Home Who We Are Privacy Policy California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA)
CCPA Notice for California Consumers
This CCPA Privacy Policy for California residents supplements the information contained in the
Privacy Policy
of Southwest Gas Corporation (“we,” “us,” or “our,” “Southwest Gas,” or “the Company”) and applies solely to visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California (“consumer” or “you”). Southwest Gas adopts this policy to comply with the CCPA of 2018. Any terms defined in this CCPA Privacy Policy have the same meaning when used in the Company’s Privacy Policy.
Notice at Collection: Categories of Personal Information that We Collect and How We Use Such Information
Southwest Gas collects information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or device (“personal information”). We are required to notify California residents, at or before the point of collection, of their personal information, of the categories of personal information that we collect, online and offline, and the purposes for which we use such information.
Categories of Personal Information
Below are the categories of personal information about California residents that we collect and/or disclose to third parties or service providers for a business purpose and whether we have collected such information within the last twelve (12) months:
| Category |
Examples
|
|---|---|
|
A. Identifiers.
|
A real name, alias, postal address, email address, and Social Security number. |
|
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).
|
A name, Social Security number, address, telephone number, ACH banking information and a driver's license or passport - only if provided by you. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories.
|
|
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.
|
Age (40 years or older) and medical condition - only if provided by you.
|
Personal information under the CCPA does not include:
- Publicly-available information from government records
- De-identified or aggregated consumer information
- Information excluded from the CCPA's scope, such as:
- Health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data;
- Personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994.
Southwest Gas obtains the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:
- Directly from you or your agents. For example, from documents that you provide to us related to the services for which you engage us (such as information received as part of routine credit verification when establishing natural gas service with us).
- Indirectly from you or your agents. For example, through information we collect from you in the course of providing services to your agents.
- Directly and indirectly from activity on our website (swgas.com). For example, from submissions through our website portal (SWG “My Account”) or website usage details collected.
- From third-parties who interact with us in connection with the services we perform. For example: government agencies.
Use of Personal Information
At Southwest Gas, we do not sell your personal information or data. We may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business purposes:
- To fulfill or meet the reason for which you provided us information. For example, to establish natural gas service for you at your residence and to respond to natural gas emergencies that may affect your service.
- To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us.
- To provide you with email alerts, event registrations, and other notices concerning our products or services, or events or news, that may be of interest to you.
- To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts between you and us, including billing and collections.
- To improve our website and present its content to you.
- For testing, research, analysis and product development.
- As necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property or safety of us, our customers or others.
- To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
- As described by you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA.
- To evaluate or conduct a merger, divesture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us is among the assets transferred.
Southwest Gas will not collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.
Sharing of Personal Information
Southwest Gas may disclose your personal information to a third party for a business purpose. When we do so, we enter a contract with that third party that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to keep your personal information confidential and not to use it for any purpose except performing the contract.
We disclose your personal information for a business purpose to the following categories of third parties:
- Our affiliates
- Service providers
- Third parties to whom you or your agents authorize us to disclose your personal information in connection with products or services we provide to you.
Your Rights Under the CCPA
The CCPA also provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.
Requests to Know - Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights
You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and verify your request, we will disclose to you:
- The categories of personal information we collected about you.
- The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a “data portability request”).
- The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
- Our business or commercial purposes for collecting that information.
- The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
- If we disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, a list identifying the personal information categories that category of recipient obtained.
Please note that the CCPA prohibits us from disclosing to anyone the following information in response to a Right to Know request:
- Social Security Number
- Driver’s license number or other government-issued identification number
- Financial account number
- Any health insurance or medical identification number
- Account password
- Security questions and answers
- Unique biometric data generated from measurements or technical analysis of human characteristics
Deletion Rights – Requests to Delete
You also have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and verify your request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:
We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:
- Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
- Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
- Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
- Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code Section 1546 et. seq.)
- Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when deleting the information may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
- Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
- Comply with a legal obligation.
- Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.
Please note that, given the nature of our business, the great majority of personal information we collect falls into the foregoing exceptions.
|
Can Delete? (YES/NO)
|
Data Collected
|
Reason why this information is collected
|
|---|---|---|
| YES |
Needed to log in to MyAccount, access the Southwest Gas Mobile App and/or Paperless Billing services.
The removal of this information from our systems will require disenrollment from MyAccount, the Southwest Gas Mobile App and Paperless Billing.
|
|
| NO | *ACH/Bank Routing | ACH and bank information, along with payment history, is needed to provide our customers' natural gas service |
| NO | Billing Address | Needed to provide our customers natural gas service |
| NO | Date of Birth | Required for verification |
|
NO
|
First & Last Name
|
Needed to provide our customers natural gas service
|
| NO | *Income | If enrolled in the CARE or ESA programs, this information is needed to verify customers who may qualify |
| NO | *Online Password | Needed to log in to MyAccount, and to access the Southwest Gas Mobile App |
|
NO
|
Service Address
|
Needed to provide our customers natural gas service
|
|
NO
|
Social Security Number (SSN)
|
SSN is the primary identifier used for verification
|
|
NO
|
*Tax ID
|
If there is no SSN, then Tax ID is the primary identifier used for verification
|
*Note: The information above may not apply to every customer unless needed for program enrollment or other optional services. SWG will not store this data without prior authorization from our customers.
Exercising Your Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights
To exercise your access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:
To exercise your access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:
- Calling us at 877-860-6020
- Email us at ccparequest@swgas.com
Only you, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State who you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.
You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period.
You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period.
The verifiable consumer request must:
- Provide sufficient information to allow us to reasonably verify that you are the person about whom we collected personal information or your authorized representative.
- Describe your request with sufficient detail to allow us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond.
We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm that the personal information relates to you. Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us. We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.
Response Timing and Format
Southwest Gas strives to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and the extension period in writing. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by U.S. mail or electronically, at your option. Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of the verifiable consumer request.
Response Timing and Format
Southwest Gas strives to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and the extension period in writing. If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by U.S. mail or electronically, at your option. Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding our receipt of the verifiable consumer request.
The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity.
Southwest Gas does not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.
Non-Discrimination
Southwest Gas will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:
- Deny you goods or services.
- Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
- Provide you a different level or quality of good or services.
- Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
Changes to this CCPA Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to amend this CCPA Privacy Policy at our discretion and at any time. When we make changes to this CCPA Privacy Policy, we will post the updated policy on our website and update the policy’s effective date. Your continued use of our website following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.
