Natural Resources Canada and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Security and Privacy Notice

Portfolio Manager background

Portfolio Manager is the industry standard for benchmarking commercial building energy efficiency, with more than 260,000 buildings benchmarked as of the end of 2012. It was launched by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as part of its ENERGY STAR program, in 1999. In September 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Natural Resources Canada entered into an agreement to expand features available to Canadian Portfolio Manager users. The tool went live in the summer of 2013, giving Canadian users the ability to seamlessly use all functions of Portfolio Manager, as well as all web services to exchange data electronically with the tool.

Security

The security of your account information is very important to the both Natural Resources Canada and the Environmental Protection Agency. Natural Resources Canada is responsible for the management of data for buildings located in Canada. The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for the management of data for buildings located in the U.S. and in other countries (except Canada). The web application has been designed with the following security features:

Secure, Password Protected Access – Upon registration, you establish your own account name and password. No information within your registered account will be examined without your express written or verbal permission.

Secure Communications – All building data and messages communicated over the web are secured by Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to protect data transmissions. No information is transferred openly over the web.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, Portfolio Manager employs commercial software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.

Privacy

Portfolio Manager utilizes "session" cookies. "Session" cookies are used to distinguish one user from another as they navigate through a tool or application; the cookie disappears when a web user terminates a web session and closes the browser. They are not used to save personal information.

Where identifying information is collected in Portfolio Manager (such as your name, contact information, building and energy meter data, etc.), it is only used for the stated purpose of the tool or system you are using, such as participating in a building competition, applying for certification, etc. In all cases, such information is never sold to third parties, and we do not track or record information about individuals and their visits.

Information collected may be used for the purpose of identifying industry trends, evaluating the reach and impact of Portfolio Manager, or to gauge general usage statistics for the betterment of the site as a whole.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with U.S. National Archives and Records Administration guidelines. For Canadian users, the retention and disposal of records created in Portfolio Manager is governed by the Canadian federal Library and Archives of Canada Act.

Information provided by Canadian users within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager website is subject to protection by the U.S. Federal Information Security Management Act. Personally identifiable information that is entered into Portfolio Manager is collected by Natural Resources Canada under the authority of sections 21 to 24 of the Energy Efficiency Act, is not shared with third parties, and is subject to the Canadian federal Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act.

If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please send your comments to Natural Resources Canada by e-mail at info.services@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca or by phone at 1-877-360-5500.

You can also contact www.energystar.gov/BuildingsHelp for more information.