Updated: August 1, 2020
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In keeping with our commitment to be the most trusted provider of communications and entertainment services ("Subscription Services"), we are letting you know how we will collect and use your Personally Identifiable Information (defined below) in connection with Subscription Services. We will give you clear, prior notice of, and in some circumstances the right to choose, how your Personally Identifiable Information will be used as described below in this Residential Privacy Notice ("Notice") or otherwise prior to or at the point of collection.
This Notice is limited to Personally Identifiable Information collected in connection with our Subscription Services. Other policies and notices may apply to other data collected outside of our Subscription Services. For example, see our Online Privacy Policy for our data practices related to web sites and mobile apps that are not part of the Subscription Services.
Your Information
In providing our Subscription Services, we sometimes collect personally identifiable information, such as subscriber name, service and mailing addresses, telephone numbers, social security number, driver's license number, email address, billing and payment records (including credit card and bank account numbers used to pay for our services), subscriber credit information, or other information that potentially could be used to identify, contact, or locate you ("Personally Identifiable Information"). We may also collect demographic and usage information about you and other subscribers such as information about premium services, general location, demographics, the services you have chosen to receive, information about equipment and devices connected to our cable system and network, the number and location of cable outlets, maintenance and complaint information, including customer correspondence and communications records, and information regarding maintenance, repair, services, equipment, software, usage, settings and preferences to aid in customer support and in recommendations for you. To the extent such other information is directly linked to Personally Identifiable Information, it will be considered Personally Identifiable Information. We and third parties may create aggregate and/or deidentified information (i.e., information from which personally identifiable elements have been removed or modified), which is not considered Personally Identifiable Information.
Cable Television Services
We may use various technologies, including the cable set-top box, our websites and mobile apps, to collect information about your Subscription Services video selections and activities. We treat this information as required by applicable law. We may use this information to make recommendations to you and for other service-related purposes, such as to market new or additional services to you. If available, we provide an option for you to opt-out of video recommendations based on your viewing history through the settings menu on your set-top box or in the TV app.
We collect viewing information, as described above, and may combine it with demographic and other information. Also, we may use and share it as set forth in the "Use and Sharing" section below. Additional Personally Identifiable Information is collected in providing some types of cable television services, such as pay-per view, interactive, entertainment-on-demand and devices we provide to you and we may use and share it as set forth in the "Use and Sharing" section below. For more information on cable television privacy, see the "Cable Television Protection of Subscriber Privacy" notice below.
Internet Services
Like most Internet service providers, we automatically collect and store Internet Protocol (IP) addresses (an identifier given to your connection while online), the volume of and types of data transmitted and received through your service, device types used, Internet connection performance, modem MAC addresses, and connection dates and times. We may also collect and store other usage statistics, such as the volume of data transmitted by certain protocols, devices and services, to help us understand how our network is used, to give you insight into your household Internet usage, and to improve the Subscription Services we offer. We monitor our network and collect telemetry and other data to measure the quality of our Subscription Services including the quality of the Cox Subscription Services in your home, and to help us troubleshoot and diagnose service issues you are experiencing. If you are accessing the Internet away from your home through a Wi-Fi connection provided by Cox or its partners, we may also collect the device MAC ID, device type, location of the access point, duration and session information.
Mobile Applications and Websites
We offer mobile applications ("apps") and websites to customers to access certain Subscription Services. Some of our mobile apps and websites are governed by our Online Privacy Policy; provided, however, this Notice governs your Subscription Services regardless of how you access them.
Telephone Services
In providing telephone services, we collect usage information, including calls made and received and their duration. We treat this information as private as required by applicable law. We do not share these records with others, unless required by law or legal process. Except when required by law or legal process, we do not listen to or record your calls to third parties. We do, however, monitor and record calls with Cox customer care agents for quality and training purposes.
Cox Homelife
Home security and automation services offered by Cox are subject to this Notice and the terms, conditions and privacy provisions contained in the applicable home security service agreement.
Personally Identifiable Information
We may use and share Subscription Services Personally Identifiable Information to operate and improve our Subscription Services, and related business purposes as permitted or required by applicable law or legal process, including, for example, for the following activities: sales, installation, training, operations, administration, advertising, marketing, support, development of new products and services, data analytics, network management, fraud prevention, identity verification, maintenance, customer care, communications with you, billing and collection. We may combine Personally Identifiable Information with demographic and other information for purposes consistent with this Notice. We take reasonable precautions to identify you or persons you have authorized when we are contacted about your Cox account.
Sharing Restrictions
We collect information about the TV shows and channels your household watches on different devices to help us provide our services to you and to provide us with a better understanding of how different networks, channels and shows are performing. We share this information with TV networks and with companies that help advertisers make decisions on where to place their ads, but we do not share this information in a manner in which the recipient can identify you. We also combine TV viewing data with additional information we obtain from other sources, including public databases, advertisers, and data broker companies, so we can tailor advertising to make it more relevant to your household and to improve its effectiveness. If you prefer that we not share your household viewership information with third parties other than those needed to help us provide our Subscription Services, or show you targeted ads, you can opt-out by visiting the preferences center in My Account. Please note, if you opt-out you will still receive TV advertising from Cox, but it will be generic and not targeted to your interests. When you use an interactive service to participate in or to order a product or service, you are sharing your contact information with the appropriate party. As explained above, we also use and share viewing information for certain purposes.
Vendors
We sometimes use vendors in providing Subscription Services to you and may share Personally Identifiable Information with our vendors for these purposes. We require these vendors to maintain reasonable security of this Personally Identifiable Information they process. For more information on cable television privacy, see the "Cable Television Protection of Subscriber Privacy" notice below.
Telephone Services
At Cox retail locations, telephone customers must show a government-issued photo ID before we can discuss your information. If you, or anyone authorized by you, make certain changes to your telephone account, Cox will send you notice to confirm that you made these changes. If you suspect that someone may have made unauthorized changes to your account, contact Customer Care at the telephone number on your bill. If we discover any unauthorized access to your telephone account, we will send you notice, in keeping with applicable law. We do not share your call records with others, unless required by law or legal process.
Our telephone customers can designate their listings as non-published for print or electronic directories or for directory assistance services. We do not publish these directories and are not responsible for their content or accuracy. Because of the complexity of this process and the involvement of others, errors sometimes occur. Our telephone services are subject to tariff or contractual terms that limit our liability in the event of listing errors.
For more information on telephone privacy, see the "Customer Proprietary Network Information" notice below.
Internet Services and Email
Unless addressed to us and required by law or legal process, we do not read the contents of your online communications, such as email. We may, however, retain and provide such communications if we are legally required to do so. For the email accounts that are provided by us, we generally scan incoming and outgoing email traffic electronically to identify and filter out likely spam and for security and fraud prevention purposes. We may use email to send transactional, informational, or relationship messages related to your Subscription Services. If you prefer, you may opt-out of marketing emails to a specific address by notifying us in response to the email you receive, through the "unsubscribe" link found at the bottom of the email. We monitor our network for security and fraud prevention purposes. We may communicate with you online, including in browser notifications, concerning maintenance, security and fraud prevention issues, as well as offerings from Cox that you may be interested in. We also provide location-based online advertising based on your general geographic area and nine-digit ZIP code, similar to direct mail you receive through the U.S. Mail. Visit Location-Based Advertising.
Spam
We try to block incoming and outgoing spam using a variety of methods. You can help by preventing unauthorized access to your computer. You can forward unwanted spam to spamreport@cox.net and phishing scams to phishingreport@cox.net to help update our filters. We will never ask you to send personal information to us by unsecured email.
Special Exceptions
We reserve the right to use and/or disclose Personally Identifiable Information if we have a good faith belief it is necessary to: (1) comply with the law or legal process; (2) protect our network, rights or property or those of others; (3) respond to fraud, abuse or unauthorized reception or access; (4) enforce our Policies posted on Cox.com; or (5) act in an emergency to protect your safety or that of another person. See also the "Law Enforcement and Legal Requests" section below. We may also use and/or disclose Personally Identifiable Information as you may consent, as explained at the time of collection, or as otherwise not prohibited by applicable law and not inconsistent with this Notice or any notice given by us at the time of collection. Further, we may disclose and/or transfer Personally Identifiable Information in connection with or during negotiations of any proposed or actual financing of our business, or merger, purchase, sale, joint venture, or any other type of acquisition or business combination of all or any portion of Cox assets, or transfer of all or a portion of Cox’s business to another company, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding ("Corporate Transactions").
Our Subscription Services may include or link to third-party websites, apps, locations, platforms, code (e.g., plug-ins, application programming interfaces ("API"), and software development kits ("SDKs")), or other services ("Third-Party Service(s)"). These Third-Party Services may use their own cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technology to independently collect information about you and may solicit Personally Identifiable Information and other data from you.
Third-Party Services include third-party content provider apps and links that enable you to access Third-Party Services via our Subscription Services ("Content Services"). When you access those Third-Party Services in this manner, you are interacting directly with the Third-Party Service even if you have not closed out of our Subscription Services. Examples include when you access any of the following content providers’ services while on our Subscription Services: Netflix, Pandora, Amazon Prime Video, and other third-party apps providing content. In addition, when accessing content networks directly via our Subscription Services, the content network programmers ("Third-Party Networks") may use SDKs and other technologies to directly collect information from and about you, in which case they are acting as Third-Party Services providers. Third-Party Services may also include third-party audience measurement services. We do not consider these third-party data collections to be a sale or disclosure by us.
In addition, certain functionalities of our Subscription Services permit interactions that you initiate between our Subscription Services and certain Third-Party Services, such as third-party social networks ("Social Features"). Examples of Social Features include: "liking" or "sharing" Cox’s content; logging in to our Subscription Services using your Third-Party Service account (e.g., using Facebook Connect to sign-in to our service); and to otherwise connect our Subscription Services to a Third-Party Service (e.g., to pull or push information to or from the service). If you use Social Features, and potentially other Third-Party Services, information you post or provide access to may be publicly displayed on our Subscription Services or by the Third-Party Service that you use. Also, both Cox and the third-party may have access to certain information about you and your use of our Subscription Services and any Third-Party Service.
When you use Third-Party Services, including Social Features, Content Services and Third-Party Networks, Cox is merely facilitating your access to those services, and you are subject to the data collection and use practices and privacy policies of the Third-Party Services and Cox is not responsible for their data practices. Cox encourages you to familiarize yourself with and consult their privacy policies and terms of use.
Taking Proper Precautions
Maintaining the security of your personal computer is an important way to protect your privacy and to help us protect our network and customers. Following our policies posted on Cox.com and maintaining your antivirus software, firewall, wireless network security and your operating system can help prevent harm and potential theft of data. You should regularly back up your computer to preserve your files, including messages you want to keep, and change your login password regularly. Always be sure you know with whom you are dealing before clicking on an Internet link or giving personal information. When communications enter the Internet, it is possible for outside parties to access them. Since we cannot control websites or services operated by third parties, you should review their terms of service and privacy policies before use. We may take protective action related to your Internet service or contact you to help with security issues we identify, such as malware infections. Unsecured Wi-Fi home networks can make you vulnerable to a number of problems, such as unauthorized persons using your Internet service. We monitor our network and scan incoming and outgoing cox.com email messages to filter out likely spam, harmful messages, viruses, malware, spyware and related threats that could harm your equipment, the network or others. We may also share network traffic data, including IP addresses, with trusted third parties who work to protect ISPs and the Internet from botnets and other threats.
Information We Must Disclose
We regularly receive legal requests for customer information from government and law enforcement personnel. We also receive discovery requests in civil cases. We cooperate by providing the information required by law. Cox does not volunteer customer information or give access to customer communications to law enforcement or others, except in the "Special Exceptions" detailed in the “Use and Sharing” section above or if we have a good faith belief that an emergency involving a danger of death or serious physical injury requires disclosure. Many criminal subpoenas require that we not disclose or notify you of the request. Due to this fact and the volume of requests we receive, we do not assume any duty to notify you of receipt of any legal requests.
Internet Information
We sometimes receive subpoenas for your identity in connection with use of your Internet service for apparent copyright infringement or other civil matters. Files shared over "peer-to-peer" services often include your IP address, and if we receive a subpoena, we will provide the Personally Identifiable Information associated with that IP address. Law enforcement can also obtain your Subscription Services Personally Identifiable Information, including details about your Internet use and the content of communications, from us through a warrant or similar authority.
Telephone Information
Law enforcement must obtain a warrant or other similar authority to use a telephone wiretap or a device to capture dialing information. Law enforcement, and others, can also subpoena or otherwise compel us through legal process to provide your Personally Identifiable Information, including your telephone account and call record information.
Cable Television Programming Selections
Video programming selections linked to your Personally Identifiable Information may generally be obtained from us by third parties only under court order and after notice is sent to you and you are given the opportunity to object in court. For more information on cable television privacy, see the "Cable Television Protection of Subscriber Privacy" notice below.
Child Pornography
We work closely with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other groups to eliminate child pornography on the Internet. The law requires us to report any evidence we learn of concerning apparent child pornography and we may share your Personally Identifiable Information in connection therewith.
Our Subscription Services are intended for use by a general audience and account holders must be of the age of majority or emancipated minors. We do not intend to or knowingly collect personal information (as the term is defined by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA")) from children under the age of 13. If you believe your child may have provided us with their personal information, you can contact us at the address on your bill and we will delete their personal information to the extent required by COPPA. We treat information concerning Subscription Services provided for family use as that of the account holder. You can find more information about protecting children's privacy by clicking on "Take Charge" on Cox.com or visiting https://www.ftc.gov.
California residents have certain additional privacy rights detailed in our California Consumer Privacy Notice.
You may check the accuracy of your Personally Identifiable Information (name, address, contact information, payment methods, account number, SSN, driver’s license, etc.) in your account by contacting a Customer Care representative. You may also examine your Personally Identifiable Information and advise us of any errors you believe we should correct, upon prior request and at your own cost, during business hours at the Cox office listed on your bill. You can enforce your legal privacy rights concerning our collection, use and sharing of your Personally Identifiable Information. Among your remedies is the right to bring a civil action and seek damages, reasonable attorneys' fees and other litigation costs under 47 U.S.C. Section 551.
Other terms and conditions affect our service offerings, including the online privacy policies for our websites, service contracts, our Acceptable Use Policy for High Speed Internet service, tariffs and the terms of use for our websites and apps. We intend this Notice to supplement these documents. Changes in our service offerings or the law may cause us to make changes to this and other policies from time to time. We will post any changes at Cox.com, along with the effective date of the changes.
For more information about our network management practices, please read our Internet Services Disclosures at https://www.cox.com/aboutus/policies/internet-service-disclosures.html.
If you subscribe to Cox telephone service or any other Cox service classified as a "telecommunications service," federal law creates certain additional privacy protections and use restrictions with respect to a category of information known as "customer proprietary network information" or "CPNI." CPNI refers to the quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location, and amount of your use of a telecommunications service that is made available to us solely by virtue of our relationship with you, as a customer. CPNI also includes information in your bills pertaining to your telephone service. CPNI does not include subscriber list information, such as your name, address and telephone number or other information that has been published in any directory format, or information that does not identify you personally. Examples of CPNI include information about your phone service found on your monthly telephone bill, the technical characteristics of your Subscription Services, the class of Subscription Services to which you subscribe, your current telephone charges, your long distance and local service billing records, directory assistance charges, usage data, and calling records.
You have a right, and we have a duty, under federal law, to protect the confidentiality of CPNI. Cox does not sell your CPNI, and your CPNI will not be disclosed to third parties outside of Cox and our affiliates, agents, joint venture partners, vendors, and independent contractors, except as required by law or detailed here.
We may use your telephone CPNI to offer you our communications-related products or services that may enhance products or services to which you already subscribe. Unless you tell us otherwise within thirty days of your first receipt of this CPNI notice, we may also use your telephone CPNI to offer you communications-related products or services that are outside of the same category of Subscription Services to which you already subscribe. You can grant, restrict or withdraw the right for us to use your CPNI for these marketing purposes at any time at https://www.cox.com/privacyrequest. When you contact us, we may ask for your consent to use your CPNI in marketing our services to you at that time. This consent applies only for the duration of the call or Internet session. We will not use your CPNI for any other marketing purposes without your permission. Restricting our use of your CPNI will not affect your Subscription Services. If you previously contacted us to approve or deny our use of your CPNI, we will continue to honor your request and you do not need to contact us again.
We consider the privacy of our subscribers to be very important, and we are committed to keeping nonpublic Personally Identifiable Information about our subscribers secure and confidential. Your privacy rights under federal law relating to our cable television services are summarized below:
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