Privacy Policy
The Ministry of Public Utilities is committed to keeping your personal information confidential and secure. This Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time, sets out the information practices for the Ministry of Public Utilities, including the type of information collected, how the information is used and with whom the information is shared. This Privacy Policy applies to each and every individual that uses any service offered by the Ministry of Public Utilities or has otherwise provided personal information to us. In this Privacy Policy the use of “we”, “our” “us” and “MPU” means the Ministry of Public Utilities. If you have any questions or queries regarding the use of your Personal Data, please send an email to webcontact@mpu.gov.tt and we will gladly assist you.
By using this site or/and our services, you consent to the Processing of your Personal Data as described in this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy can be updated at any time. Changes will be communicated via the Ministry’s website and the Ministry’s Social Media pages.
Table of Contents
- Definitions used in this Policy
- Data protection principles we follow
- What rights do you have regarding your Personal Data
- What Personal Data we gather about you
- How we use your Personal Data
- Who else has access to your Personal Data
- How we secure your data
- Information about cookies
- Contact information
- Definitions used in this Policy
Personal Data – Personal Data or Personal Information includes information about an identifiable individual, such as contact information, financial and account information, age and gender, identification numbers, income and employment information. This may include information provided by the individual through the process of applying for a service or information collected by the Ministry of Public Utilities from the use of its services, third parties or public sources and includes information in any file types or formats.
Processing – any operation or set of operations, which is performed on Personal Data or on sets of Personal Data.
Data subject – a natural person whose Personal Data is being Processed.
Child – a natural person under 16 years of age.
We/us (either capitalized or not) – The Ministry of Public Utilities and its Divisions.
- Data Protection Principles we follow
We promise to follow the following data protection principles:
- Processing is lawful, fair, and transparent. Our Processing activities have lawful grounds. We always consider your rights before Processing Personal Data. We will provide you information regarding Processing upon request.
- Processing is limited to the purpose. Our Processing activities fit the purpose for which Personal Data was gathered.
- Processing is done with minimal data. We only gather and Process the minimal amount of Personal Data required for any purpose.
- Processing is limited with a time period. We will not store your personal data for longer than needed.
- We will do our best to ensure the accuracy of data when application for services are being conducted.
- We will do our best to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of data.
- What rights do you have regarding your Personal Data
The Data Subject has the following rights:
- Right to information – meaning you have to right to know whether your Personal Data is being processed; what data is gathered, from where it is obtained and why and by whom it is processed.
- Right to access – meaning you have the right to access the data collected from/about you. This includes your right to request and obtain a copy of your Personal Data gathered.
- Right to rectification – meaning you have the right to request rectification or erasure of your Personal Data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Right to erasure – meaning in certain circumstances you can request for your Personal Data to be erased from our records.
- Right to restrict processing – meaning where certain conditions apply, you have the right to restrict the Processing of your Personal Data.
- Right to object to processing – meaning in certain cases you have the right to object to Processing of your Personal Data, for example in the case of direct marketing.
- Right to object to automated Processing – meaning you have the right to object to automated Processing, including profiling; and not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated Processing. This right you can exercise whenever there is an outcome of the profiling that produces legal effects concerning or significantly affecting you.
- Right to data portability – you have the right to obtain your Personal Data in a machine-readable format or if it is feasible, as a direct transfer from one Processor to another.
- Right to lodge a complaint – in the event that we refuse your request under the Rights of Access, we will provide you with a reason as to why. If you are not satisfied with the way your request has been handled please contact us.
- Right for the help of supervisory authority – meaning you have the right for the help of a supervisory authority and the right for other legal remedies such as claiming damages.
- What Personal Data we gather about you
Information you have provided us with
This might be your e-mail address, name, billing address, home address etc. – mainly information that is necessary for delivering you a product/service or to enhance your customer experience with us. We save the information you provide us with in order for you to comment or perform other activities on the website. This information includes, for example, your name and e-mail address.
Information automatically collected about you
This includes information that is automatically stored by cookies and other session tools, for example, your IP address. This information is used to improve your customer experience. When you use our services or look at the contents of our website, your activities may be logged.
Information from our partners
We gather information from our agencies, divisions, as well as our trusted partners with confirmation that they have legal grounds to share that information with us. This is either information you have provided them directly with or that they have gathered about you on other legal grounds.
Publicly available information
We might gather information about you that is publicly available.
- How we use your Personal Data
We use your Personal Data in order to:
- Provide our service to you. This includes for example following up on enquiries; providing you with other programs and services that you have requested; communicating with you in relation to those programs and services; communicating and interacting with you; and notifying you of changes to any services.
- Enhance your customer experience;
- Fulfil an obligation under law or contract.
We use your Personal Data on legitimate grounds and/or with your Consent.
On the grounds of entering into a contract or fulfilling contractual obligations, we Process your Personal Data for the following purposes:
- To identify you;
- To provide you a service;
- To understand your needs;
- To determine the suitability of our Services for you;
- To determine your eligibility for our Services;
- To set up, manage and offer Services that meet your needs;
- To provide you with on-going services;
- To provide you with various options for applying for and accessing Services;
- To meet our legal and regulatory requirements, including the requirements of any self-regulatory organization to which we belong;
- To help us collect a debt or enforce an obligation owed to us by you;
- To manage and assess our risks.
On the ground of legitimate interest, we Process your Personal Data for the following purposes:
- To send you personalized communication (from us and/or our agencies and carefully selected partners);
- To administer and analyse our client base (engagement and activity history) in order to improve the quality, variety and availability of programs/ services offered/provided;
- To conduct questionnaires concerning client satisfaction;
- Operation and improvement of our services;
- Provision of customer support; and
- Protection from fraud or security threats.
With your consent we Process your Personal Data for the following purposes:
- To send you newsletters and other communication (from us and/or our agencies and carefully selected partners);
- To respond to you regarding your qualification for services requested;
- Other purposes for which we have asked your consent.
We Process your Personal Data in order to fulfil obligations rising from law and/or we may use your Personal Data for options provided by law. We reserve the right to anonymise Personal Data gathered and to use any such data. We will use data outside the scope of this Policy only when it is anonymised.
How Long Do We Retain Personal Data?
We save any information gathered about you for as long as needed for accounting purposes or other obligations deriving from law and or policies of Trinidad and Tobago.
We might process your Personal Data for additional purposes that are not mentioned here, but are compatible with the original purpose for which the data was gathered. To do this, we will ensure that:
- The link between purposes, context and nature of Personal Data is suitable for further Processing;
- The further Processing would not harm your interests; and
- There would be appropriate safeguards for Processing.
We do not share your Personal Data with strangers. Personal Data about you is in some cases provided to our trusted partners in order to either make providing the service to you possible or to enhance your customer experience. If you apply for access to any of the Ministry’s programs or services, we may share your data with other supporting Ministries, for the reason of further verifying that the customer is qualified for the aforementioned services. In addition, we may share your data with our connected third parties in adherence to their respective privacy policies.
Our connected third parties include:
- YouTube / Google
- TTConnect / Live Chat
- Mailjet
We disclose your Personal Data to third parties or public officials when we are legally obliged to do so. We might disclose your Personal Data to third parties if you have consented to it or if there are other legal grounds for it.
- How we secure your data
We do our best to keep your Personal Data safe. We use safe protocols for communication and transferring data (such as HTTPS). We use anonymising where suitable. We scan and monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks. We use industry standard intrusion detection and prevention tools such as firewalls, anti-malware and antivirus software.
The information that we collect is used strictly for MPU’s purposes. Our employees’ access to your records is restricted and limited to facilitate the business or provide ongoing customer service. We permit authorized employees, trained in the proper handling of Personal Information, to have access to your records on a need to know basis and only for these purposes.
We have adopted and implemented physical, electronic and procedural safeguards and security practices to protect your information against loss, theft and unauthorized access.
To mitigate against data breaches and unauthorized access of your Personal Information, we observe and enforce industry best practice for the management and securing of Personal Information. We promise to inform you via our website or social media pages, if your data has been exposed and we will notify the relevant authorities. We will also notify you if there is a threat to your rights or interests. We will do everything we reasonably can to prevent security breaches and to assist authorities should any breaches occur.
If you have an account with us, note that you have to keep your username and password a secret.
Children
We do not intend to collect or knowingly collect information from children. We define a child as anyone within the jurisdiction of Trinidad and Tobago who is under the age of 16. Our programs and services are not targeted specifically to children. However, children may access our website to get information on our services for another person.
We use cookies and/or similar technologies to analyse customer behaviour, administer the website, track users’ movements on the site, and to collect information about users. This is done in order to personalise and enhance your experience with us.
A cookie is a tiny text file, created by the website that is stored on your computer. It does not collect personally identifiable data. Cookies store information that is used to help make sites work. Only we can access the cookies created by our website. You can control your cookies at the browser level. Choosing to disable cookies may hinder your use of certain functions.
We use both session cookies and persistent cookies on our website. The benefit of enabling cookies is that it will allow your use of MPU’s website to be faster, easier and tailored to your interests.
We use cookies for the following purposes:
- Necessary cookies – these cookies are required for you to be able to use some important features or services on our website, such as logging in. These cookies don’t collect any personal information.
- Functionality cookies – are used to record your choices and settings regarding our Services, maintain your preferences over time and recognize you when you return to our Services. These cookies provide functionality that makes using our service more convenient and makes providing more personalised features possible. For example, they might remember your name and e-mail in comment forms so you don’t have to re-enter this information next time when commenting.
- Performance/Analytical cookies – Allow us to understand how visitors use our website and Services such as collecting information about the number of visitors to the Site, what pages visitors view on our Site and how long visitors are viewing pages on the Site. These cookies are used to track the use and performance of our website and services
You can remove cookies stored in your computer via your browser settings. Alternatively, you can control some 3rd party cookies by using a privacy enhancement platform. For more information about cookies, visit allaboutcookies.org.
We use Google Analytics to measure traffic on our website. Google has their own Privacy Policy, which you can review here. If you would like to opt out of tracking by Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics opt-out page.
- Contact Information
Supervisory Authority
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to make change to this Privacy Policy at any time. Notifications to these changes will be communicated via The Ministry’s official Social Media pages, and the Ministry’s official website.
Last modification was made 28th June, 2022.
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