NATIONAL GRID CUSTOMER COUNCIL PRIVACY POLICY

National Grid Customer Council (the “Community”) is an invitation only online community managed by The Harris Poll US LLC ("Harris Poll") on behalf of National Grid. The primary purpose for creation and participation in this Community is to facilitate market research. National Grid and Harris Poll are committed to protecting your privacy. The National Grid Customer Council Privacy Policy outlined below applies to the customercouncil.nationalgrid.com, surveys and all other Community activities. For more information about National Grid's policies and procedures regarding customer data, including information-gathering and dissemination practices for any and all of its customers’ information, please refer to its Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. National Grid means National Grid USA Service Company Inc. and its United States affiliates.

Respecting privacy is an important part of our commitment to clients, Community participants, and the general public. This privacy policy, (the “Policy”) describes our practices specific to the collection and use of your personal information when you participate in National Grid Customer Council, located at customercouncil.nationalgrid.com, (collectively known as the “Website”).

National Grid Customer Council activities are conducted for market research purposes only. All of our research activities report information in aggregate form (i.e., information about groups, not individuals). Individual information is never reviewed or published, as it is irrelevant to the research conducted by our clients. All individual information provided is held strictly confidential.

DATA COLLECTION & USE

Our Community is focused on providing you with the opportunity to voice your opinions on a variety of topics and issues. Your opinion is important to us and is the primary focus of the data we collect. In order to facilitate your membership and ensure that we are including you in relevant studies, we create a profile of you. To do this, we collect personal information from you such as your name, email address, gender, age, race, and other household information. On occasion, we may automatically add information from your survey responses to your profile. We may also request information about others residing in your household, including children. All information is viewable by us, and may be shared with third parties as outlined below.

When filling out surveys, we ask that you do not provide personal information unless it is explicitly requested. For example, do not provide information about a health condition in a field that is requesting information about your favorite food. When submitting information about others, we require that you obtain their consent before providing their information to us.

Any time you participate as a respondent in one of our surveys, you can be assured that your individual responses will be kept confidential and will only be shared as outlined in this Policy. You are free to choose whether or not to participate in a survey, free to choose not to answer any specific questions and free to discontinue participation at any time.

SHARING OF INFORMATION / THIRD PARTIES

Generally, we do not provide personal information to third parties. From time to time however, we may share your personal information with others including our clients and other third parties under the following circumstances:

  • The third party provides a service to us, such as a hosting provider, and is contractually bound to protect the confidentiality of your personal information;
  • To administer points
  • You have consented to participate directly in a study conducted by or on behalf of our client;
  • You post the information while participating in an open discussion forum; or
  • When we believe it necessary to comply with the law, to protect the rights or safety of the Website, other users, or third parties.

We will never use your personal information for reasons that we have not disclosed to you, including selling it to marketers or advertisers for their own purposes.

We reserve the right to use and share all non-personal information with others without limitation.

COMMUNICATION FROM THE WEBSITE

In order to participate in our Community, you must opt-in to receive emails from us. The first email you receive from us will be sent to confirm your subscription and verify that the email address you have provided is valid. Subsequent emails will be sent to invite you to participate in surveys, to respond to your inquiries and support requests, to send you newsletters and other informative content.

COOKIES AND RELATED TECHNOLOGIES

When you visit the Website, participate in a survey, access the member portal, or interact with a survey invite email, we use certain technologies to retain your preferences and provide other Website functionality. These technologies include cookies, web beacons, and digital fingerprints.

OPTING-OUT

If at any point you decide that you no longer wish to be a member of the National Grid Customer Council, you may send an email request with the word "unsubscribe" to support@customercouncil.nationalgrid.com. Community members can also opt out by filling out a request on the Update Profile section of the Website (see above). We will retain your information in our "unsubscribe" database to ensure that we do not contact you in the future.

DATA RETENTION

We will retain your personal information and survey responses for as long as it remains necessary or relevant for the purposes we have identified or as permitted/required by law. For example, we may need to retain the personal information of an unsubscribed member for the purposes of maintaining the integrity of the study, or to honor that member’s opt-out preference (by retaining the email address). If you would like to explicitly request the removal of your personal information, please contact us using the contact information listed above. Non-personal information is not subject to any retention limitations and may be retained indefinitely.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

You are encouraged to periodically review this Policy to stay informed of how we manage your personal information. If any changes are made to this Policy, Harris Poll will revise the "Last Updated" date that is indicated on the Policy.

Last Updated: July, 2024

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our panel site. You can find more about which cookies we are using on our cookies page.