots/ chat/ interactive forms.

We also may maintain information such as utility account number and associated property and service information, such as consumption history.  If you sign up for one of our online payment methods, we may require you to provide your bank account numbers and other financial information in order to process payment. 

Our system logs may record certain information about visitors to our sites, including the web request, Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, device and mobile ad identifiers, browser information, interaction with the sites, pages viewed, app usage, and other such information; we may collect similar information from emails you receive from us that can help us track which emails are 
opened and which links are clicked by recipients.   We may record your clicks and/or keystrokes as you interact with our website; we may also allow third parties to record those clicks and/or keystrokes, for the purposes listed in this Privacy Notice.  

We use certain cookies, pixel tags and other technologies to help us understand how you use the sites and enable us to personalize your experience. To learn more about cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/. We may ask advertisers or other third party partners to serve ads or services to your devices, which rely on cookies or similar technologies placed on our sites.

We may receive information from third parties such as advertising and marketing partners, public databases, data aggregators, and social media platforms, to supplement the information we receive from our consumers. If we do so, this notice governs how we can use that information.

Children Under the Age of 18

While we may maintain energy-related educational materials suitable for parents or guardians to discuss with children under the age of 18, our Website is not intended for and should not be used by children under 18 years of age. No one under age 18 may provide any information to or on the Website. We do not knowingly collect Personal Data from children under 18. 

The Purposes for Which We Use the Personal Data We Collect

We may use personal data as permitted by law, for the following business purposes:

• to provide you services
• to respond to your inquiries and fulfill your requests
• to communicate with you about and to process orders, services, promotions, campaigns, programs, contests, sweepstakes, rewards and accounts
• to inform you about our services, promotions, events or other promotional purposes
• to re-contact you if we have not heard from you in a while
• to confirm the accuracy of the information provided to us
• to perform quality control
• to send you advertising/promotional material from any of our affiliates, and on behalf of our promotional and strategic partners
• to improve your experience with our services, such as by personalizing your experience with us
• to permit you to participate in social sharing, including live social media feeds
• to send you advertising/promotional material from any of our affiliates, perform analytics, quality control, market research, and determine the effectiveness of our websites, mobile applications, promotional campaigns, and develop new products and services.

We may also use personal data and any communications as we believe to be necessary or appropriate for certain purposes, including:

• to comply with applicable law and legal process
• to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including law enforcement
• to detect, prevent, or investigate potential security incidents or fraud
• to facilitate the functionality of our mobile applications and websites
• to provide important product safety information
• to enforce our terms and conditions
• to protect our operations or those of our affiliates
• to protect the rights, privacy, safety, financial or physical property and/or security of the Company, our affiliates, you or others
• to document and maintain records as permitted by law, such as for regulatory or other record keeping purposes, and to process and document transactions
• to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain

If you submit any personal data relating to other people, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

• to our affiliates for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice
• to our third-party service providers to enable them to provide us services such as website hosting, data analytics, marketing, payment processing, order fulfillment, infrastructure provision, IT services, customer service, email delivery services, credit card processing, auditing services and other services.
• to a third party in the event of any actual or potential reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings)
• in connection with the purposes described above (e.g., to comply with legal obligations or to respond to requests from public and government authorities)
• to third-party strategic partners with whom we may enter into an agreement to provide you with offers and services that may be of interest to you, where permitted by law
• to third parties in connection with certain promotions or sweepstakes you may participate in; to the extent that the promotion’s rules concerning the treatment of your personal data are stricter than this Privacy Notice, the promotion’s rules apply
• to our online and email advertisers or other third-party vendors we use who may provide cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, clear GIFs or other similar technologies for use on our site or other websites to manage and improve our online and email advertising campaigns. For example, a vendor (e.g., Google, Facebook) may provide us with certain digital advertising pixels or other tools to recognize their cookies during your visit to the site and to learn which of our online advertisements may have brought you to our site, or to serve you with advertisements after you leave the site.  These third-party vendors may also use other digital advertising tools, as well as your personal data, to recognize you across the devices and online services you use.

To know more about your options with respect to information sharing, please call our Customer Contact Center at 1-888-460-4332

How You Can Submit A Request To Access, Correct, or Delete Personal Data 
You may request a copy of the personal data you have provided to us.

You may request that we correct or delete your personal data.  Note that correction and deletion requests are subject to certain limitations, for example, we may retain personal data as permitted by law, such as for tax or other record keeping purposes, to maintain an active account, and to process transactions and facilitate customer requests.

You may also request that we stop any sale of personal data about you for marketing purposes.   

To request a copy of personal data we have collected about you, or to request that your information be deleted or kept from sale, please call our Customer Contact Center at 1-888-460-4332.  

If you have an account with us, you may also make certain changes directly through your account profile page. Please note that changes you make on your account profile page through one of our sites may not always be reflected on other sites operated by us.

Privacy Notice Modifications
The Company may modify this Privacy Notice at any time. The updated Privacy Notice will be posted for thirty (30) days before becoming effective.