Website and Mobile Application Use Privacy Policy

March 15, 2024
Who We Are:
Blue Water Area Transportation Commission (“BWATC,” “Blue Water Area Transit,” “BWAT”) is the public transit system in St. Clair County, serving the City of Port Huron, Port Huron Twp., Fort Gratiot Twp., Burtchville Twp., the City of Marysville, and St. Clair County. To find out more about us, please visit our website at https://bwbus.com.
This Privacy Policy is incorporated by reference into the Blue Water Area Transportation Commission Terms of Use. The terms “BWATC OnDemand,” “BWAT,” “The Wave,” “Via,” “Company,” “we,” and “us” includes Blue Water Area Transportation Commission Multi-Modal Transportation System (“Blue Water Area Transportation Commission”), Via
Transportation, Inc., and our affiliates and subsidiaries.
This policy explains how the Blue Water Area Transportation Commission and Via may:
• Collect,
• Use, and
• Disclose information we obtain through the Service.
The “Service” means any website, mobile application, or Internet service under Via or Blue Water Area Transportation Commission’s Control, whether partial or otherwise, in connection with providing Via or Blue Water Area Transportation Commission’s online platform. Each reservation a user makes with Blue Water Area Transportation Commission on the Service is a “Reservation,” and each ride taken through a Reservation is a “Ride.” “Member” means any such individual who uses the Service to make Reservations and takes Rides.

What Information do we collect?
If you are visiting https://bwbus.com to browse through our website, download information, or read pages, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information will not identify you personally.
We do not use this data for commercial purposes, nor do we distribute, in any way, any of the information we gather.
The only information we automatically collect and store is the following information about your visit:
1. Fully Qualified Domain Name (Domain Name), of your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and/or your computer, if your computer has a domain name specifically assigned to it.
2. IP Address (the number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the web) from which you access our website.
3. Browser Type (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or Opera)
4. Operating System you use to access our site (e.g., Windows OS, Macintosh OS, or Linux)
5. Date and Time you accessed our site.
6. Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the page you started from (e.g., google.com) that linked you to our Web site, if you did not access our page by typing in https://bwbus.com.

We use this information to help make our site more useful to visitors.
Learning about the number of visitors to our site and the types of technologies they use helps us to improve the Web site and the services we offer. In order to accomplish these goals, we are constantly conducting statistical analysis of the data we collect and are aggressively improving our hardware and software to meet the public needs.

Using Blue Water Area Transportation Commission’s Online Forms
How Voluntarily Provided Information is Used:
We collect information from you when you subscribe to our text alerts, apply for a job, contact us, or use any of our online forms.
If you voluntarily send us information, i.e., you fill out a form requesting information, it will be used for governmental purposes only. These purposes could include, without limitation, helping us respond to your request for information; to look into a problem you are bringing to our attention; or to keep lists of interested people (e.g., prospective vendors or employees). We will not rent or sell information identifying you as a particular person (e.g., name, address, or phone number) to third parties without your expressed permission. We will also not disclose credit card information, except for purposes related to your credit card transaction, with your permission, or as required by Michigan Law.
Any of the information that we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:
• To personalize your experience: Your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs.
• To improve our website: We continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you.
• To improve customer service: Your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs.
• To process forms: When using forms on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and other personnel information appropriate to the form. Your information whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason, without your consent, other than the expressed purpose of the form submitted.
• To send email confirmations: The email address you provide in our online forms will only be used to send you information and confirmations.
• To send text alerts: If you decide to opt into our text alert list, you will receive text alerts that may include updates and service-related information.
How do we protect your information?
We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and encrypted into a data base, accessible by those authorized with special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential.
Do we use cookies?
Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser, that enables the sites or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information.
If you use any forms on our site (e.g., employment application or standing order form), you will be saving your name, email address and other information in cookies.
Embedded content from other websites:
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g., videos, images, or articles). These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embedded third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with the content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Do we disclose any information to outside parties?
Blue Water Area Transportation Commission does not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include the trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website or conducting our business, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law; enforce our site policies; or protect ours or other’s rights, property, and safety.
Third Party Links:
At Blue Water Area Transportation Commission’s discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection:
Protecting the privacy of minor children is especially important. For that reason, we do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 18 without verifiable parental consent. If you are under 18 years of age, please do not access our site or app at any time or manner without parental consent.
Online Privacy Policy Only:
This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website or app and does not apply to information collected offline.
Your Consent:
By using our site, you consent to our privacy policy.
Changes to our Privacy Policy:
If changes are made to our privacy policy, changes will be made and put on our website at www.bwbus.com.
Contacting Us
If you have questions or concerns regarding this policy, please contact Blue Water Area Transportation Commission, Attn: Community Relations Manager, 2021 Lapeer Ave., Port Huron, MI 48060.