Xcel Energy's Web Privacy and Security Policies

Our Privacy Pledge to Our Customers

Xcel Energy is concerned about the security of your personal customer information privacy. We believe it is important for you to know how we treat and safeguard the information you give us as you do business with us.

What Information is Collected

• Conducting Our Business

Xcel Energy generally collects information that helps us provide you energy and related services as well as billing information. We might ask for your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, Social Security number, payment method, usage data, type of business, and personal preference information, as well as other information that might help in providing our services and products to you.

Your Web Visits

In general, information about yourself is not required when you visit Xcel Energy on the World Wide Web. To evaluate our site and improve our service to you, our web servers automatically collect standard information, including Internet provider address, browser type and access time. This information is used to measure the number of visits, average time spent on the sites, number of pages viewed, and methods by which our site was found. We collect e-mail addresses to improve our service to our customers, but we will ask your permission first before we communicate regularly with you via e-mail. If you believe you are receiving our communications in error or no longer want to receive them, let us know and we will remove your name from our mailing lists. Xcel Energy will be judicious in the use of e-mail and paper mail. We treat our customers as we ourselves would like to be treated.

A Special Note for Parents

For the safety and privacy of the children who visit our site no personally identifiable information such as last name, age, school, or location will be published in Xcel Energy’s web site. Xcel Energy adheres to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 and the guidelines of the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc.

What Information is Shared

Xcel Energy has a strong policy regarding the disclosure of customer information. In general Xcel Energy does not sell or share individual customer data. Xcel Energy will not sell, rent or give away your personal information to other companies for use in selling others’ products or services. When we contract with another company to market or advertise products for Xcel Energy, we ask that those companies also protect your information. We will share data in limited circumstances such as:

1. As required by any necessary laws, regulations or other governmental requests with customer authorization appropriate to the situation. This includes law enforcement personnel upon receipt of a court order or proof of an emergency situation.
2. Current or prospective customers and real estate agents requesting residential energy consumption averages for a specific real estate transaction.
3. At the express written authorization of a customer to share information with a third party. For example, sharing information concerning an elderly parent’s billing arrangement with an adult caregiver.
4. For the business purposes of Xcel Energy.
   

Security

• Conducting Our Business

Our procedures limit access to personally identifiable information to those with a business reason to know such information. We educate ourselves about the importance of confidentiality and customer privacy through standard operating procedures, special training programs, and our ethics policies.

• Your Web Transactions

We will use a secured protocol to safeguard your financial information, specifically your credit card, during online transactions. Our server will run detection software to help ensure you are using a secure browser and your information is secure when you make a purchase. If our browser determines you are not using a secure browser, a message will appear at checkout. You may then make the decision to continue or not. To protect your information once your transaction is complete, Xcel Energy stores your information securely, for example on an off-line server stored securely behind our firewall. Access to this information is limited and monitored.

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