PRIVACY POLICY
LAT UPDATED: MARCH 18, 2021

What Information Do We Collect?

We may collect certain identifying information from or about you in connection with your use of or submissions to the Site (collectively, the “Collected Information”). For example, if you request information through the Site, you may submit to us your name and contact information, such as your email address, mailing address, or telephone number. If you access your account or pay your bill through the Site, you may also provide information such as your account number, credit card information and bank account information. If you inquire about or apply for a job with American Water through the Site, you may provide us with information on your educational background, employment history or current or previous compensation. In addition to the types of information we may collect, American Water may retain the content of and metadata regarding any correspondence between you and American Water or our representatives, regardless of the mode of communication by which such correspondence was made. This information helps us improve the Site and the online media, content, materials, opportunities and services that we feature or describe on the Site and to more effectively and efficiently respond to both current and future inquiries. As with many other Web sites, the servers used to operate the Site may collect certain data pertaining to you and the equipment and communications method you use to access the internet and the Site. For security reasons and to confirm the integrity of our data, American Water may combine components of this data with other sources of information which may identify you. Unless otherwise described in this Privacy Policy or our Terms of Use, such identifying information will be used solely for our internal business purposes. In addition, the information we collect may reveal such things as the Internet protocol (“IP”) address assigned to your computer, specific pages that you accessed on the Site or immediately prior to visiting the Site and the length of time you spent at the Site. The purposes for which this information is collected and used include facilitating Site operation and system administration, generating aggregate, non-identifiable statistical information, monitoring and analyzing Site traffic and usage patterns and improving the content and content delivery with regard to the Site and the online media, content, materials, opportunities and services that we describe or make available on the Site.

Although, like many other Web sites, our site may at any time, in our discretion, use “cookies” to help us recognize visitors when they return to the Site or as they move among the different portions of the Site, we do not currently use cookies or other tracking mechanisms to collect personal or individually identifiable information.

While some aspects of the Site may provide information that is intended for children, we do not knowingly or intentionally collect personal or identifying information from children. We strongly recommend that children get their parent or guardian’s consent before providing any personal information. If you are under the age of 18, please use our Site only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.
 

How Do We Use The Information That We Collect?

In addition to the uses mentioned or described above or otherwise described in our Terms of Use, we use the information that you submit to accomplish the purpose for which it was submitted. For example, if you submit your credit card information to make a payment on your account, we will use that information to make that payment. We may also use the information that we collect from or about you to analyze and improve the content, features, materials and opportunities that we make available on the Site, to notify you of changes made to the Site or new opportunities made available on or through the Site, to evaluate your needs and customize the Site content delivered to you according to those needs, to send you promotional materials and for other legitimate and lawful business purposes. If you contact us for support or assistance, we may use information that you provide or that we collect about you or your system for purposes such as verifying whether your system meets the minimum requirements needed to use the Site and our various services.

With Whom Do We Share Information That We Collect?
In addition to the uses mentioned or described above, or otherwise described in the Terms of Use, in the course of conducting our business, American Water may, as appropriate, transfer Collected Information, whether solicited or unsolicited, to our offices throughout the country, catalog and add such Collected Information to our databases, transmit such Collected Information to our affiliates and contractors and, to the extent necessary to accomplish the purpose for which information was submitted, to other third parties (e.g., to the relevant financial institutions in making payments). We may from time to time utilize a number of trusted business partners in delivering the online media, content, materials and opportunities available on or through the Site to you. To the extent necessary for purposes of communicating with you or fulfilling your requests for our products or services, or your subscriptions to such media, content and materials, or to market products and services, or to improve our products and services, we may share information about you with these business partners. We may also produce reports on Site traffic or usage patterns and share these reports with our business partners and others, but the information contained in these reports is anonymous and does not allow identification of any specific individual. Other than as expressly provided in this Privacy Policy, any Collected Information we obtain about you will be reported outside our organization only in aggregated formats and will not be distributed in a manner that will identify or be attributable to any particular or specific individual or company. American Water may disclose information about you if we become subject to a subpoena or court order or if we are otherwise legally required to disclose such information. We may also use and disclose information about you to establish or exercise our legal rights, to enforce the Terms of Use, to assert and defend against legal claims or to investigate, prevent or take other action regarding actual or suspected illegal or fraudulent activities or potential threats to the physical safety or well-being of any person. As American Water continues to grow and develop its business, it is possible that its corporate structure might change or that it might merge or otherwise combine with another company. In any such transaction, customer information should be expected to be one of the transferred business assets.

What Choices Do You Have?

When corresponding with American Water or our representatives, or making a request for information or otherwise interacting with us through the Site, you choose what information to supply, what questions to pose and comments to make, whether you wish to receive further information and by what method of communication such information should be delivered. Please take care to share only such information as is needed or that you believe is appropriate.
 

How Do We Protect Information Collected About You?

American Water takes commercially reasonable measures to secure and protect information transmitted via or stored on the Site and transmitted to and from the Site. Nevertheless, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot and do not guarantee that information that users of the Site may happen to transmit or otherwise supply, or that any communications or any electronic commerce conducted on or through the Site, is or will be totally secure. You agree to immediately notify us of any breach of Site security, this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Use of which you become aware.

Linked Sites

For your convenience, some hyperlinks may be posted on the Site that link to other Web sites not under our control. We are not responsible for, and this Privacy Policy does not apply to, the privacy practices of those sites or of any companies that we do not own or control. We encourage you to seek out and read the privacy policy of each Web site that you visit. In addition, should you happen to initiate a transaction on a Web site that our Site links to, even if you reached that site through our Site, the information that you submit to complete that transaction becomes subject to the privacy practices of the operator of that linked site. You should read that site’s privacy policies to understand how personal information that is collected about you is used and protected.
 

Changes to Privacy Policy

From time to time, we may change our privacy practices, and this Privacy Policy, because of changes in relevant and applicable legal or regulatory requirements, our business practices, or in our attempts to better serve your needs and those of our other customers. Notice of such changes to our privacy practices will be given in the manner described in the Terms of Use and a revised Privacy Policy will be posted on the Site.

Who Can You Contact For More Information?

If you have any questions or suggestions about the Site, American Water or our products, services, or privacy practices, please contact us at the numbers or address given below.

American Water Works
Attn: Enterprise Security
1 Water St
Camden, NJ 08102
Telephone: 1-856-346-8200
E-mail: Privacy@amwater.com

Acknowledgement

BY ACCESSING OR USING THE SITE, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ, UNDERSTAND AND CONSENT TO THE PRIVACY PRACTICESAND TO THE USES AND DISCLOSURES OF INFORMATION THAT WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU AS DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF USE REFERENCED ABOVE.

AMERICAN WATER CALIFORNIA PRIVACY NOTICE
Effective Date: January 1, 2020

This California Privacy Notice (“Notice”) applies to “Consumers” as defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) as a supplement to American Water’s and its affiliates’ (collectively, “American Water”, “we” or “us”) Privacy Policy, Terms of Use and other applicable notices. In the event of a conflict between any other American water policy, statement or notice and this Notice, this Notice will prevail as to California Consumers and their rights under the CCPA. Please see also any policies or notice of general applicability posted or referenced on our Site, www.amwater.com and www.awrusa.com.
This Notice covers the collection, use, disclosure and sale of California Consumers’ “Personal Information” (“ PI”) as defined by the CCPA, except to the extent such PI is exempt from the notice obligations of the CCPA. This Notice also covers rights California Consumers have under the CCPA, as well other notices to Californians required by other laws. Publicly available information is not treated as PI under the CCPA, so this notice is not intended to apply to that data and your Consumer privacy rights do not apply to that data.
To aid in readability, in some places we have abbreviated or summarized CCPA terms or language, but a full copy of the CCPA is available here for your review, and in some places in this Notice we cite and/or link to specific CCPA sections for your reference. Terms defined in the CCPA that are used in this Notice shall have the same meaning as in the CCPA.

CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

The CCPA is a new law and there remain differing interpretations of it and the regulations that implement it. Accordingly, American Water may, from time-to-time, update information in our notices regarding our data practices and modify the methods or means for you to make requests and how we respond to such requests, and/or supplement our response(s) to your requests, as we continue to develop our compliance program to reflect the evolution of the law and our understanding of how it relates to our data practices.
We provide our customers the privacy rights described in this section. You have the right to exercise these rights via an authorized agent who meets the agency requirements of the CCPA and related regulations. To access or delete specific pieces of personal information we will need to verify your identity to the degree of certainty required by law. You must use the Third Party Authorization form available on our website to authorize third parties to make an access or deletion request on your behalf.
Some PI we maintain about Consumers is not sufficiently associated with enough PI about the Consumer for us to be able to verify that it is a particular Consumer’s PI when a Consumer request that requires verification pursuant to the CCPA’s verification standards is made (e.g., clickstream data tied only to a pseudonymous browser ID). As required by the CCPA, we do not include that PI in response to those requests. If we cannot comply with a request, we will explain the reasons in our response. You are not required to create an account with us to make a Verifiable Consumer Request, but you may use your account to do so. We will use PI provided in a Verifiable Consumer Request only to verify your identity or authority to make the request and to track and document request responses, unless you also gave it to us for another purpose.
We will make commercially reasonable efforts to identify Consumer PI that we collect, process, store, disclose and otherwise use and to respond to your California Consumer privacy rights requests. In some cases, particularly with voluminous and/or typically irrelevant data, we may suggest that you receive the most recent or a summary of your PI and give you the opportunity to elect whether you want the rest or not. We reserve the right to direct you to where you may access and copy responsive PI yourself. We will typically not charge a fee to fully respond to your requests; provided, however, that we may charge a reasonable fee, or refuse to act upon a request, if your request is excessive, repetitive, unfounded or overly burdensome. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, or that we may refuse it, we will give you notice explaining why we made that decision. You will be provided a cost estimate and the opportunity to accept such fees before we will charge you for responding to your request.
Consistent with the CCPA and our interest in the security of your PI, we will not deliver to you your social security number, driver’s license number or other government-issued id number, financial account number, an account password, or security questions or answers in response to a CCPA request; however, you may be able to access some of this information yourself through your account if you have an active account with us.

Your California Consumer privacy rights are as follows:

A. Information Rights:

You have the right to send us a request, no more than twice in a twelve-month period, for any of the following for the period that is twelve months prior to the request date:

• The categories of PI we have collected about you.

• The categories of sources from which we collected your PI.

• The business or commercial purposes for our collecting or selling your PI.

• The categories of third parties to whom we have shared your PI.

• The specific pieces of PI we have collected about you.

• A list of the categories of PI disclosed for a business purpose in the prior 12 months, or that no disclosure occurred.

• A list of the categories of PI sold about you in the prior 12 months, or that no sale occurred. If we sold your PI, we will explain:

  • The categories of your PI we have sold.

  • The categories of third parties to which we sold PI, by categories of PI sold for each third party.

To make a request, please use the link at the bottom of this page. You may also call us Toll Free at 1-844-297-5952 if you are a California American Water customer, or Toll Free at 1-844-599-4625 if you are an American Water Resources d/b/a American Water Resources Insurance Services customer or customer prospect in California. For your specific pieces of information, as required by the CCPA, we will apply the heightened verification standards set forth in subsection (ii) below. Please note that PI is retained by us for various time periods, so we may not be able to fully respond to what might be relevant going back 12 months prior to the request.
 

B. Obtaining Copies of PI:

You have the right to make or obtain a transportable copy, no more than twice in a twelve-month period, of your PI that we have collected in the period that is 12 months prior to the request date and are maintaining. To make a request, please use the link at the bottom of this page. You may also call us at Toll Free at 1-844-297-5952 if you are a California American Water customer, or Toll Free at 1-844-599-4625 if you are an American Water Resources d/b/a American Water Resources Insurance Services customer or customer prospect in California.

Please note that PI is retained by us for various time periods, so we may not be able to fully respond to what might be relevant going back 12 months prior to the request.

C. Do Not Sell:

You have the right to request we not sell your PI. We do not sell PI as those terms are currently defined by the CCPA, but as a courtesy we are providing you the option to register your opt-out preferences here: Customer Privacy in the event we should do so in the future. For more information on how to exercise your do not sell rights, please use the link at the bottom of this page. You may also call us at Toll Free at 1-844-297-5952 if you are a California American Water customer, or Toll Free at 1-844-599-4625 if you are an American Water Resources d/b/a American Water Resources Insurance Services customer or customer prospect in California. Data practices of third-party cookies and tracking devices associated with our websites and mobile apps may constitute a “sale” of your PI as defined by the CCPA. You can exercise control over browser-based cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser. In addition, third party tools enable you to search for and opt-out of some of these devices, such as the Ghostery browser plug-in available at https://www.ghostery.com/. We do not represent that these third-party tools, programs or statements are complete or accurate.] If you are 16 years of age or older, you have the right to direct us to not sell your PI. We do not knowingly sell the PI of Consumers we know are under 16 unless we receive an opt-in from the Consumer who is at least 13 but under 16, or from the parent or guardian of a Consumer younger than 13. Consumers who opt-in to PI sales may opt-out at any time. If you think we may have unknowingly collected PI for sale of yourself or of your child under the age of 13, or if you are at least 13 but under 16, exercising the opt-out will stop our selling of the PI.

D. Delete:

Except to the extent we have a basis for retention under CCPA, you may request that we delete your PI that we have collected directly from you and are maintaining. Our retention rights include, without limitation, to complete transactions and service you have requested or that are reasonably anticipated, for security purposes, for legitimate internal business purposes, including maintaining business records, to comply with law, to exercise or defend legal claims, and to cooperate with law enforcement. Note also that we are not required to delete your PI that we did not collect directly from you. To make a request, please use the link at the bottom of this page. You may also call us at Toll Free at 1-844-297-5952 if you are a California American Water customer, or Toll Free at 1-844-599-4625 if you are an American Water Resources d/b/a American Water Resources Insurance Services customer or customer prospect in California.

E. Non-Discrimination and Financial Incentive Programs:

We do not provide customers with financial incentive programs, however, should our practices change, we will not discriminate against you in a manner prohibited by the CCPA because you exercise your CCPA rights. However, we may charge a different price or rate, or offer a different level or quality of goods or services, to the extent that doing so is reasonably related to the value of the applicable data. In addition, we may offer you financial incentives for the collection, sale and retention and use of your PI as permitted by the CCPA that can, without limitation, result in reasonably different prices, rates, or quality levels. The material aspects of any financial incentive will be explained and described in its program terms. Please note that participating in incentive programs is entirely optional, you will have to affirmatively opt-in to the program and you can opt-out of each program (i.e., terminate participation and forgo the ongoing incentives) prospectively by following the instructions in the applicable program description and terms. We may add or change incentive programs and/or their terms by posting notice on the program descriptions and terms linked to above so check them regularly.

​

F. Our and Other’s Rights:

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, we may collect, use and disclose your PI as required or permitted by applicable law and this may override your CCPA rights. In addition, we need not honor any of your requests to the extent that doing so would infringe upon our or any other person or party’s rights or conflict with applicable law.

​

ADDITIONAL CALIFORNIA NOTICES.

In addition to CCPA rights, certain Californians are entitled to certain other notices, including:

 

A. Third Party Marketing and Your California Privacy Rights:

California's "Shine the Light" law permits California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of PI to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes. Separate from your CCPA “Do Not Sell” rights you have the following additional rights regarding disclosure of your information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes:

We may from time to time elect to share certain “personal information” (as defined by California’s “Shine the Light” law) about you with third parties for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes. California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits California residents who have supplied personal information, as defined in the statute, to us to, under certain circumstances, request and obtain certain information regarding our disclosure, if any, of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. If this applies, you may obtain the categories of personal information shared and the names and addresses of all third parties that received personal information for their direct marketing purposes during the immediately prior calendar year (e.g. requests made in 2019 will receive information about 2018 sharing activities). To make such a request, please provide sufficient information for us to determine if this applies to you, attest to the fact that you are a California resident and provide a current California address for our response. You may make this request by contacting us at Privacy@amwater.com, or in writing at: 1 Water Street, Camden, NJ 08102 (Attention: Legal Counsel). Any such request must include “California Privacy Rights Request” in the first line of the description and include your name, street address, city, state, and ZIP code. Please note that we are only required to respond to one request per Consumer each year, and we are not required to respond to requests made by means other than through the e-mail address or mailing address provided in this Policy.
As these rights and your CCPA rights are not the same and exist under different laws, you must exercise your rights under each law separately.

 

B. Online Privacy Practices:

For more information on our online practices and your California rights specific to our online services see our online Privacy Policy. Without limitation, Californians that visit our online services and seek or acquire goods, services, money or credit for personal, family or household purposes are entitled to the following notices of their rights:

​

C. Tracking and Targeting:

When you visit our online services, we and third parties may use tracking technologies to collect usage information based on your device for a variety of purposes, including serving you advertising, based on your having visited our services or your activities across time and third-party locations. Some browsers may enable you to turn on or off a so-called “Do Not Track” signal. Because there is no industry consensus on what these signals should mean and how they should operate, we do not look for or respond to “Do Not Track” signals. For more information on tracking and targeting and your choices regarding these practices, see our online Privacy Policy.

​

D. California Minors:

Although our online service(s) are intended for an audience over the age of 18, any California residents under the age of eighteen (18) who have registered to use our online services, and who posted content or information on the service, can request removal by contacting us Privacy@amwater.com">Privacy@amwater.com detailing where the content or information is posted and attesting that you posted it. We will then make reasonably good faith efforts to remove the post from prospective public view or anonymize it, so the minor cannot be individually identified to the extent required by applicable law. This removal process cannot ensure complete or comprehensive removal. For instance, third parties may have republished or archived content by search engines and others that we do not control.

 

CONTACT US.

For more information on your California privacy rights, you may contact us at:
American Water Works
Attn: Enterprise Security
1 Water St
Camden, NJ 08102
Telephone: 1-856-346-8200
E-mail: Privacy@amwater.com

​

AMERICAN WATER COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

A. PI We Collect

American Water and its affiliates may collect, retain, use and disclose PI about California Consumers. Such PI includes Identifiers1, Personal Records2, Personal Characteristics or Traits3, Customer Account Details / Commercial Information4, Internet Usage Information5, Geolocation Data6, Sensory Data7 and Inferences from PI Collected8.

As permitted by applicable law, we do not treat deidentified data or aggregate consumer information as PI and we reserve the right to convert, or permit others to convert, your PI into deidentified data or aggregate consumer information. We have no obligation to re-identify such information or keep it longer than we need to respond to your requests. This helps us practice data minimization, which we consider to be a privacy best practice consistent with our mission to respect our customers.

​

B. Sources of PI

We may collect your PI directly from you or from service providers, vendors and suppliers, our affiliates or other individuals and businesses, as well as public sources of data such as government databases. For more specifics tied to each category of PI, see the chart in Section D.

​

C. Business or Commercial Purposes for PI Collection, Disclosure and Sharing of PI

Generally, we collect, retain, use and disclose your PI to provide you services and as otherwise related to the operation of our business. For more specific detail on our collection of PI, and the purposes therefore, see the chart in Section D.

As more fully detailed in the chart in Section D, we may collect, use and disclose the PI we collect for one or more of the following business purposes, pursuant to and in compliance with the corresponding CCPA sections:

• Processing Interactions and Transactions (§1798.140(d)(4));

• Managing Interactions and Transactions (§1798.140(d)(1));

• Performing Services (§1798.140(d)(5));

• Research and Development (§1798.140(d)(6));

• Quality Assurance (§1798.140(d)(7));

• Security (§1798.140(d)(2)); and

• Debugging (§1798.140(d)(3)).
   

We may share PI with our service providers, other vendors (including those that facilitate interest-based and other advertising and marketing), affiliates, and/or third parties. We may also collect, use and disclose your PI as required or permitted by applicable law.
 

1As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(A)
2As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(B)
3As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(C)
4As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(D)
5As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(F)
6As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(G)
7As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(H)
8As defined in CCPA §1798.140(o)(1)(K)
 

Subject to the restrictions and obligations set forth in the CCPA, our vendors may also use your PI for some or all of the above-listed business purposes. Also, our vendors may themselves engage service providers or subcontractors to enable them to perform services for us, which sub-processing is, for purposes of certainty, an additional business purpose for which we are providing you notice.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in our other privacy notices, we typically restrict use of your PI that is governed by the CCPA’s Consumer rights provisions and is shared with our vendors to business purposes, or we treat such disclosures as sales of your PI, as defined by the CCPA, subject to your Do Not Sell rights. For more information on how to exercise your do not sell rights, please use the link at the bottom of this page. You may also call us at Toll Free at 1-844-297-5952 if you are a California American Water customer, or Toll Free at 1-844-599-4625 if you are an American Water Resources d/b/a American Water Resources Insurance Services customer in California.

If we share your PI at your direction, that is not a sale. Also, disclosures amongst the entities that constitute American Water as defined above are not a sale.

​

​

​

D. Summary of PI we collect, the sources, purpose and parties with whom we may share PI

Category of PI

Examples

​

​