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PRIVACY POLICY

Norfolk Southern and its subsidiaries (“NS,” “we,” “us,” “our”), are committed to collecting and processing your personal information responsibly and in compliance with applicable data protection laws in all states where NS operates. This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) explains how NS collects, processes, and discloses your personal information. This Notice also describes the measures NS takes to protect the security of the data, and how you can contact us regarding our data protection practices.

 

This Notice applies when you browse or visit our website at norfolksouthern.com or other websites operated by NS (the “Site”) or when you otherwise interact with us, such as when you contact us by phone or email (hereinafter collectively referred to as the “Services”).

 

This Notice does not apply to any products, services, websites, or content offered by third parties and linked to from here.  Data collected by these third parties is covered by their own privacy policies.

 

By using the Site and providing your personal information and other information through the Site, you acknowledge that your personal information will be processed pursuant to the terms of this Notice. If you do not agree with the practices described in this Notice, please do not provide us with your information or otherwise interact with the Site.

As used in this Notice, personal information means any information about an individual from which that person can be reasonably identified, or as such related terms, such as “personal data” are defined under applicable law.

 

We collect personal information in the course of providing the Services to you.  This includes data we collect from you directly, automatically, and from third parties.

 

Personal Information We Collect From You Directly

 

You can visit most areas of the Site without revealing who you are or providing any information about yourself or your company. However, some services accessible through the Site require you to identify yourself in order to enable the function. In these instances, we may request personal and business contact information, such as name, email address, and phone number.

 

You also may choose to submit comments, interact with us such as through our newsletters or other informational materials, or provide suggestions, or other unsolicited ideas or concepts (“Submissions”) through this Site.  When you do so, we may collect your contact information and other information you voluntarily provide.

 

You can choose to interact with us by accessing accessns.nscorp.com (“AccessNS”).  You can register to use AccessNS by completing a registration form (“Registration Form”) found on the AccessNS login page.  The Registration Form requires you to provide us with personal and company information, such as your name, address, phone number and e-mail address.  When you visit AccessNS, a separate Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy will govern your use.

 

Personal Information We Collect From You Automatically

 

When you visit and access the Site, we collect certain personal information using automatic data collection technologies and the associated data collection is described below.

  • Logs. We automatically collect and store information in our logs, including your browser and device type, IP address, internet service provider, and other technical information about your device. 
  • Website Interactions. Information about your interactions with our Site, such as referring websites, pages visited, links or buttons clicked.
  • Communications Records. Call recordings, email exchanges, text details, and chat logs from your communications with us, which we may keep as records of those conversations.
  • Social Media Information. Social media name, profile, and any direct messages exchanged with us.
  • Cookies. “Cookies” are small text files that a website stores on a user’s device while a website is viewed.  Cookies store or provide information to help our Site function.  For example, cookies might be used to: (i) enhance your experience of our Site by improving navigation speed; or (ii) inform us about your visit to our Site, for example, by collecting information about which pages on our Site you viewed or links you clicked and how long you interacted with our content during your visit or over multiple visits. 

 

What Types of Information Do Cookies Collect and Store?

 

Cookies may contain information such as your IP address, information about your browsing history, or your preferences and settings.  We use first party cookies (those set by us) and third-party cookies (those set by third parties and come from domains other than norfolksouthern.com).

 

How Long are Cookies Kept on Your Device?

 

Cookies vary in how long they are kept on your device.  We use both Session Cookies and Persistent Cookies on our Site.

 

Session Cookies” are temporary Cookies that last only for a single browsing session.  The information they collect is stored in temporary memory and erased shortly after you leave our Site or close your browser.

 

Persistent Cookies” are stored on your device until you take steps to remove the Cookies or until a particular Cookie’s expiration date.  Persistent Cookies can record information from each visit you make to our Site as long as they remain on your device.

 

How and Why Do We and Others Use the Information from Cookies?
  • Strictly Necessary.  These Cookies are necessary for our Site to function and cannot be turned off without losing functionality of our Site.
  • Performance.  These Cookies allow us to count unique visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of the Site.  Information these Cookies collect is typically aggregated to provide analytics.
  • Advertising and Marketing.  These Cookies may be set on our Site by us or third parties.  They may be used, for example, to limit the frequency that you see a particular advertisement or measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign by determining if you visit our Site after viewing a Norfolk Southern advertisement. 

 

What Cookies Are Collected When Using Our Site?

 

Vendor

Purpose

Privacy Policy

Adobe

Registers which server cluster is serving a visitor.

https://www.adobe.com/privacy/experience-cloud.html

YouTube

YouTube Cookies may be used when our Site provides embedded video content to provide this functionality to you.

https://policies.google.com/privacy

gstatic

Distinguishes between humans and bots.

https://policies.google.com/privacy

Google Analytics

Distinguishes one visitor from another.

https://policies.google.com/privacy

Pendo

Local Storage

https://support.pendo.io/hc/en-us/articles/360041032971-Agent-cookies-and-local-storage

 

Quantum Metrics

Data analytics and user experience monitoring

https://www.quantummetric.com/legal/privacy-policy/

 

For more information on your choices related to cookies, please see Section 6 below.

We use information collected about you and your use of the Services.

 

  • Improve our customer service, including to answer your questions and respond to your requests;
  • Engage in marketing or promotions; or to improve our security and integrity (i.e., fraud prevention, public safety, or enforcement of our policies and procedures).
  • Send you service bulletins, informational materials, or other information you may request from time to time.
  • Enhance our Services using information from the Registration Form to better meet the needs and preferences of our customers, and to enhance the security of the Site.  We may also from time to time send information to visitors who have completed the Registration Form about NS products, services and system changes that we think may be of interest.
  • Submissions may be used for any reason, including, but not limited to, developing and marketing the concepts embodied in such Submissions without any obligation to the party who made the Submission.  Submissions will not be treated as confidential and will become the property of NS. 
  • We use log data to measure the use of the Site, to improve the content of the Site, and to monitor access for security purposes.

Service Providers

 

Like many businesses, we engage other companies to provide certain business-related services to us (“Service Providers”).  We may disclose personal information to our Service Providers but only to the extent needed to enable them to provide such services.

 

The types of companies that may receive personal information and their functions include: contractors, suppliers, and other vendors who provide services on our behalf and at our instruction, such as assisting with processing and fulfilling orders; delivery and logistics; data storage; fraud prevention; data and Site analytics, including the placement and use of cookies; our communications and direct marketing; advertising and marketing, including the effectiveness of our advertising and marketing efforts; or other services in support of our business.

 

Service Providers are limited to performing services on our behalf pursuant to contracts which impose restrictions on their use of personal information, including prohibiting them from selling, sharing, using, or disclosing any personal information we share with them for their own marketing purposes or for any other purpose.

 

All activities at the Site may be monitored and recorded.

 

Corporate Subsidiaries

 

We may share data with our corporate subsidiaries, that will only use the information as described in this Notice. 

 

Merger, Sale, or other Asset Transfers

 

Subject to possible restrictions under applicable local laws and regulations, NS may disclose your personal information to a potential or actual acquirer, successor, or assignee as part of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or stock (including in bankruptcy or similar proceedings).  In the event of a merger, dissolution or similar corporate event, or the sale of all or substantially all of our assets, we expect that the information that we have collected, including personal information, would be transferred to the surviving entity in a merger or the acquiring entity, including at the negotiation stage. All such transfers shall be subject to our commitments with respect to the privacy of such personal information as set forth in this Notice.

 

As Required by Law

 

We may be required to disclose personal information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including for the purpose of meeting national security or law enforcement requirements. We may also disclose personal information to other third parties when compelled to do so by government authorities or required by law or regulation including, but not limited to, in response to court orders and subpoenas.

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of your information, we have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect or provide online.  We require, for your protection, that users under the passphrase policy to change their passphrase every 365 days while users under the password policy have a 45 day expiration..

 

Please understand, however, that no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the internet. In particular, e-mail sent to or from the Site may not be secure, and you should therefore take special care in deciding what information you send to us via e-mail. In the event that we are required by law to inform you of a breach of your personal information we may notify you electronically, in writing, or by telephone, if permitted to do so by law.

NS retains your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes for which your personal information was collected, unless a longer retention period is necessary. Personal and business information provided on the NS Registration Form will be deleted if you do not access the Site for a period of 180 days.

What Rights and Choices Do You Have About the Use of Cookies?

 

You can choose not to allow Cookies on our Site; however, blocking some types of Cookies may affect your ability to use our Site.  All visitors to our Site should have access to at least one of the following options to restrict our use of Cookies.

 

Opting Out of Cookies Using Self-Regulatory Programs.  Two key self-regulatory programs are available to help you control the use of Cookies on your browsers – the Digital Advertising Alliance and the Network Advertising Initiative.  Both programs help to regulate vendors in the digital advertising space.  One function of their self-regulatory programs is to give you the ability to opt out of targeted (or interest-based) advertising, including Cookies, from their member companies.  You can visit the following website to opt-out of targeted advertising for participating vendors: https://optout.aboutads.info/?c=2&lang=EN.  The Network Advertising Initiative assists with opt outs though their Opt Out of Interest-Based Advertising webpage: https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.

 

Opting Out of Cookies Using Your Browser.  You may be able to disable Cookies using your browser settings.  Please review your browser instructions or visit the following unaffiliated website for general information: https://allaboutcookies.org/

NS provides links to external sites for your convenience. The inclusion of any link does not imply NS’s endorsement of or responsibility for the external site company, its website, or the products and services it promotes and sells. When you leave the Site to visit one of these linked sites, the only information transferred to the third party is the fact that you came from norfolksouthern.com (the refer address). NS is not responsible or liable for the independent privacy policies of our third-party sites. You should consult the privacy policies at those sites for more information.

This Notice is effective as of the date stated at the top of the Notice.  We may change this Notice from time to time. Your access of the Site or continued use of our Services after such change will be deemed acceptance of the new Notice.

NS does not expect that any portion of its Site will be used by persons under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under that age of 13. If we learn that we have received personal information from someone under the age of 13, we will delete that information in accordance with applicable law.

If you have any questions or concerns about the Notice, you may send an email to infosec@nscorp.com or dataprivacy@nscorp.com