Protection of personal information

1. Collection and use of personal information

Gaz Métro collects and uses various types of personal information on customers and others ("persons concerned").

Types of personal information collected

Gaz Métro may collect and keep personal information such as, for example, family name, first name, contact information (postal and e-mail addresses, telephone number), date of birth, information relating to payments made. Gaz Métro only collects the personal information needed for the purposes described in the following paragraph.

Collection of personal information

Gaz Métro collects personal information for various purposes. It may collect personal information: (i) to sell goods or render services required, in particular, the sale and distribution of natural gas; (ii) to transmit information requested by the person concerned; (iii) at the request of the person concerned, to add his name to a mailing list (including modifying the parameters of his subscription and deleting his name from the mailing list); (iv) when it is holding a contest; (v) to respect the law.

Gaz Métro may also collect personal information in order to know the profile of the persons concerned better so that the information they receive is pertinent, or with the objective of personalizing its current Internet site to better respond to the needs of the persons concerned.

The quantity and type of personal information collected is limited to what is needed for the purposes for which it is collected and it is collected from the person concerned. However, the information may be collected from third parties when the law so permits.

Use of personal information collected

Gaz Métro uses the personal information it collects according to what is needed, among other things, to sell goods or render services required by the person concerned, to transmit information requested by the personal concerned, to send mailings (information bulletins, commercial offers), to enable holding contests and awarding prize(s) to the winners, and to respect its legal and regulatory obligations, if applicable.

Gaz Métro may use this personal information for other purposes, which purposes are communicated at the time of their collection.

Communication of personal information

With the exception of the persons described below, Gaz Métro does not divulge, communicate or sell personal information for purposes other than those outlined in this notice, except if the person concerned so consents, or if the law so permits.

The personal information (electronic or other) collected by Gaz Métro is divulged to no one except Gaz Métro representatives, its service providers or its agents who need this information for the performance of their duties or the carrying out of their contracts or mandates. These services may, for example, be hosting or data management services, market analyses, etc.

This means that Gaz Métro, or a third-party service supplier, may keep and process your personal information on servers or computers located outside Canada. Also, even though your personal information is kept in Canada, Gaz Métro representatives or service providers may have access to, or process your personal information, from locations outside Canada. Some of those locations outside Canada may be subject to laws and standards regarding personal information that differ from those in effect in Québec. For example, under certain circumstances, your personal information may be the subject of a communication to government bodies regarding the application of a law; such bodies would not otherwise have access to your personal information were it kept in Canada or not accessible from a location outside Canada.

Gaz Métro may also divulge, communicate or sell personal information to the extent provided for or required by law, including pursuant to court orders, or when it is necessary to build a case or take legal action or defend its position.

2. Cookies and IP addresses

Even though the person concerned may visit its current Internet site ("Site") without telling Gaz Métro who he is and without revealing the information that concerns him, by accessing the Site, an exchange of information is automatically carried out between the person concerned's computer and Gaz Métro's server. This exchange of information does not allow Gaz Métro to identify the person concerned, his name, or his e-mail address. However, this exchange may, in particular, allow Gaz Métro to obtain the name of the Internet domain that the person concerned has used to access the Site, the IP address of the person concerned, the type of browser and the operating system employed by the person concerned to access the Site, the date and hour when the person concerned accessed the Site, the pages visited by the person concerned, and, if the person concerned has accessed the Site from another site, the address of that site (referent site).

Through the use of cookies, the Site's operating system can automatically collect information about the visit to the Site by the person concerned. Cookies are small information elements stored by the Internet browser on the hard drive of the computer of the person concerned, which allows Gaz Métro to recognize the person concerned when he accesses its Site. When the person concerned navigates on the Internet, a cookie is used for the purposes described above. If the person concerned does not want Gaz Métro to collect information about his visit, then he may, at his sole discretion, configure his browser to alert him when he receives a cookie or to prevent such cookies from being sent.

This information is used by Gaz Métro for advertising purposes, as well as to measure the number of visits by visitors to the Site, the different pages viewed, the average time visitors spend on the Site, and to establish other statistics about visitors to the Site in general. This information also allows Gaz Métro to verify the Site's effectiveness for purposes of system administration, to make the Site easier and more user-friendly, and to transmit certain information, processed globally, to Gaz Métro representatives who need this information to carry out their duties.

Gaz Métro collects no other personal information on the person concerned who visits the Site unless the person concerned, at his sole discretion, decides to provide it voluntarily.

3. Security

Gaz Métro has put in place measures to ensure that the personal information it keeps is protected against, in particular, theft, loss, access, and non-authorized use and communication, by means of reasonable technical, administrative and physical security measures, given, in particular, the sensitivity of the information, the purposes for which it is used, its quantity, distribution and the medium on which it is stored. The level of protection provided thus varies, depending on the type of personal information kept.

Thus, when it considers it appropriate, Gaz Métro uses, among other things, encryption or authentication tools, or both, as well as other methods in order to protect personal information obtained from the Internet and saved on its servers.

Also, online access to some of his personal information by the person concerned may be protected by a username or a password of his choice. Gaz Métro strongly advises persons concerned not to give their username or password to anyone else. Gaz Métro never requests the password of a person concerned in an unsolicited message. Lastly, the person concerned acknowledges and accepts that e-mails that a visitor sends to Gaz Métro are not necessarily inviolable before arriving on Gaz Métro's servers.

4. Option of deleting or modifying personal information

The person concerned may access the personal information he has provided Gaz Métro and may advise Gaz Métro to update it, or request the modification or suppression of certain information Gaz Métro has collected, by sending an e-mail to webmestre@gazmetro.com, or by replying to the messages sent to him because he is on Gaz Métro's mailing list.

Similarly, the person concerned may request that his name be deleted from Gaz Métro's mailing list.