Maryland Clean Energy Center / Home Loan (MHELP) Privacy Policy
By accessing MDCleanEnergy.org or MCECloans.org you agree to the collection and use of your personal information as described in this policy. If we make any significant changes to this policy, we will notify you by posting a notice of such changes on the login pages of both web sites.
We care deeply about protecting your privacy. Please send us any questions and/or comments you may have.
SUMMARY
- We will never spam you or give your personal information to anyone.
- You control when and how we send messages to you.
- You can delete your account at any time, unless you have an open energy loan account with us.
- Other
users:
- Cannot see you unless they already know your email address or have interacted with you financially;
- Cannot see any of your financial transactions except for the ones that involve them.
HOW WE TREAT YOUR INFORMATION
We will never spam you.
We do send notifications for new and modified transactions, but you can turn these off.
Organizations that we work with may request that we send you a reminder to pay or collect outstanding debts, but this is only ever initiated by them - never by us. These messages cannot be customized, and so they cannot be used for spam.
We will never disclose your personal information without your permission.
We will never sell, rent or share your personal information with a 3rd party, especially your email addresses and phone numbers, without your express permission, unless required by law. Never. Ever.
We give you full control over your information, including the ability to delete it from our system.
You can update your account information and preferences at any time. You can destroy your account when you choose.
We will only access your personal information when:
- You specifically request us to do so (e.g. you are having technical difficulties);
- it is required by law; or
- it is necessary to maintain our system.
We will protect your information from other users.
Nobody can see loan information unless they are a party to it.
We may sell, rent or share information about user habits in aggregate only.
We will never do so in a manner that could even remotely be individually identifiable.
For example, we could collect and share information like "how many unique visitors access the Center’s web site on a monthly basis” but we do NOT share information like "what are zip codes of Marylanders tapping the energy loan program."
What information do we collect?
Personal: Name, email address, credit card, billing address, amount donated
Organizational: Name, type of product or service offered, email, web site and street address
These help us gather information about our users and whether we’re serving them effectively. We may also share this information in the aggregate only. See above.
Transactions: Bills, loans, payments
Our Maryland Home Energy Loan (MHELP) program, administered by AFC First, deals with information only relevant to the loans being offered to Marylanders. We’re not a bank. The information we may access about the debts and credits between people is strictly informative, and carries with it no actual monetary backing or obligations.
AFC, the lender making MHELP loans, has its own privacy policy and that MCEC encourages prospective borrowers to study AFC's privacy and information sharing policies when considering whether to borrower a loan.
Usage: Number of logins, last login, activity and error logs
This data helps us monitor this web site’s effectiveness and diagnose errors and slowness issues when they crop up.
Cookies and log files
MDCleanEnergy.org sends a "cookie" to your computer that contains an identification number that is unique to the computer you are using. We use this cookie to provide you with a continuous experience, and for us to record how our services are being used.
As is done with most web sites, we log each visit to each web page. A log entry can contain information typically found in the "header" of your web browser's request such as the browser type you used, your Internet Protocol address, and the date and time of day. We may also log your cookie's identification number and the URL of the last site you visited. This log information is important for security, quality improvement, as well as for monitoring the success of the services we provide to Marylanders.