ENGIE's Privacy Policy

ENGIE’s (Electrabel nv, Boulevard  Simón Bolívar 36, 1000 Brussels) Privacy Policy is aimed at informing you about which personal data we collect about you, why and how you can control these data. ENGIE is the data controller responsible for the processing of your personal data and processes them in accordance with the legislation on the protection of personal data and electronic communications. We treat your personal data as confidential information.

ENGIE may also process your personal data as a data processor on behalf of one its partners, which in this case is the data controller. We refer in this case to the privacy policy of the partner in question.

The Privacy Policy applies to all our (current, former and future) customers, all visitors of the ENGIE website(s) and mobile applications (“apps”), and to all other persons contacting us.

For any question relating to the treatment of your personal data you can contact us via data.protection.be@engie.com or via ENGIE Belgium Data Protection, Boulevard Simón Bolívar 36, B-1000 Brussels. 

The personal data collected by ENGIE concern, on the one hand, the personal data entered by you on the various pages of our website(s) and apps, as well as the personal data that we obtain by your use of our website(s) and apps, and by your use of our products and services. On the other hand, ENGIE’s Privacy Policy also covers the personal data that we receive from you through other channels, such as our contact centers, reply forms, contractual documents or through our partners.

We collect the following personal data categories:

• Identification data: for example, your name, first name, date of birth, identity card number, e-mail address and the IP address of your PC, tablet or smartphone, your voice recordings;
• Contract data: for example, which contracts you have concluded with ENGIE, their start and end date, the price and any indexation parameters;
• Consumption and invoicing data: for example, your consumption of electricity and/or natural gas and data concerning your payment history;
• Transaction data: for example, a change of supplier, a move, a meter replacement;
• Technical data: for example, what type of heating system you have, whether your house is insulated or not, the year of construction of your house, whether you have solar panels or not;
• Data on your use of our products and services: for example, how you use our online services for monitoring your consumption of electricity and/or natural gas.

We process your personal data for the following reasons:

• To manage and perform your request for an offer of ENGIE or your contract(s) with ENGIE;
• To manage our website and apps (including the management of and the access to the parts of our website reserved for our customers);
• In certain cases, to inform you about the products and services of ENGIE, of our affiliated companies and our partners, promotions and special actions that we think might be of interest to you;
  • This always concerns products and services related to energy and energy efficiency (for example with regard to heating, energy storage and green mobility), and may also concern energy-related products and services of our partners (for example with regard to insulation and solar panels). The personal data collected on ENGIE's website regarding solar panels are jointly processed by ENGIE and Sungevity. Sungevity may use this data under its privacy policy to contact you for marketing purposes based on its legitimate interest. 
  • If you are a professional customer, this may also concern products and services related to technical installations and/or infrastructure.
• To combine your personal data, for example to determine your credit risk or to adjust our products and services, promotions and special actions to your personal needs;
• To observe, evaluate and constantly improve our products and services, promotions and special actions. You may, for instance, receive an invitation from us to participate to general or specific market surveys, on an anonymous basis if you wish so;
• The control and improvement of the interactions you have with us, our internal processes and the quality of the services provided by our contact centers. To this end, we may record and access your electronic communications (such as telephone conversations, chat, emails) and the data relating to these exchanges;
• To protect the rights, property and security of ENGIE, its customers or third parties (including the fight against fraud, the management of disputes or legal proceedings);
• To manage the statutory or regulatory obligations of ENGIE;
• To carry out the accounting of ENGIE; and
• To manage our receivables (including recovery and/or transfer of receivables to collecting agencies). To manage our receivables, we may combine the personal data provided by you with information (including personal data) obtained from third parties and/or public sources in order to optimize the recovery and to determine the most appropriate recovery method (for example, amical or judicial recovery).

Your personal data are only communicated to the following third parties in order to perform the aforementioned purposes:

• Our contact centres;
• The network operators;
• Our partners (for example, installers of products related to energy and energy efficiency , such as with regard to heating, solar panels and insulation; our door-to-door sellers; our market research offices);
• The companies and intermediaries we collaborate with to manage our receivables (for example  recovery, transfer of receivables);
• Our affiliated companies (for example ENGIE sa, Sungevity, Cozie);
• The competent authorities.

The aforementioned processors are established in Belgium, France, Sweden, the United States, India and possibly in other countries. The persons working for these third parties only have access to the personal data strictly necessary for the performance of their tasks.

If we cooperate with third parties established in countries outside the EEA that do not provide an appropriate level of protection for your personal data, we will impose contractual obligations on them, approved by a competent authority and offering an appropriate level of protection of your personal data. If you wish to receive a copy of these contractual obligations, please send an e-mail to data.protection.be@engie.com. We reserve the right to remove any confidential information and any information that is not relevant to you from such a copy.

We only process your personal data when:

• The processing is necessary to perform your contract or to take pre-contractual measures at your request (for example, when you have requested us to send you an offer for our products and services);
• The processing is necessary for the legitimate interest of ENGIE (for example, to send messages to our existing customers for marketing purposes);
• You have given your consent (for example, to send e-mails to potential customers for marketing purposes). In this case, you can always withdraw your consent; and
• The processing is necessary to comply with our statutory or regulatory obligations (for instance within the scope of judicial inquiries or requests for information of public authorities).

Your personal data are not kept longer than necessary for the purposes for which they were collected. The retention period may thus differ according to the purpose. We are, for example, obliged to keep your invoicing data for 10 years because of accounting and tax obligations. Furthermore, we keep your contract data for 10 years following the termination of your contract based on legal considerations in order to retain certain data as proof in the event of disputes. The contact details of former customers may still be used after termination of the contract to keep them informed of ENGIE offers and/or promotions. Unless the former customer objects, they may be contacted once a year up to a maximum of 4 years after termination of the contract. The personal data of potential customers are retained during 12 months as from the last contact with the potential customer. They may be retained for a longer period if the potential customer becomes a customer of ENGIE.

Under certain conditions, you will benefit from the following rights with regard to your personal data collected by ENGIE:

• The right of access to, rectification or erasure of your personal data;
• The right to oppose the processing or to obtain a limitation of the processing;
• The right to receive the personal data that you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and to communicate them to another controller;
• The right to withdraw your consent at any time, for example when you do no longer wish to receive direct marketing via e-mail.

You may exercise these rights via our website click here or by sending a letter accompanied by a document proving your identity to ENGIE Electrabel CMT, Boulevard Simón Bolívar 36, B-1000 Brussels. You may make illegible any information that is not necessary to prove your identity.

For issues related to processing of your personal data or the exercise of your rights, you may contact the Data Protection Officer (« DPO » ) at be-dpo@engie.com. 

If you are a residential or self-employed customer and you want to change your communication preferences, click here (access to your customer area).

If you are a contact person of a company having subscribed to a contract with ENGIE, you can adapt your communication preferences via a link you receive in each e-mail from ENGIE.

The aforementioned rights cannot give rise to other rights than those specified in this Privacy Policy or stipulated by the applicable legislation relating to the protection of personal data. Note that the exercise of the aforementioned rights may have as a consequence that ENGIE can no longer fulfil its contractual obligations or, in general, can no longer supply you with its products and/or services (or those of its partners).

If you have a complaint concerning the processing of your personal data, you may contact us on the above address or contact the Data Protection Authority www.dataprotectionauthority.be.

For more information on the use of cookies by ENGIE, see link to cookie policy.

ENGIE makes its best efforts to thoroughly protect its network against unauthorised access and to guarantee the confidentiality of the personal data and professional information of its customers and/or suppliers:

• We do this by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to prevent the interception or decoding of confidential passwords and personal data.
• ENGIE’s internal network is protected by a secure firewall and is not directly accessible over the Internet.

Security also depends on you:

• Be careful how you use your password. Never disclose it to anyone, even your colleagues. Also change it regularly.
• Never leave your PC, tablet or smartphone unattended when you are connected to an application.