Customer Privacy and Confidentiality Policy
Santa Barbara Clean Energy is committed to protecting your personal information and ensuring appropriate protection exists when collecting, storing, using, and reporting that information.
Santa Barbara Clean Energy (SBCE), its employees, agents, contractors, and affiliates shall maintain the confidentiality of individual customers' names, service addresses, billing addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, account numbers, and electricity consumption, except where reasonably necessary to conduct SBCE’s business or to provide services to customers as required by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
Examples of reasonably necessary business purposes include but are not limited to when such disclosure is necessary to (a) comply with law, regulation, or court order; (b) enable SBCE to provide services to its customers; (c) collect unpaid bills; (d) obtain and provide credit reporting information; (e) resolve customer disputes or inquiries; (f) communicate about demand response, energy efficiency, energy management, and conservation programs; or (g) in situation of imminent threat to life or property. SBCE shall not, under any circumstances, disclose customer information for third-party telemarketing, e-mail, or direct mail solicitation. Aggregated data that cannot be traced to specific customers may be released at SBCE’s discretion.
Customer data, including individual customer names, addresses, and electric energy usage data, is collected via Southern California Edison’s metering systems. SBCE may share customer data with contractors and vendors for purposes of providing services and operating programs. Contractors and vendors are required to agree to only use customer data for program operational purposes and protect it under the same standards as SBCE. SBCE maintains customer-specific energy usage and billing information for only as long as is reasonably necessary, typically not more than five years unless otherwise necessary by law or regulation.
SBCE will handle customer energy usage information in a manner that is fully compliant with applicable law, which includes but is not limited to, the California Public Utility Commission’s required privacy protections for customers of Community Choice Aggregators defined in Decision 12-08-045, as may be amended or replaced from time to time.
The effective date for this version of Policy SBCE-002 is effective May 25, 2021. Notice of this policy will be provided when confirming a new customer account and annually to customers via an on-bill message to guide customers to the most updated version on SBCE’s website. Any changes to this policy between notification periods will be communicated through SBCE’s website. Previous versions of this policy can be requested via email at Info@SBCleanEnergy.com.
Customers having any questions or concerns regarding the collection, storage, use, or distribution of customer information, or who wish to view, inquire about, or dispute any customer information held by SBCE, or limit the collection, use, or disclosure of such information, may contact us at Info@SBCleanEnergy.com.