Privacy Policy

The Energy Regulation Board is a statutory body mandated to regulate Zambia’s energy sector in line with the provisions of the Energy Regulation Act Cap 436 of the Laws of Zambia.

This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) describes how the Energy Regulation Board (also referred to herein as “ERB”, “us” or “we”) handles personal information collected from users of this website, http://offgrid.gov.zm (the “Site”). It will also inform you as to how we look after your personal information and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

BY USING THIS SITE, YOU ARE CONFIRMING THAT YOU HAVE READ, UNDERSTAND AND AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE POLICY TERMS, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE SITE.

We may update this Policy at any time. Any changes to the Policy will become effective upon the date of our posting of the revised Policy on this Site. If you visit the Site following the effective date of the revised Policy, you will be deemed to have accepted the Policy’s updated terms. This Policy supplements other notices and privacy policies applicable to the site and is not intended to override them.

I. What Information Do We Collect?
The information we collect through the Site includes “Personally Identifiable Information” (or “PII”), which is information that identifies or may be used to identify you as an individual. We collect this information when you voluntarily provide it, such as when you use our contact form. This information may include the following:
A. Identity Data, including first name and last name.
B. Contact and Profile Data, including username, password, email address, job title, and organizational affiliation.
C. Technical Data, including browser type, browser version, operating system, internet service provider, screen resolution, language, location, device category and other technology on the devices you use to access the Site. The Site also automatically collects information about you that is generally not PII (“Non-PII”) but relates to your use of the Site, including cookies. Cookies are small data files that a website requests that the user’s web browser place on the storage of the device through which a visitor connects to the website. You can set your browser to accept all cookies, to reject all cookies, or to notify you whenever a cookie is offered so that you can decide each time whether to accept it. However, refusing a cookie may in some cases preclude you from using, or negatively affect the display or function of, a website or certain areas or features of a website. For more information about cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.

The Site uses anonymous randomly generated session cookies for authentication, security and user-experience enhancing reasons.

The Site uses Google Analytics which uses its own set of cookies for site visitor tracking. In addition to its own cookies information, Google Analytics collects technical information sent by the user’s browser (or other user agent software) including language preferences, information about the user agent software, page URL and referrer URL (the page where the user found and linked a link that lead to the current page), and the truncated/anonymized external IP of the user’s network. The Site respects “Do Not Track” browser signals by entirely disabling the Google Analytics data collection code for all such requests.

By using the Site, you are deemed to unambiguously agree to its use of any cookies that you do not disable.

II. How Do We Use the Information Collected?

A. PII. We may use the PII that we collect about you for any or all of the following purposes:
A.1. Responding to Requests. To respond to your requests, such as to answer your questions sent through the “Contact” form on the Site.
A.2. User convenience. To make the site easier for you to use by not having to enter information like your details more than once.
A.3. Site Purposes. We use PII about you to support the purposes of the Site, such as to help us improve the Site, or to help us create Site content areas most relevant to you, including by requesting feedback, and for related internal purposes such as data analysis, enhancing the Site, and identifying usage trends. We may also use information collected for detecting, preventing, and responding to fraud, intellectual property infringement, violations of our Terms of Use, violations of law, or other misuse of the Site.
B. Other Information. We use Non-PII to help us improve the Site, such as by analyzing Site visitor trends, including usage of certain pages or functions on the Site. We may also use Non-PII for other purposes, but if any such use involved combining the Non-PII with any data so that it became identifiable to you or another person, we would then treat it as PII in accordance with this Policy.

III. With Whom Do We Share the Information Collected? Whenever we use other organizations to provide support services, we may share the information collected from Site visitors, subject to the organizations’ agreement to conform to our privacy standards and/or allow us to audit them for compliance. In addition:

A. Operational Functions. To fulfill ERB’s mandate, we share PII with third parties who provide us with services, such as those entities that assist us with technology, data analysis, or similar services. We do not share PII with unaffiliated third parties for their own marketing purposes.
B. Remedies and Enforcement. We may use or disclose PII as we believe to be appropriate in the following circumstances: (i) to enforce the terms and conditions for use of the Site, including this Policy; (ii) to protect and defend our rights and property; (iii) to protect the interests of ERB or others; (iv) as required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena or other legal process, or to comply with government reporting obligations; and (v) to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain. In addition, we may share aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns, as well as de-identified information, with third parties.

IV. How Can You Manage PII We Maintain?

If you would like to review, correct, update or remove PII about you that you previously provided to us, you may a request at the contact information listed below. Please note that we are not responsible for correcting, updating or deleting any information in the databases of third parties.

V. How Does ERB Protect and Maintain PII Collected Through the Site?

A. Security. We use reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures to help protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. However, no information system or data transmission over the Internet or data storage system can be guaranteed to be fully secure. We limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
B. Data Retention. We may retain PII about you for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Policy, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. Google Analytics will retain data for 26 months.
C. Other Websites. The Site may contain links to websites operated by parties not affiliated with ERB. These linked sites are not under ERB’s control and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the contents of any such unaffiliated parties or their websites. If you provide PII through any such third-party website, the PII will be collected by, and controlled by the privacy policy (if any) of, that third party. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with the privacy policies and practices of any such third parties, which are not governed by this Policy.

VI. Collection of PII by Others Through Our Site.

We allow Google Analytics to collect information about Site visitors in order to provide analytics services, however we do not grant access to user’s full IP, nor any other PII, and technically prohibit Google Analytics from collecting any data for “Do Not Track”-marked requests.

VII. Use of the Site by Children.

This Site is not directed to children under the age of thirteen (13), and we do not knowingly collect PII from any children under age 13. If you are under age 13, please do not submit any PII to us.

VIII. International Transfers of Information.

By using the Site, you are deemed to understand and consent to the collection and processing of your PII in Zambia or elsewhere. As such, information collected through the Site may be processed and stored outside of your home country, which may not provide the same level protection for your personal information as your home country, and may be available to that country’s government or its agencies under a lawful order made in that country. In addition, we may transfer your information outside your home country to our affiliates, business partners, and service providers located in other countries for use in connection with this Site. By using the Site, you consent to such transfer to, and processing in, these other countries.

IX. Contacting Us.

If you have any questions or concerns related to this Privacy Policy or the information practices of the Site, or if you wish to change or inquire about the information that you have provided to us through the Site, please send us an e-mail at erb@erb.org.zm This Privacy Policy was updated on 13 August 2019.