June 13th, 2023
SolarPortal’s Commitment
to Privacy
SolarPortal is committed to
protecting your privacy and ensuring you have a positive experience on our
website(s). Your ability to make informed choices about the uses of your
information is important to us.
This Privacy
Policy describes the rights and choices available to individuals with respect
to their information. We use the reference to “Customer” to describe anyone who
uses SolarPortal services or products or, has
registered for an online account with us for the use of any portion of the
Service (each, a “SolarPortal Account”), or has visited our
websites. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, it is your
choice to not use the Service. SolarPortal may
provide additional or supplemental privacy policies to individuals for specific
products or services that we offer at the time we collect personal information.
These supplemental privacy policies will govern how we may process the
information in the context of the specific product or service.
This statement
applies to all forms of use of our services, irrespective of whether such use
is free of charge or subject to a fee. SolarPortal wishes
to inform you below in particular about what data it collects and how such data
are used. You are also informed that your (personal) data are collected on our
websites and stored electronically. All data are stored and processed by us in
compliance with the relevant statutory regulations of the European Union on
data privacy and data security – General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You
may view, download or print out the Terms of Use and the SolarPortal
Privacy Policy in our website(s). You must accept
this Privacy Policy to visit our websites and use our services.
We provide
important information for individuals as advised below.
Information
We Collect
1. Information You
Provide to Us
We collect the information you provide to us
directly when you use the Services. This may include:
|
Account
information |
A form of
address, first name, surname, company, street, street number, postcode, town,
federal state, country, time zone, telephone number, fax number, e-mail
address, birthday, customer number, and the profile information, such as your
username and password that you may set to establish an online account with
us, your account name, account number, SolarPortal system
identification number, preferences, and installation information. This
information is optional and may be removed at any time. We also store your
user account preferences and settings. We may ask for such information prior
to you creating a username or account to help improve your experience
exploring SolarPortal. |
|
Actions
you take |
We may also
collect information about the actions you take when you use the Services.
This may include your interactions with content, such as voting, answering,
saving, hiding, and reporting. This also includes your interactions with
other users, such as following, friending, and blocking. We also collect your
preferences for receiving communications about our activities, events, and
publications, and details about how you engage with our communications. We
also may conduct user surveys, and research and analysis about your use of,
or interest in, our products and surveys, community, such as your
subscriptions. |
|
Transactional
information |
Information
provided to make a purchase such as information about your billing address,
payments to and from you, customer number, and other details of products or
services you have purchased from us. |
|
Other
information |
You may choose to provide other
information directly to us. For example, we may collect information when you
fill out a form, participate in SolarPortal
activities or promotions, apply for a job, request customer support, or
otherwise communicate with us. |
2. Information We Collect Automatically
When you access or use our Services, we may also automatically collect
information about you. This includes:
|
Log and usage
data |
We may log information when you
access and use the Services. This may include your IP address, user-agent
string, browser type, operating system, referral URLs, device information
(e.g., device IDs), device settings, mobile carrier name, pages visited,
links clicked, the requested URL, and search terms. |
|
Cookies
and similar technologies |
We may receive
information from cookies, which are pieces of data your browser stores and
sends back to us when making requests, and similar technologies. We use this
information to deliver and maintain our services and our site, improve your
experience, understand user activity, personalize content and advertisements,
measure the effectiveness of advertising, and improve the quality of our
Services. For example, we store and retrieve information about your preferred
language and other settings. Cookies are
text files that are stored on the computer of the visitor to the website,
allowing the visitor to be recognized on an anonymous basis. Cookies in
general can be blocked or deleted by adjusting your browser settings. By
using this website, you consent to the use of our websites being analyzed in
the manner described above. |
|
Location
information |
We may receive and process
information about your location. We may receive location information from you
when you choose to share such information on our Services, including by
associating your content with a location, or we may derive an approximate
location based on your IP address. |
3. Information Collected from Other Sources
We may receive
information about you from other sources, including from other users and third
parties, and combine that information with the other information we have about
you.
|
Information on the SEMS portal |
such as your
energy production, energy consumption, battery settings, and usage history,
other load consumption or production, and other information relating to any
of your energy resources. We also collect Installation information, such as
roof type, house size, device configuration settings, appliance usage,
inverter details, system configuration settings, and panel details, permit
information, and photographs. |
|
Linked
services |
If you
authorize or link a third-party service (e.g., an unofficial mobile app
client) to access your SolarPortalaccount, SolarPortalreceives information
about your use of that service when it uses that authorization. Linking
services may also cause the other service to send us information about your
account with that service. For example, if you sign in to a SolarPortalaccount with a third-party identity provider,
that provider may share an email address with us. |
4.
Information Collected by Third Parties
|
Embedded
content |
SolarPortal displays some
linked content in-line on the services via "embeds.” For
example, SolarPortal posts that link to
YouTube or Twitter may load the linked video or tweet within SolarPortal directly from those services to your device.
In general, SolarPortal does not control how
third-party services collect data when they serve you their content directly
via these embeds. As a result, embedded content is not covered by this
privacy policy but by the policies of the service from which the content is
embedded. |
|
Information we
obtain from social media platforms |
We may
maintain pages for SolarPortal on social media
platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Instagram,
and other third-party platforms. When you visit or interact with our pages on
those platforms, the platform provider’s privacy policy will apply to your
interactions and their collection, use, and processing of your personal
information. You or the platforms may provide us with information through the
platform, and SolarPortal will treat such
information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. |
|
Information from other third
parties |
SolarPortal may receive
personal information about you from third-party sources. For example, a
business partner, such as a solar energy system installer, a grid services
aggregator, or a utility, may share your contact and energy-related
information with us if you have expressed interest in learning specifically
about our products or services, or the types of products or services we
offer. In certain circumstances, SolarPortal collects
your personal information from your installer at your direction. These
third-parties’ privacy policies govern their sharing of information with SolarPortal and their other processing, so we advise you
to contact the third-parties for further information. |
How SolarPortal
Use Your Personal Information
SolarPortal may use your
personal information for the following purposes and as otherwise described in
this Privacy Policy or at the time of collection:
1. To
operate our services.
a) To provide,
maintain and improve services.
b) To send you
technical notices, updates, security alerts, invoices, and other support and
administrative information.
c) To provide
customer service, including establishing and maintaining your user profile on
the Service.
d) To
communicate with you about products, services, offers, promotions, and events
as permitted by law, and to provide other news and information that we think
will be of interest to you.
e) To monitor
and analyze trends, usage, and activity related to our Services.
f) To understand
your needs and interests and personalize your experience with the Service and
our communications.
g) To enable
security features of the Service, such as by sending you security codes via
email or text, and remembering devices from which you have previously logged
into the Service;
h) To facilitate
social features of the Service, such as providing chat or messaging
functionality;
2. For
research and development.
SolarPortal may analyze
your use of the Service (including your personal information such as
demographics) to improve the Service, to develop new products and services, and
to market and promote our business.
3. To
display advertisements.
SolarPortal may work with
advertising partners to display advertisements on the Service or elsewhere
online. Our third-party advertising partners (e.g. Google Ads, Google
Analytics, Facebook, and others) may automatically collect information about
you when you use the Service through methods such as cookies and other tracking
technologies (as further described below).
4. To
comply with the law.
SolarPortal may use your
personal information as we believe necessary or appropriate to comply with
applicable laws, lawful requests, and legal processes, such as to respond to
subpoenas or requests from government authorities.
5. For
the protection of rights, fraud prevention, and safety.
SolarPortal may use your
personal information and disclose it to law enforcement, government
authorities, and private parties as we believe necessary or appropriate to (a)
protect our, your or others’ rights, privacy, safety, or property (including by
making and defending legal claims); (b) enforce the terms and conditions that
govern the Service; and (c) protect, investigate and deter against fraudulent,
harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity.
How SolarPortal Share Your
Information
1. When
SolarPortal
Share Specific Information
SolarPortal may share your
information with:
Service
Providers and Contractors – SolarPortal may share
your personal information with service providers for the purpose of providing
you the Services. Additionally, SolarPortal may
partner with other companies to process, analyze, and/or store data, including,
but not limited to, analytical data. These companies may access your personal
information for the purposes of providing services for us.
2. When
SolarPortal
Share Information Generally
SolarPortalmay share the information we collect
generally:
a) For Marketing
purposes pursuant to joint marketing arrangements. You may opt out of receiving
our marketing communications at any time by contacting us or by using the
unsubscribe link in any of our communications. If you wish to opt out of
receiving marketing communications from our joint marketing partners, you will
need to opt out of those communications directly with those partners.
b) With certain
third-party vendors that help us administer the Sites and/or Services,
including by:
i) Storing and
hosting our content or your data;
ii) Performing analytics on our Sites and Services; and
iii) Providing operations and marketing assistance to us.
c) When you
request us to share certain information with third parties, such as through
your use of social media widgets or login integrations (such as SEMS Portal).
d) With
marketing-related business partners to gather insights about your interactions
with our products and Services so that we may better advertise to you and
customize our products and services.
e) With
corporate affiliates including any of our subsidiaries, joint ventures, or
other companies under common control with us.
f) With
counterparties in the course of a corporate sale, merger, reorganization, sale
of assets, dissolution, or similar event, some or all of the personal
information may be part of the transferred assets.
g) To the extent
permitted by law, when required by law, in connection with a court order, or
other government or law enforcement authority or regulatory agency, or whenever
we believe that disclosing such information is necessary or advisable, for
example, to protect the rights, property, or safety of us or others.
3. Social
Features
Certain features
of the Services permit you to initiate interactions between the Services and
third-party services or platforms, such as social networks (“Social Features”).
Social Features include features that allow you to click and access our pages
on certain third-party platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, and from there
to “like” or “share” our content on those platforms. Use of Social Features may
entail a third party’s collection and/or use of information about you, which
will be subject to the privacy policies of those platforms. If you use Social
Features or similar third-party services, information you post or otherwise
make accessible may be publicly displayed by the third-party service you are
using. Both us and the third party may have access to information about you and
your use of both the Services and the third-party service.
4. Comply
with legal process or contractual necessity
SolarPortal may disclose
Personal Information in the good faith belief that we are required to do so by
law, or that doing so is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process or
contractual necessity, respond to any claims, or to protect the rights, property,
or personal safety of SolarPortal, our customers, or
the public. Information about our customers, including Personal Data, may be
disclosed if it is necessary for legitimate purposes, for example as part of,
or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition.
Other than in circumstances enumerated above, we have a policy of obtaining a
person’s consent if we intend to process his/her Personal Data.
How SolarPortal Secure Your
Information
SolarPortalmaintain commercially
reasonable administrative, physical, and technical safeguards designed to
prevent any unauthorized use, access, destruction, loss, alteration, or
disclosure of your data.
While we take
commercially reasonable steps to protect your data we cannot guarantee perfect
security – no internet-based service can. No security system is impenetrable.
Despite our security measures, we cannot guarantee the security of our
databases, nor can we guarantee that the information you supply will not be
intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the Internet.
If we use data
for a purpose requiring your consent under statutory regulations, we will
request your express consent. Your consent will be documented in compliance
with the relevant data privacy regulations. You may revoke the consent that you
have given at any time with effect for the future and/or reject the future use
of your data for advertising, market research, and opinion research. To revoke
your consent or reject such future use, it is sufficient to send a simple
message toSolarPortal. You will not be charged any
additional costs for contacting us.
Your
Data Subject Rights
SolarPortal do our best to
give you reasonable control over the personal data we process about you, as
described below. Depending on where you live, you are entitled to certain legal
rights for your personal data.
The following
are the types of requests you may make about your personal data, subject to
applicable laws, rules, or regulations.
1. Access: You can
request more information about the personal data we hold about you. You can
also request a copy of the personal data.
2. Correction: If you believe
that any personal data we hold about you is incorrect or incomplete, you can
request that we correct or supplement that data. You can also correct some of
the information by logging directly into your Service account. Please contact
us as soon as you become aware of any such inaccuracies or incompleteness.
3. Objection: You can
contact us to let us know that you object to the collection or use of your
personal data for certain purposes.
4. Erasure: You can
request that we delete some or all of your personal data from our systems.
5. Restriction
of Processing: You can ask us to restrict further processing of
your Data.
6. Withdrawal
of Consent: If we process your personal data with your consent (as described at the
time of collecting such data), you have the right to withdraw your consent at
any time. Under certain circumstances we will not be able to fulfill your
request, for example, if the request interferes with our regulatory
obligations, affects legal matters, includes the rights of SolarPortal
account users to the data contained in their accounts, we are unable to verify
your identity or involves disproportionate cost or effort. But in any case, we
will respond to your request within a reasonable time frame and provide you
with an explanation.
7. Do
Not Track: Most modern web browsers give you the option to send a Do Not Track
signal to the sites you visit, indicating that you do not wish to be tracked.
However, there is no accepted standard for how a site should respond to this
signal, and we do not take any action in response to this signal. Instead, in
addition to publicly available third-party tools, we offer you the choices
described in this policy to manage the collection and use of information about
you.
8. Controlling
the Use of Cookies: Most web browsers are set to
accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your
browser to remove or reject first- and third-party cookies. Please note that if
you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and
functionality of our Services.
9. Controlling
Promotional Communications: You may opt out of
marketing-related emails by following the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions
at the bottom of the email, and by contacting us at our privacy office as
indicated below, and, if you have a SolarPortalAccount,
by adjusting your preferences in the settings section for both mobile and web
applications. If you receive marketing text messages from us, you may opt out
of receiving further marketing text messages from us by replying STOP to our
marketing message. Even if you opt-out of receiving marketing communications
from us you may continue to receive service-related and other non-marketing
communications.
Additional
Information for EEA Users
Users in the
European Economic Area have the right to request access to, rectification of,
or erasure of their personal data; to data portability in certain
circumstances; to request restriction of processing; to object to processing;
and to withdraw consent for processing where they have previously provided
consent. These rights can be exercised as described in the "Your Data
Subject Rights” section above. EEA users also have the right to lodge a
complaint with their local supervisory authority.
As required by applicable law, SolarPortal collects and processes information
about individuals in the EEA only where we have a legal basis for doing so. Our
legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. We process
your information on the following legal bases:
a) You have
consented for us to do so for a specific purpose;
b) We need to
process the information to provide you the Services, including to operate the
Services, provide customer support and personalized features, and to protect
the safety and security of the Services;
c) It satisfies a
legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection
interests), such as preventing fraud, ensuring network and information
security, enforcing our rules and policies, protecting our legal rights and
interests, research and development, personalizing the Services, and marketing
and promoting the Services;
d) We need to
process your information to comply with our legal obligations.
International
Data Transfers
Depending on
various factors, including the location of our users and service providers, SolarPortal may store information on servers
and devices in other countries. For example, your personal data collected by SolarPortal may be processed or accessed in
the country where you use our products and services, or in other countries
where SolarPortal or its
affiliates, subsidiaries, service providers, or business partners are located.
By accessing or using the Services or otherwise providing information to Germany,
you consent to the processing, transmission, and storage of information in Germany
and other countries. Other jurisdictions may have different data protection
laws. In such cases, SolarPortal will take
measures to ensure that data is processed in accordance with this policy and
applicable law, which includes when transferring personal data of data subjects
from the EU to countries or regions that have been recognized by the European
Commission as having an adequate level of data protection.
Changes
to this Statement
This policy may
be updated from time to time for reasons such as operational practices or
regulatory changes but will alert you that changes have been made by indicating
at the bottom of the Privacy Policy the date it was last updated. We encourage
you to review our Privacy Policy to make sure you understand how your
information will be used.
Children
Our websites,
products, and services are primarily intended for adults. Our users must be
over the age required by law in your country to create an account or otherwise
use the Services, or we require verifiable consent from your parent or legal
guardian. If a child's personal data is collected with prior parental consent,
we will only use or disclose such data as permitted by law, with the express
consent of the child's parent or guardian. In addition, if we accidentally
collect personal data from a child without the prior verified consent of the
child's parents, we will attempt to delete such data as soon as possible.
Contact
Us
If you have any
privacy-related questions or comments related to this privacy policy, please
send an email to ivan.gdpr.dpo@gmail.com or dsb.goodwe@cortina-consult.de. You can also
contact us by writing to this address:
Cortina Consult
GmbH, Hafenweg 24, 48155 Münsteer
Germany or calling the following number
Ivan Lu - Data
Protection Officer: +8651262397998
Herr Jörg ter Beek - Data Protection Officer – Representative of EU:+498918917360