Privacy policy

AES Ohio respects the privacy of its customers and visitors to our aes-ohio.com website (“Site”). In this Privacy Policy, we describe the types of information which we collect when you use our Site and the online services that we provide through use of the Site, how we use that information and how we may share information when you use the Services (together the Site and online services are referred to as the “Services”).  

Notice to AES Ohio Customers re Notice of Customer Rights and Responsibilities. 

In addition to the privacy practices set forth in this Privacy Policy, AES Ohio provides new customers upon application for service, and existing customers upon request, a written summary of your rights and obligations as utility customers called the Notice of Customer Rights and Responsibilities (“Notice of Rights”). A copy of that summary is available on our website at https://www.aes-ohio.com/customer-rights-and-responsibilities. The Notice of Rights explains certain privacy rights you have under Ohio law related to your account number, energy usage and your social security number. To the extent there is a conflict between the terms of the Notice of Rights and this Privacy Policy with regard to protection of Personal Information, the terms of the Notice of Rights will control.

Updates  

We will update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes to this Privacy Policy will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the Site. We will conspicuously post material changes to this Privacy Policy on the Site or otherwise communicate such updates to you. 

Information we collect 

AES Ohio, its parent, subsidiary and affiliated companies and other service providers as further described in this Privacy Policy may collect or receive Personal Information and Non-Personal Information from you, as described below, when you use the Services. This Privacy Policy only applies to Services provided by AES Ohio. You are able to reach other websites not maintained or controlled by AES Ohio when you use the Site. AES Ohio is not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of any third parties or any third-party websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to any third-party websites or to any personal or other information that you may provide to third parties. You should read the privacy policy for each website that you visit.

Types of information we collect 

We may collect and store information about you or information that you provide to us when you use the Services. We collect both Personal Information and Non-Personal Information.

Personal Information 

Personal Information means information that could be used to identify, locate, or contact you, such as your name, email address, mailing address, prior address, phone number, date of birth, social security number, employer identification number/federal tax identification number, driver's license number or state id number, credit or debit card number or financial account number (“Personal Information”). See the Notice of Rights for additional information regarding the limited uses we make of your social security number.

We may also collect and store Non-Personal Information about you. Non-Personal Information is information or data that does not personally identify you and is not readily available for that purpose (“Non-Personal Information”).

Household and account information 

We may collect information pertaining to your account(s) with AES Ohio and your applicable households, including your AES Ohio account number, premise ownership status, household income, details about your premise (for example, premise age, size and type, details about your appliances and other energy-related equipment used in the home or building) and energy usage data specific to your account. See the Notice of Rights for information regarding the limited uses we make of your individual usage information.

Financial information  

We may collect certain financial information when you use the Services. Financial Information includes your credit or debit card number, expiration date, and security code (“Financial Information”). All payments are made directly to our PCI-compliant third-party payment processor, KUBRA. AES Ohio does not directly access, handle, or store your credit or debit card information, except that AES Ohio may store the last four digits of your credit or debit card number to assist our payment processor with recurring payments. AES Ohio does receive certain Personal Information necessary to facilitate the transaction and finalize your order, such as name, address, mailing address, phone number, and email address. We will maintain a record of the purchases that you make and bills you pay using the Services.

Employment applications  

When you apply to work for AES Ohio via the Site, you will be re-directed to our third-party service provider, Workday, Inc. Workday will in turn provide us with the information necessary for us to consider your application.

ADA

AES Ohio may collect information relating to disabilities you may have if you provide such information to AES Ohio when requesting accommodations pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).

Non-Personal Information

When you use the Services we will automatically collect certain types of Non-Personal Information.

Automatically collected data 

We may collect certain types of information and data automatically when you visit our Site or to collect information from a smart meter. That information includes your Internet protocol (“IP”) address, geolocation, type of browser, operating system, search requests, website traffic information, the date and time you visited our Site, the amount of time you used the Site, the pages you visited on our Site, any device you are using to access the Site, the Site you visited after leaving our Site, and any hyperlinks you click on when using the Site.

Aggregated/de-identified data

We may aggregate Personal Information and other information to create anonymous aggregate data on users of the Services, which describes users as a group but does not reveal the identity of individual users. Any Personal Information that has been de-identified and/or aggregated so that it no longer contains Personal Information will be treated as Non-Personal Information (for example, we may aggregate Personal Information to calculate the percentage of users in a particular zip code).

IP address and geolocation

We will treat IP address and geolocation as Non-Personal Information except in locations where otherwise required by applicable law.

Ownership of Non-Personal Information

AES is the sole and exclusive owner of any Non-Personal Information received by AES Ohio or its third-party service providers. This includes information related to your use of the Services, including information collected using cookies, web beacons or anything similar. AES Ohio may use, disclose, store or sell to third parties Non-Personal Information for any business purpose as determined in its sole discretion, in compliance with applicable laws. 

Information we do not intend to collect 

Sensitive information

We do not intend to collect Sensitive Information from you, so please do not send us Sensitive Information or post Sensitive Information on the Services. “Sensitive Information” includes Personal Information regarding a person’s race, political beliefs, religious beliefs, physical or mental health, sexual life, criminal record, or other similar types of information.

Information from children

How do we collect information? 

Information you provide 

We collect Personal Information and Non-Personal Information when you provide it to AES Ohio, its service providers or its licensors, or other third parties when you use the Services.

You can visit certain parts of the Services without voluntarily sharing Personal Information, but you will be required to provide certain Personal Information to use certain Services, manage your AES Ohio account or make purchases from AES Ohio. 

We may collect Personal Information from you when you use the Services as follows:

When you communicate with us 

We collect Personal Information when you voluntarily provide it to us and communicate with us (for example, when you call, mail or email us; when you post on the Services).

Accounts 

We collect Personal Information when you create an AES Ohio account or sign-up for an account with Workday, Inc. (collectively, all of the foregoing are “Account(s)”).  To create an Account you will need to submit Personal Information.

Email and mailing list information  

If you sign up or otherwise opt-in to receive promotions or other communications from us, you will need to submit your name, email address or mailing address, and other relevant contact information. We will use this information to provide you with promotional and other electronic communications. AES Ohio may share its mailing lists with third-party service providers to facilitate those communications.

You agree and consent that we may send you emails, including promotional emails, using the email addresses we receive from you through your use of the Services. You may opt-out of receiving promotional emails from us at any time by following the unsubscribe instructions contained in the applicable email. We may use third-party email providers to deliver these communications to you. If you have an online AES Ohio account or membership profile, you may opt-out of receiving emails related to those platforms by selecting that option, where available, once logged in on the Services.

You agree and consent that we may send you mail, including promotional mail, using the addresses provided through your use of the Services. AES Ohio also receives names and mailing addresses from its third-party service providers that we use to provide you with certain promotional and other communications through the mail.

You agree and consent that we may send emails and/or mail, as we deem necessary for urgent, emergency, or administrative purposes.

SMS messages and phone calls 

When you sign up for your on-line account, you have the option to receive SMS messages or telephone reminders with regard to your billing, power outages and similar other account related messages such as

(i) notice of a new bill, notice of a projected high bill, high usage alert, a reminder of a scheduled payment, a confirmation of receipt of payment, and a reminder of an upcoming due date or other similar account related messages;

(ii) notices of an outage and estimated time for restoration, when available, restoration updates, estimated time for restoration is no longer valid, anticipated times that power will be restored, and notice of power restoration.

In order to receive these SMS messages or telephone calls and messages, you expressly agree that AES Ohio may: (a) send you recurring SMS text messages to the mobile phone number(s) you provided, whether manually or using an automated telephone dialing system, and (b) call your mobile phone or landline, whether manually or using an automated telephone dialing system.

We may send you texts or calls regarding the Services. You are not required to consent to this Section in order to receive services from AES Ohio, and you can opt out at any time.

You confirm that the mobile phone number(s) and all other phone number(s) you provided are owned and used solely by you (or the company you work for). You agree to promptly notify and update AES Ohio when your mobile phone number(s) or other phone number(s) change. Regarding SMS text messages, you may text "STOP" to stop and "HELP" for help to the number that sent you such message. Message and data rates may apply. 

For more information, or to opt-out, you can contact us at 800-433-8500 or https://www.aes-ohio.com/contact-us.

When you make a purchase  

AES Ohio has contracted directly with Uplight to provide certain payment processing services. When you make purchases of products or services and are directed to a third-party website, the terms, conditions and privacy policy of that third party apply to the use of Personal Information, not this Privacy Policy.

Job applications

If you upload a resume or job application using the Services to apply to work for AES Ohio or AES, we will only use those contents to evaluate your qualifications to work for AES Ohio, and to otherwise consider or respond to your inquiry.  

Social media

We collect and store information when you post on or tag our social media accounts. Anything you post on Social Media is public information. 

Information we automatically collect 

We automatically collect Non-Personal Information through your use of the Services. For example, we collect account activity, system type, access times, external links you clicked to reach our Site, pages you visit while viewing our Site, data collected by the servers used to operate the Services, data collected by cookies, and data collected by analytics and advertising services. Non-Personal Information automatically collected from your device or your use of the Services will be treated as Non-Personal Information unless otherwise required by applicable law where you reside. To administer the collection of Non-Personal Information, authorized third parties may be utilized by AES Ohio to collect, track, and process the general Non-Personal Information.

Cookies 

A “cookie” is a small text file that our Site saves onto your computer or device when you use the Site. The cookie provides us certain information about your activities when using our Site. Cookies remember your actions and preferences and recognize you or your browser, along with some information you provided. The Services automatically use cookies to facilitate and enhance your user experience. The Services may use both cookies that we implement and cookies implemented by our service providers and other third parties.

We use cookies to track how you access and use the Services, to learn when and how users visit the Services, to learn how popular Services pages are, to learn which search terms are used to find the Services, and to learn which websites direct you to the Services. We also use cookies to help display certain information on the Services and to improve your enjoyment of the Services (for example, by remembering your contact and other information when you access or use the Services, which allows us to repopulate our login form). We will treat information gathered by cookies as Non-Personal Information unless otherwise required by applicable law. We may combine information from cookies with Personal Information and data obtained from third parties.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies. You can disable this function, but disabling cookies may impact your use and enjoyment of the Services. Not all features or functions of the Site may work properly if you disable cookies. You cannot disable all cookies, such as cookies that are essential to the functioning of the Site. Our service providers may use cookies and other tracking technologies, such as pixel tags, to track visitors across the Internet to understand how you get to the Services. We do not have access or control over these cookies, and this Privacy Policy does not cover the use of third-party cookies.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to collect and process information about your use of the Site. Google sets cookies and then your web browser will automatically send data to Google. Google uses this data to provide us with reports that we use to improve the Site’s structure and content.

We may implement additional add-on services to Google Analytics, such as Demographics and Interest Reporting. Demographics and Interest Reporting uses Cookies to collect data about our Site traffic by tracking users across websites and across time to provide us with analytics on our user base.

To learn more about how Google uses data, visit Google’s Privacy Policy. You may download the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for each web browser you use, but this does not prevent the use of other analytics tools. To learn more about Google Analytics cookies, visit Google Analytics Cookie Usage on Websites.

"Do not track" signals

Some browsers have a “do not track” feature that allows you to tell a website that you do not want to have your online activities tracked. Our Site does not support “do not track” requests.  

How is collected information used? 

We use Personal Information and other collected information in compliance with applicable laws and consistent with the description set forth in the Notice. We use Personal Information as described in the previous sections and as stated at the point of collection (or as is obvious by the context and nature of the collection). In addition, we use Personal Information as follows:

• As requested to or consented to by you;
• To facilitate and manage purchases and transactions;
• To generate billing statements;
• To create and manage your Account(s) and for other customer support purposes;
• To notify you of an emergency or urgent situation (for example, a power outage), new products, services, new features of the services, recommendations or promotions that we believe may be of interest to you, changes to our Terms or Privacy Policy, or other similar communications, subject to the limitations provided in our Notice of Rights;
• To support, analyze, develop, improve, and enhance our products, services, user experience, and operations, including the Services;
• To offer, operate, maintain, deliver, troubleshoot and update the Services;
• To inform fundraising, marketing, and communication plans and strategies;
• To evaluate user needs and customize the Site and the Content, as well as understand the Service and AES Ohio customer demographics and content preferences;
• To protect our legal rights or interests, or those of third parties, including to bring a legal action against you or anyone who may be causing harm to us, the Services, or to other users of the Services;
• To supplement information necessary to fulfill our service obligations (i.e., we may supplement the Personal Information we receive from you when you request a Service with information, which may include Personal Information about you that we have received from outside sources).  For example, when you request electric service, we will use your name and social security number to verify your identity and credit history;
• For fraud prevention activities;
• With regard to disability information provided pursuant to a request for ADA related accommodations, we only use or share that information in an effort to accommodate your specific request;
• In limited circumstances, we may share Personal Information for our direct marketing and business purposes, as permitted by applicable law;
• For any other business purpose we deem legitimate, as permitted by applicable law; and
• To provide safe and reliable services.

With whom do we share collected information? 

We may share Personal Information and Non-Personal Information we collect with third parties when requested or consented to by you or for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. For example, upon your request, AES Ohio will share Personal Information with other local utility companies or credit reporting agencies for credit purposes. In addition:

Affiliated companies

Where permitted by applicable law, we may share collected information with our parent, subsidiary or affiliated companies and each of their officers, directors or employees.

Third-party service providers

AES Ohio may periodically work with third-party service providers, suppliers, consultants, agents, partners and representatives (including without limitation, advertising, marketing and public relations service providers, email service suppliers, electronic newsletter service providers, and event registration service providers) (“Third-Party Service Providers”). These Third-Party Service Providers and AES Ohio may collect information, including Personal Information, about your activities over time and across different websites when you use our Services. Those Third-Party Service Providers may also provide AES Ohio with a variety of services (including without limitation, data collection, reporting, ad response measurement, delivery of marketing messages, text messaging, analytical information, contest entry processing, market research surveys, billing, technical support, data processing, and Services management) or who otherwise process Personal Information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Policy or communicated to you when we collect your Personal Information. We may also use such Third-Party Service Providers to provide certain features within the Services and assist in presenting relevant AES Ohio advertising or information to you when you visit third-party sites, or when you use a mobile device. We may share Personal Information and Non-Personal Information we collected with our Third-Party Service Providers, subject to the limitations set forth in the Notice of Rights. We require that all our Third-Party Service Providers protect any Personal Information they collect in compliance with all applicable laws.

Legal requirements 

We may disclose Personal Information and other collected information to respond to subpoenas, court orders, administrative orders, police requests, and other valid legal processes, as well as in emergencies to protect wellness, safety, and security of persons and property. We will disclose collected information as necessary to identify, contact, or bring a legal action against someone who may cause or be causing harm to, or interfering with, the legal rights of AES Ohio or any other person or entity, or to enforce our agreements, policies or terms.  

Professional advisors

We may share Personal Information and other collected information with our professional advisors, such as our attorneys and accountants, in their capacity as advisors, including for advice on potential or actual litigation matters.

Change in ownership

In the event AES Ohio or its parent are the subject of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets, or in the event the Services change ownership, in whole or in part, we may provide Personal Information and other collected information in connection with the proposed transaction, including information to the subsequent owner(s). If we (or our assets) are acquired or if we go out of business, enter bankruptcy, or go through some other change of control or reorganization, Personal Information and other information could be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by a third party.

DMCA

We will share your Personal Information, to the extent necessary, to address any Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) claims as required to respond to a DMCA request pursuant to our DMCA Policy.

Credit purposes

Upon your request, we will share Personal Information and other collected information with other local utility companies and credit bureaus to perform credit checks or report on or collect debts owed.

Information security 

We take commercially reasonable efforts to protect Personal Information. We protect Personal Information using physical, technical, and administrative security measures designed to reduce the risks of loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, and alteration of Personal Information. Some of the safeguards we use are firewalls and data encryption technology, which are used to encrypt information passed between your browser and our systems.

HOWEVER, YOU UNDERSTAND THAT NO DATA TRANSMISSION OVER THE INTERNET OR A MOBILE DEVICE CAN BE GUARANTEED TO BE 100% SECURE. WHILE WE STRIVE TO PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION, WE DO NOT GUARANTEE THE SECURITY OF ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION AND YOU PROVIDE SUCH PERSONAL INFORMATION AT YOUR OWN RISK.

If you become aware of any breach of Services security or this Privacy Policy, please notify us at GlobalCybersecurity@AES.com immediately.  If our security system is breached, we will notify you of the breach only if and to the extent required under applicable law.

Your rights and choices regarding personal information 

To update Personal Information about you as it exists in our records or if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, call us at 800-433-8500 or send an e-mail via the form available at https://www.aes-ohio.com/contact-us. You must include your AES Ohio account number to change information.

For more detailed contact information, click here.