Con Edison Privacy Policy and Notice
This Privacy Policy and Notice describes how Consolidated Edison, Inc. ("Con Edison," "we," "us," or "our") and its subsidiaries collect, use, share, and protect information about our customers.
Your privacy is important to us, so we protect the information we collect from and about you while doing business together.
We obtain this information in several ways: through our websites, apps, and social media pages; your use of electric, gas, and/or steam services; any devices and technologies related to any energy efficiency, demand management, distributed generation or other initiatives or programs we may offer to you from time to time; third-party sources, social media platforms, and in-person, phone, email, text or written correspondence with you.
This information may include:
- Your name, account number, home or business address, email address, and telephone number
- Energy use data (including interval energy usage data collected by smart meters)
- Location information
- Payment and billing information
- Income verification information (for energy affordability and assistance programs)
- Vehicle identification number (VIN), vehicle information, and charging session data (for electric vehicle and demand management programs such as SmartCharge NY)
- Information you provide when participating in energy efficiency, demand response, community distributed generation, or other programs
- Aerial imagery (photos and video) that may incidentally capture customer property or surrounding areas during infrastructure inspections, emergency response, and other operational activities conducted using company-operated drones (unmanned aircraft systems)
- Your communications and other interactions with us
- Video captured on and around our properties and facilities
- Other information that is specific to you as our customer, necessary for us to conduct business with you, or that you otherwise elect to share with us
At the end of this Privacy Policy and Notice, we provide you with the opportunity to choose regarding our use and disclosure of your Customer Information to third parties for marketing purposes. Customer Information includes your name, account number, home or business address, email address, and telephone number.
How We May Collect and Use Information
We gather and use information to do business with you, including sending you bills, letting you know about products and services we offer, sending marketing communications, offers, and promotions that may be of interest to you, and addressing your questions or concerns.
We collect and use energy usage data from smart meters and related systems to support billing, grid operations and planning, outage detection and restoration, demand response programs, system safety monitoring, and revenue protection.
Your interactions with us, including phone calls, website usage, and chatbots, will be monitored, recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for business purposes as described in this Privacy Policy and Notice.
We may use information from programs in which you voluntarily participate. Some of these programs have additional rules, which may contain additional conditions regarding how we may use and disclose your information. We recommend that you read any such rules carefully.
We may use your information for business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, fraud monitoring and prevention, developing new product offerings and services, enhancing, improving or modifying our product offerings and services, identifying trends in energy use, developing and promoting programs and initiatives to encourage more efficient energy use and to manage demand for electricity, determining the effectiveness of our programs and promotional campaigns, and operating and expanding our business activities.
We may use information as we believe to be necessary or appropriate, to: (a) comply with requirements or directives of our governing regulatory agencies including, among others, the New York State Public Service Commission, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; (b) respond to requests from government or judicial authorities, cooperate with law enforcement, and for other legal reasons; (c) enforce our terms and conditions of service and applicable tariffs; (d) protect our operations or those of our affiliates; (e) protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (f) allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain. We also may use your information to send or serve marketing communications, offers, and promotions that may be of interest, including on social media platforms.
We send occasional online surveys to gather information about your use of, and your opinion about, our programs and services, our energy-related product offerings, and our websites and apps. Participation in our online surveys is voluntary. If you choose to participate, the information you provide will be used to improve our websites and apps and the programs, products, and services we offer to you.
For all the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and Notice, we may use artificial intelligence products and tools.
How We May Share Information
We may share information with our service providers or contractors in order to help us to do business with you, including processing payments, answering questions, developing and promoting programs, product offerings or services, or fulfilling your requests for a product or service.
We may share information with third parties to permit them to send marketing communications or information about products and services that may be of interest, consistent with your choices. Also consistent with your choices, we may also share information with third parties who provide energy-related products and services.
We may need to share information as we believe necessary and appropriate to: (a) comply with the requirements or directives of our governing regulatory agencies including, among others, the New York State Public Service Commission, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; (b) respond to requests from government or judicial authorities, cooperate with law enforcement, and for other legal reasons; (c) enforce our terms and conditions of service and applicable tariffs; (d) protect our operations or those of our affiliates; (e) protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (f) allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.
We may disclose information to a third party in the event of any 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).
Other Information We May Collect, Use, and Disclose
We use software to automatically collect other information that does not directly identify you. This information, such as the name of the domain or IP address where you access the Internet, the date and time when you access any of our websites, and the information that you view while using our services, is typically used for statistical purposes to help us to evaluate and improve our product offerings, services, and websites and apps, diagnose and correct technical problems, and detect fraud or other illegal activity and protect our systems.
We may also aggregate information so that it does not identify you or any other customer or user (for example, we may aggregate information to calculate the percentage of our customers who have a particular telephone area code). Please note that we may use and disclose this other information or aggregated information for any purpose, except where we are required to do otherwise under applicable law.
Some of our website pages may use "cookies", i.e., small amounts of data that is stored on your computer or other device where you access the Internet to allow our websites to provide you with customized information, or to recall data so you don't have to retype it. We may use session ID cookies, which terminate when you close your Internet browser, or persistent cookies, a small text file stored on your computer's hard drive for an extended time. Persistent cookies can be removed by following Internet browser help file directions. You may also wish to refer to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html. However, if you do not accept these cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of our services. For example, we may not be able to recognize your computer and provide personalized content. Pixel tags (also known as web beacons and clear GIFs) may be used to, among other things, track the actions of users of the Services (including email recipients), measure the success of our marketing campaigns, and compile statistics about usage of the Services and response rates.
We use Google Analytics, which uses cookies and other similar technologies to collect and analyze information about your use of services across the devices you use, including to report on activities and trends. The service may also collect information regarding the use of other websites, apps, and online resources. You can learn about Google’s practices by going to www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ or Google’s security and privacy principles at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245. You can opt out of Google Analytics on the particular device on which you are accessing this Privacy Policy and Notice by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. If you are using the Con Edison mobile app, you can opt out of Google Analytics for the Con Edison mobile app anytime by navigating to the Manage Account tab.
We may collect the physical location of the device you use to communicate with us. We may use your device's physical location to provide you with personalized location-based services and content. We may also share your device's physical location, combined with information about what advertisements you viewed and other information we collect, with our marketing partners to enable them to provide you with more personalized content. In some instances, you may allow or deny such uses and/or sharing of your device's location, but if you choose to deny such uses and/or sharing, we and/or our marketing partners may not be able to provide you with the applicable personalized services and content.
Security
Con Edison has implemented policy guidelines and reasonable organizational, technical, administrative, and physical measures to help safeguard your information from unauthorized access or improper use. However, please understand that no method of transmission or storage of data is 100% secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
You Can Choose How We Use, Disclose, and Share Customer Information
We give you choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Customer Information to other third parties for their direct marketing purposes (except in circumstances required by law, regulation, or order). You can learn about data sharing options, including the Green Button Connect My Data® tool, in your MyAccount profile. The Green Button Connect My Data® tool allows you to select third parties to receive access to your energy usage data so they can give you insights and recommendations that could help you save energy and money.
SMS/Text Messages and Email Communications
We may send you text messages and emails related to your service, including outage communications, service restoration updates, billing and payment notifications, appointment reminders, and other service-related communications. For complete details regarding text messaging, see our SMS Terms and Conditions.
For both text messages and emails, you may update your general preferences in your MyAccount profile or by visiting the preference center. You can also unsubscribe from emails or stop SMS text messages individually, as indicated in those messages.
Special Notes
Third-Party Links: This Privacy Policy and Notice does not address, and we are not responsible for the privacy, information, or other practices of any third parties, including any third parties operating any site or service linked to our websites. The inclusion of a link on our websites does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or our affiliates. Please note that we are not responsible for the collection, usage and disclosure policies and practices (including data security practices) of other organizations, such as Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft, or any other app developer, app provider, social media platform provider, web browser provider, operating system provider, wireless service provider, or device manufacturer, including any information you disclose to other organizations through or in connection with our apps or social media accounts.
Children's Privacy: We do not direct services to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and we request that these individuals do not provide information to us.
Access and Update Your Data: Contact us to request a copy of your energy use data, or to update any inaccurate or outdated Customer Information. We will seek to respond to your request for access or correction promptly.
Retention: We will retain information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy and Notice unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. Retention periods are determined based on legal and regulatory requirements, operational necessities, and the purpose for which the information was collected.
Modifications to this Privacy Policy and Notice: Con Edison may modify this Privacy Policy and Notice from time to time to reflect legal, technological, or other developments. Any updates will appear on this page.
Contact Us: If you have questions about this Privacy Policy and Notice or would like to exercise any of your privacy rights, you may contact us.
