Protecting our customers’ privacy is an important priority at MIDTEL and we are committed to maintaining strong and meaningful privacy protections. The privacy of your information is a significant responsibility and we value the trust you place in us.
Our Privacy Policy is designed to inform you about the information we collect, how we use it, and your options regarding certain uses of this information. This policy also describes privacy rights you have under certain federal laws.
This policy applies to website visitors, app users, applicants and MIDTEL customers in the United States. It applies across the MIDTEL family of companies and the products and services we provide. The MIDTEL family of companies includes the companies and joint ventures controlled by MIDTEL, including the MIDTEL Telephone Companies, MIDTEL NET, MIDTEL CABLE TV and Geoport Seamless Communications, Inc..
Information we collect and how it is used
We collect information when you communicate with us and when you use our products, services and sites. This includes information you provide such as name and contact information, images, voice recordings or prints, the reason for contacting us, driver’s license number, Social Security Number and payment information. Service usage information we collect includes call records, websites visited, service location, application and feature usage, network data usage, product and device-specific information and identifiers, service options you choose, hardware device numbers, video streaming and video packages and usage, movie rental and purchase data, TV and other similar information.
We use this information to establish, monitor and maintain your account and billing records; measure credit and payment risk; provide account-related services; deliver and maintain your products and services; help you with service-related issues or questions; manage and protect our networks, services and users from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses; help us improve our services and research and develop new products and services; authenticate you; determine your eligibility for new products and services and contact you with marketing offers.
When you contact us or we contact you, we may monitor or record that communication or keep a record of the transaction to help us train employees and better serve you.
We may automatically measure and monitor network performance and the performance of your connections to improve your, or our, service levels and products. If you contact us for service support, we also may access information about your computer, wireless router, modem, set top box/DVR or other device settings to provide customized technical support or to install specific applications or services that you use or that are necessary to the applications or services you use.
Information about your use of MIDTEL products and services may be aggregated or otherwise de-identified for business and marketing uses by us or by third parties. For example, aggregate or de-identified data may be used to improve our services, measure and analyze the use of services and to help make services and advertising more relevant to you. You can opt out of certain of these uses.
When you establish an online account or register on our sites or apps, we may collect information about your user identification, password and secret questions and answers. We use this information to authenticate you when you sign in.
MIDTEL will obtain your affirmative consent before we use information we gathered in the course of providing broadband Internet access services about your visits over time to different non-MIDTEL websites to customize ads specifically to you. One such program is MIDTEL Selects.
Information provided to us by third parties
When you purchase products or apply for service with us, we may obtain credit information about you from outside credit reporting agencies to help us with customer authentication and credit-related decisions. If you lease your residence, we may have information about how to reach your landlord and whether landlord permission is required to install our facilities.
MIDTEL obtains information from outside companies such as those that collect consumer information including demographic and interest data. Examples of this information include gender, age range, education, sports enthusiast, frequent diner or pet owner. We use this data and combine it with other information we have about you to help us predict your preferences, to direct marketing offers that might be more relevant to you, and to help us better analyze customer information for business modeling purposes.
When you use social media credentials to login to or interact with a MIDTEL site or offer, we may collect information about your social media profile, such as your interests, “likes” and friends list. We use this information, for example, to personalize your MIDTEL experiences and marketing communications, to enhance our services and to better serve you. You can control this data sharing via options in your social media accounts.
We also obtain contact information and other marketing lead information from third parties, website “refer-a-friend” options or social media platforms and may combine it with information we have to contact you or direct MIDTEL’s marketing offers to you.
Information collected on MIDTEL websites and apps
When you use MIDTEL websites and apps, information is collected about your device and your visit including browsing, searching and buying activity as you interact with our sites and apps; IP address; device numbers and identifiers; account information; web addresses of the sites you come from and go to next; and information about your connection, including your device’s browser, operating system, platform type and Internet connection speed. We use this information for operational, performance measurement and other business purposes; and to help us deliver more relevant MIDTEL marketing messages on our websites, on non-MIDTEL websites, by our representatives, via mail and email, or via other MIDTEL services or devices. This information is also used to tailor the content you see, manage the frequency with which you see an advertisement, tailor advertisements to better match your interests and understand the effectiveness of our advertising. We also may use this information to assess the effectiveness of our sites and to help you should you request help with navigation problems on our sites.
Certain MIDTEL vendors may place and read cookies on our sites to help us deliver MIDTEL marketing messages as described above. We require that these vendors provide consumers with the ability to opt out of their use of information for these purposes.
Information you provide
When you contact us for information or when you enter a MIDTEL-sponsored or affiliated contest, sweepstakes or promotion, we may use the information you supply to provide you with information about MIDTEL services, programs and offerings. Certain promotions may require that we disclose information such as contest winners or provide information for prize fulfillment, and as required by law or permitted by the promotion’s official rules. Information you provide on our websites about your preferred location and other preferences may be used to provide you with more relevant product recommendations, services and special offers.
If you provide information to us in the context of an event or promotion that MIDTEL sponsors with another organization, or if you visit a co-sponsored site or use a co-sponsored service, you also may be providing information to the co-sponsor. You should refer to that co-sponsor’s privacy policy for information about its practices which may differ from MIDTEL’s practices.
We also collect information from you when you participate in surveys or provide other feedback to us regarding our products or services, when you register to receive news or public policy updates, or when you apply for a job with or a grant from MIDTEL. We use this information only for the purpose for which you provide it. MIDTEL may send you emails that communicate information about your account or about products, services, marketing offers or promotions that may be of interest to you. When you open a MIDTEL email or click on links within these emails, we may collect and retain information to provide you with future communications that may be more interesting to you. Please note that MIDTEL will not ask you to send us, via email, sensitive personal or account information.
Information about the Cable Act
To the extent that Section 631 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the “Cable Act”) applies to services you purchase, it entitles you to know about the personally identifiable information a cable service provider collects. This includes the nature of the use and disclosure of this information and to whom it may be disclosed, how long personally identifiable information is maintained, and how subscribers may access it. In addition, the Cable Act imposes limits on the collection and disclosure of personal information and gives subscribers the ability to enforce their privacy rights. (Personally identifiable information does not include aggregate data that does not identify a particular person).
The Cable Act allows a provider to use its cable system to collect personally identifiable information necessary to render a cable service or other services provided to subscribers and to detect and prevent unauthorized access to services. Additional personally identifiable information may be collected with the subscriber’s prior consent. Personally identifiable information may be used or disclosed without the subscriber’s consent where necessary to render services, and to conduct legitimate business activities related to services provided.
We may be required by law to disclose personally identifiable information to a governmental entity to comply with valid legal process, such as warrants, court orders or subpoenas, but we will not disclose records revealing your selection of video programming unless we receive a court order indicating that the governmental entity has made a specified showing of relevance and you were afforded an opportunity to contest the order. We may be required to disclose personally identifiable information (including your selection of video programming) to a non-governmental entity to comply with a court order, after you have been provided notice.
If you believe that your privacy rights have been violated, please call us 518.827.5211 and we will work with you to address your concerns. If you believe that you have been aggrieved as a result of a violation of the Cable Act, you may enforce the limitations imposed by the Cable Act through a civil action in a United States district court seeking damages, attorney’s fees, and litigation costs. Other rights and remedies may also be available to you under federal or other applicable laws.
Relevant online advertising
The Relevant Online Advertising program helps make online ads you see more interesting and useful using your postal address; certain information about your MIDTEL products and services such as service packages, Cable TV purchases and viewership categories; and demographic and interest information we obtain from other companies – such as gender, age-range, sports fan, frequent diner or pet owner. This information is used to predict whether you fit within an audience an advertiser is trying to reach. We do not share information that identifies you personally as part of these programs other than with vendors and partners who do work for us. We require that these vendors and partners protect the information and use it only for the services they are providing us.
Relevant TV Advertising MIDTEL’s Relevant Cable TV Advertising program helps make Cable TV ads you see more interesting and useful using your postal address; certain information about your MIDTEL products and services (such as service packages purchased, video on-demand purchases and program viewing data; and demographic and interest information you provide or that we obtain from other companies – such as gender, family size, and luxury car owner. The ads may appear on a variety of platforms where Fios television customers can access video content. We do not share information that identifies you personally as part of these programs other than with vendors and partners who do work for us. We require that these vendors and partners protect the information and use it only for the services they are providing us.
The Cable Act permits the disclosure of customer names and addresses as long as a subscriber has been provided with the opportunity to prohibit or limit this disclosure and the disclosure does not reveal, directly or indirectly, the subscriber’s viewing or other uses of the cable or other services provided. If we intend to share data in this way, we will provide you with the opportunity to prohibit or limit this type of sharing.
Information we share
Information shared within the MIDTEL family of companies:
MIDTEL shares customer information within our family of companies for a variety of purposes, including, for example, providing you with the latest information about our products and services and offering you our latest promotions. You can limit the sharing of certain types of customer information, specifically, Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and certain credit information, within the MIDTEL family of companies for marketing services to you different from your current services.
Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) is information that relates to the type, quantity, destination, technical configuration, location, amount of use and related billing information of your telecommunications or interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Federal law governs our use and sharing of CPNI. Credit information includes your credit score, information found in your consumer reports, and your account history.
Information shared outside the MIDTEL family of companies
Except as explained in this Privacy Policy, in privacy policies for specific services, or in agreements with our customers, MIDTEL does not sell, license or share information that individually identifies our customers, people using our networks, or website visitors with others outside the MIDTEL family of companies that are not performing work on MIDTEL’s behalf without the consent of the person whose information will be shared.
MIDTEL uses vendors and partners for a variety of business purposes such as to help us offer, provide, repair, restore and bill for services we provide. We share information with those vendors and partners when it is necessary for them to perform work on our behalf. For example, we may provide your credit card information and billing address to our payment processing company solely for the purpose of processing payment for a transaction you have requested. We require that these vendors and partners protect the customer information we provide to them and limit their use of MIDTEL customer data to the purposes for which it was provided. We do not permit these types of vendors and partners to use this information for their own marketing purposes. MIDTEL also may share certain information with outside companies, for example, to assist with the delivery of advertising campaigns, or preparing and sharing aggregate reports. This information does not identify MIDTEL customers individually. MIDTEL provides the names, addresses and telephone numbers of wireline telephone customers to directory publishers and directory assistance services unless a non-published or non-listed phone number has been requested.
We may disclose information that individually identifies our customers or identifies customer devices in certain circumstances, such as:
to comply with valid legal process including subpoenas, court orders or search warrants, and as otherwise authorized by law; in cases involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person or other emergencies;
1) to protect our rights or property, or the safety of our customers or employees;
2) to protect against fraudulent, malicious, abusive, unauthorized or unlawful use of or subscription to our products and services and to protect our network, services, devices and users from such use;
3) to advance or defend against complaints or legal claims in court, administrative proceedings and elsewhere;
4) to credit bureaus or collection agencies to determine credit risk, for reporting purposes or to obtain payment for MIDTEL billed products and services;
5) to a third-party that you have authorized to verify your account information;
6) when you have authorized others to authenticate you or verify your account information; to outside auditors and regulators; or
with your consent.
When you purchase services offered jointly by MIDTEL and one of our partners, customer information may be received by both MIDTEL and our partner that is providing your service. For these jointly offered services, you should also review the partner company’s privacy policy which may include practices that are different from the practices described here.
Information provided to or used by advertising entities or social networks
You may see third-party advertisements on some MIDTEL websites, services, and apps. Some advertisements are chosen by companies that operate on our sites and other sites (for example, ad servers, ad networks, or technology platforms) to place ads on behalf of advertisers. These companies may place and access cookies on your device to collect information about your visit on websites and may collect device advertising identifiers from your mobile operating system to learn about your use of apps, including ours. The information they collect from our sites and apps is in a form that does not identify you personally and may be combined with similar data they obtain from other websites and apps to help advertisers better reach audiences they wish to target. Targeting may be accomplished by tailoring advertising to interests that they infer from your interactions on our sites and apps and your interaction with other sites and services where these companies also are present.
View information about “cookies” and related technologies
We also may permit advertisers on our sites, apps and services to place ads based on certain information we have about your MIDTEL products and services as well as geographic and demographic data. Information used for this purpose does not identify you individually.
MIDTEL websites and services may include social network or other third-party plug-ins and widgets that may provide information to their associated social networks or third-parties about your interactions with MIDTEL pages you visit or services you use, even if you do not click on or otherwise interact with the plug-in or widget. View information about “cookies” and related technologies.
How to limit the sharing and use of your information.
You have choices about how MIDTEL shares and uses information.
Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI)
Customers of MIDTEL telecommunications and VoIP services may choose to limit the use and sharing of CPNI for MIDTEL’s marketing services outside of services you currently have. Notice about our use and sharing of CPNI and the choices you have may be provided on your monthly bill, over the phone, in contracts or in other ways. MIDTEL Wireline consumers and certain business customers may opt out by calling 518.827.5211.
Information about Your Credit
MIDTEL Wireline consumers may limit the sharing of credit information for our marketing of new services to you. You may opt-out of this sharing by emailing us.
Telemarketing
Federal “Do Not Call” laws allow you to place your phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry to prohibit many telemarketing calls to those numbers. To add your numbers to this list, please call 1-888-382-1222 or visit the National Do Not Call Registry.
Most telemarketing laws allow companies to contact their own customers without consulting the federal or state Do Not Call list. If you would like to be removed from MIDTEL’s residential telemarketing list, please contact us at 518.827.5211. Please allow 30 days for your telephone number to be removed from any sales programs that are currently underway.
Marketing e-mail, text messages, postal mail and door-to-door calls
Marketing emails you receive from MIDTEL, include an unsubscribe instruction (usually found at the bottom of the email) that you may use to opt out of receiving future marketing-related emails.
You may opt out of receiving marketing-related postal mailings or prevent door-to-door marketing solicitations from MIDTEL by calling 518.827.5211.
Information security and data retention
MIDTEL has technical, administrative and physical safeguards in place to help protect against unauthorized access to, use or disclosure of customer information we collect or store, including social security numbers. Employees are trained on the importance of protecting privacy and on the proper access to, use and disclosure of customer information. Under our practices and policies, access to sensitive personally identifiable information is authorized only for those who have a business need for such access. Personally identifiable and other sensitive records are retained only as long as reasonably necessary for business, accounting, tax or legal purposes.
Although we work hard to protect personal information that we collect and store, no program is 100% secure and we cannot guarantee that our safeguards will prevent every unauthorized attempt to access, use or disclose personal information. MIDTEL maintains security and incident response plans to handle incidents involving unauthorized access to private information we collect or store.
Accessing and updating your information
We strive to keep our customer records as accurate as possible. You may correct or update your MIDTEL customer information by calling a MIDTEL customer service representative at 518.827.5211.
Changes to this policy
We reserve the right to make changes to this privacy policy, so please check back periodically for changes. You will be able to see that changes have been made by checking to see the effective date posted at the end of the policy. If MIDTEL elects to use or disclose information that identifies you as an individual in a manner that is materially different from that stated in our policy at the time we collected that information from you, we will give you a choice regarding such use or disclosure by appropriate means, which may include use of an opt out mechanism.