Personally Identifiable Information

You decide whether you wish to provide us with Personally Identifiable Information. We have structured our websites so that you may visit us, review a range of information about transportation services including schedules and updates, all without revealing your identity or providing any Personally Identifiable Information. Please note, however, that in order to use certain services offered by the Metro, you must register and provide us with Personally Identifiable Information.

Online Forms

We may request personal information when you submit comments on Metro service or when you submit videos in participating in a survey, poll, blog or live chat. For example, visitors are asked to take a survey on the Our Next LA website.

Email Subscriptions

You may also be asked to provide information when subscribing to an email newsletter, email alerts (through Salesforce Email Studio, WordPress). This personal information may be in the form of your name, email address, phone number, street address, etc. For example, you may be asked to provide an email address and name if you’d like the Agency to respond to input provided via feedback form or survey (through Wufoo forms and Poll Daddy).

Online Accounts and Applications

You may need to register and provide Personally Identifiable Information in order to participate in services such as applying for a job, participating in training/career programs, participating in Transit School tutorials, and more, that require personal information in order to register and complete an application process. This personal information may be in the form of your name, email address, phone number, street address, social security number, driver’s license identification number, and more to complete the application process. Online Accounts will require you to create a login identification and password to access personal information you have provided to the service.

Online Orders

You may need to provide Personally Identifiable Information in order to complete online transactions, orders purchasing Metro goods, and services online that require credit card information. For credit or debit card purchases, a customer will be asked to provide contact information (such as name, email address, and shipping address) and financial information (such as credit card number and expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and to fill orders. If we have trouble processing an order, the information may be used to contact you. We will also share your shipping information with the delivery service you request (USP, U.S. Postal Service, or other delivery companies you select).

Opt Out Procedures

You have certain options to ‘opt out’ of any of the noted services listed above.

• You may opt out completely from receiving email communications or edit your email subscriptions by managing your email subscriptions online.
• You may contact the Metro Employment Office at 213.922.6217 for login and password assistance and request to delete your online account and application.
• You may contact the WIN-LA program at the Help Desk at 213.922.4357 for login and password assistance.
• You may contact Metro Transit Count at 213.92.COURT (213.922.6878) if you are having trouble with the online tutorial.

The personal information you voluntarily provide is used to fulfill a request. Metro may use this information to inform you of service information, promotions or other news of value to you as a transit customer. Metro or its contracted vendors do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information to anyone, or disclose personal information except: When the purpose and manner of the disclosure have been disclosed to you prior to your providing the information; or when disclosure is required by law.

Log Activity for Statistical Analysis

Metro tracks activity and site function on its website in the form of log files on its web servers. These logs are analyzed by third-party statistical analysis software solutions such as Google Analytics, WordPress – providing visitor activity trend data. The data gathered is used to better organize information contained onsite and to improve the user experience for our customers. These files merely log visitors to the site – usually a standard procedure for hosting companies and a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. This information is used to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. This information is not used to identify our visitors on an individual level.

Cookies and Web Beacons

Cookies are small files which can be placed on your computer by web servers when you visit certain sites; cookie placement helps us increase the website’s general effectiveness for visitors. These files may contain information such as ID’s and passwords, personal information, or preferences. During your visit, the server can access these files to help personalize pages or allow you to affect e-commerce more easily. Metro does not set cookies from any page in the metro.net domain. Our e-commerce and lobbyist registration pages set cookies with login information only for the convenience of customers who use these areas repeatedly. Metro uses third party advertisements to support our sites. Some of these advertisers (such as Google Adsense, Google Admob, Facebook, and other third-party sites) may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. Cookies are set and read by Google, Facebook, and other third-party sites. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing Los Angeles real estate ads to someone in Los Angeles, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing travel ads to someone who frequents travel sites). Metro uses Adsense, Admob, Facebook or other third party remarketing, sometimes called retargeting, to market our website(s) across the Internet. Google, Facebook or other third party sites place a cookie on a browser. Google, Facebook or third-party sites read cookies and may present a Metro ad on a 3rd party site. You may opt out of Google’s remarketing by visiting the Google Ad Settings page. If you are concerned about 3rd party cookies presenting ads by Google and other ad networks, you may visit a broader opt-out page at the Network Advertising Initiative. You may opt out of Facebook remarketing by visiting Facebook Ads Preferences. If you are concerned about privacy, you may set up your browser not to accept cookies, or you can delete them from your hard drive once you leave the section. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts. By using Metro’s website, you consent to the collection and use of information as described above. You can opt out of Google tracking at any time by visiting the Google Ad Settings page. You can opt out of Facebook tracking at any time by visiting Facebook Ads Preferences. Metro also uses Hotjar to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices (in particular device’s IP address (captured and stored only in anonymized form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), preferred language used to display our website). Hotjar stores this information in a pseudonymized user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user. For further details, please see Hotjar’s privacy policy. You can opt-out to the creation of a user profile, Hotjar’s storing of data about your usage of our site and Hotjar’s use of tracking cookies on other websites by following this opt-out link. You will be informed of any changes to the policy as it relates to your personal information.

Cross-Linking

Metro provides links to other websites to our customers and does not share any personal information with these entities. Metro provides links to external sites for services provided by Metro contractors, such as e-commerce. These sites are subject to Metro’s privacy policy. We also provide links to selected sites unconnected to Metro, such as other transit providers and visitor centers; local, state, and federal government agencies; and academic and research organizations. If you follow these links, you are leaving the Metro site and are subject to the privacy policies of those sites. Note that the links we provide to outside sites are offered for your convenience. Metro takes no responsibility for outside sites’ content or policies.

About Nextrip

Nextrip is a service designed to help take the guesswork out of bus and rail arrivals and help you to get to your stop at the same time as your bus or train. Nextrip uses satellite technology to find the specific location of a bus or train; then sends the estimated arrival time to a particular stop via cell phone, website or other mobile devices. Nextrip uses Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology and advanced computer modeling to track buses and trains on their routes. Taking into account the actual position of the transit vehicles, their intended stops, and the typical traffic patterns, Nextrip predicts arrivals with a high degree of accuracy. Estimates are updated constantly as vehicles are tracked.

‘Go Metro’ Mobile App

The application uses your precise current location via GPS (global positioning system) or other network location sources like Wi-Fi and cell towers. In order to use these location services they must be turned on and available to your device. Location data provided by any external services (such as Google Maps or the Metro Trip Planner) is for basic navigational purposes only and is not intended to be relied upon in situations where precise location information is needed. Neither Metro, nor its agents, nor any of its content providers guarantee the availability, accuracy, completeness, reliability, or timeliness of stock information, location data or any other data displayed by any external services. Metro does not collect or store personal information from customers downloading, installing or using our ‘Go Metro’ mobile applications for iPhone, iPad, or Android. Customers who want to provide feedback via the ‘Report A Bug’ button in the application have the option to provide contact information ONLY if they’d like a reply. Device model and a current operating system are collected for troubleshooting, this response is sent by email. In the event the application crashes, a ‘crash log file’ is automatically generated and sent to Go Metro’s cloud server. Device model, current system version, time of the crash, and crash report (a text file which consists of errors/exceptions logs on what cause the app crashed) is collected for troubleshooting – no personal information is collected or sent to Go Metro cloud servers. Event tracking is utilized to provide information for the My Metro feature and to support improved future application design. Various buttons, links, and actions are logged and sent to the Google Analytics server to determine feature usage, content usage, and app behavior. If a data connection is not available, data is temporarily stored on the device until a data connection is established, at which point, data is sent to Google Analytics servers – no personal information is collected or sent to Google Analytics. The following is a complete list of all events the app is tracking and sending to Google Analytics:

• Trip Planner: input text into the search box, opening the contacts list, performing a search, select ‘Trip From’, select ‘Trip To’, opens Nextrip arrivals, and opens a live map
• Bottom Navigation: open My Metro, open Maps, open Menu, and open Map Options
• Top Navigation: Open Menu
• Map View: select Metro Map, select Street Map, and select 511 traffic
• My Metro: select any previous itineraries, select any favorites trips, maps, stations/stops, or lines
• More: call Transit Info phone number, call Metro Transit Security phone number, call the TAP Help phone number, turn on/off map notifications, and turn on/off Nextrip notifications

In-App Advertising

Go Metro includes banner advertising powered by Admob, a third-party mobile advertising service, that uses location information while using the App. Metro does not have access to or collect your personal information to present advertising.

In-App Purchases

Metro offers contents for purchase within the Go Metro app. Terms and conditions of the purchase and usage of content will be governed by the App Store (Apple App Store and/or Google Play Store) associated with your App Store account. Requests for refunds will be processed through the App Store. If you have previously made an In-App purchase and would like to restore or download it, sign-in to your App Store account associated with the purchase to see the option to restore it. Metro does not have access or collect your App Store account information.

Notifications & Beacons

Metro will send messages in the form of mobile notifications or promotional contents through the Go Metro app. The App may use location information to display notifications or promotional contents. Also, messages may be activated by Beacon devices in public space, which communicates location, transit, or event information. To manage notifications for Go Metro, go to the notifications area in the settings for your device and select Go Metro.