Privacy Policy
Shoreditch Carpet Cleaning Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how Shoreditch Carpet Cleaning collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data about its customers and prospective customers. It applies to all Shoreditch Carpet Cleaning customers and service users within our operating area, including individuals, households, landlords, tenants, estate agents, and business clients.
We are committed to processing your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, and other applicable data protection laws.
Who This Policy Applies To
This Privacy Policy applies to:
Customers who book carpet, upholstery, rug, or related cleaning services with Shoreditch Carpet Cleaning.
Prospective customers who make enquiries about our services by phone, in person, or through any other communication channel that does not involve online forms or email.
Business contacts, including letting agents, property managers, facilities managers, and landlords who engage us to provide services.
Any person whose personal data we may process in connection with the provision of our cleaning services in our service area.
Types of Personal Data We Collect
We only collect personal data that is necessary for us to provide our services, manage our relationship with you, and comply with our legal obligations. The categories of data we may collect include:
Identity and contact details: name, title, address where the service is to be carried out, billing address if different, and limited contact details such as basic identifiers required to arrange appointments and issue invoices.
Service and booking information: service history, details of the areas to be cleaned, property type, access instructions where relevant, preferred appointment times, and any specific instructions you provide.
Transaction and billing information: records of services provided, amounts charged, payment status, and method of payment. We do not store full payment card details. Where card payments are taken, these are processed via secure payment providers acting as data processors.
Communication records: notes of calls or conversations relating to bookings, quotations, customer service queries, complaints, and feedback.
Technical and operational information: where relevant, limited technical or operational information related to how we deliver our services on site, such as equipment and materials used, for internal business and quality control purposes.
How We Collect Your Data
We collect personal data directly from you when you contact us to request a quote, make a booking, or ask a question about our services. This may be done by telephone, in person, or via other direct means of communication that do not rely on online forms.
We may also receive personal data indirectly when a third party, such as a letting agent, landlord, or property manager, books a service on your behalf. In such cases, we rely on the third party to ensure that you are informed about the sharing of your personal data with us.
Lawful Bases for Processing
We process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis to do so under the GDPR. The main lawful bases we rely on are:
Contract: where processing is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes taking steps at your request before a contract is formed, such as providing quotes, confirming bookings, and delivering the cleaning services you have ordered.
Legal obligation: where we must process certain personal data to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, such as maintaining appropriate accounting and tax records.
Legitimate interests: where processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests or those of a third party, and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. This includes managing our business operations, improving our services, handling customer queries, and ensuring the security of our staff and equipment.
Consent: in limited circumstances, where we rely on your freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous consent, for example for certain types of optional marketing. Where we rely on consent, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time.
Purposes for Which We Use Your Data
We may use your personal data for the following purposes:
To provide our services: taking bookings, confirming appointments, attending your property, delivering cleaning services, and managing follow up visits where necessary.
To manage our relationship with you: handling enquiries, providing quotations, issuing invoices, processing payments via third party payment processors, and dealing with feedback, requests, or complaints.
To operate and improve our business: reviewing service delivery, training staff, managing capacity and routes in our service area, and maintaining internal records for quality assurance and planning.
To meet our legal and regulatory obligations: maintaining accounting and tax records, responding to official requests, and managing any legal claims or disputes.
To send service related communications: appointment reminders, important information about your booking, and any material changes to our terms or this Privacy Policy.
Data Sharing and Processors
We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with carefully selected third parties where necessary and lawful, including:
Service providers acting as data processors: for example, providers of payment processing services, secure data storage, and administration tools that help us manage schedules, invoicing, and business records. These providers are only permitted to process your personal data in accordance with our instructions and for the purposes set out in a written data processing agreement.
Professional advisers: such as accountants, auditors, or legal advisers, where necessary to manage our business, comply with legal obligations, or defend legal claims.
Public authorities: such as law enforcement agencies, regulators, or tax authorities, where disclosure is required by law or necessary to protect our rights, your rights, or the rights of others.
Where a third party, such as a letting agent or facilities manager, arranges and manages services on your behalf, we may share relevant service information and billing details with them as necessary to perform the contract and manage the business relationship.
Data Retention
We keep your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, including satisfying legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
In general, we retain core customer and transaction records for a period aligned with applicable limitation periods and tax and accounting rules. After the relevant retention period expires, we will securely delete or anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you.
Where we rely on consent for specific purposes, we will retain related data only for as long as your consent remains valid or until you withdraw it, whichever is sooner, unless a different lawful basis justifies continued retention.
International Transfers
Where we use data processors or service providers that store or process data outside the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, we take steps to ensure that your personal data is protected with appropriate safeguards. These may include the use of standard contractual clauses or reliance on other lawful transfer mechanisms recognised by data protection law.
Data Security
We take reasonable and appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. These measures include restricting access to personal data to staff and processors who need it for their role, providing staff training, maintaining appropriate records management, and using secure methods for storing and handling data.
While we strive to protect your personal data, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure. We therefore cannot guarantee absolute security but are committed to regularly reviewing and improving our safeguards.
Your Data Protection Rights
Under the GDPR and applicable data protection laws, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. Depending on the circumstances and any applicable exemptions, you may have the right to:
Access: request confirmation that we process your personal data and obtain a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Rectification: ask us to correct inaccurate personal data or complete incomplete information.
Erasure: request that we delete your personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue processing it, for example where it is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or where you successfully object to our processing.
Restriction: request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, for example while we verify its accuracy or our grounds for processing.
Objection: object to processing that is based on our legitimate interests, including profiling, where your particular situation justifies it, and object to processing for direct marketing purposes.
Data portability: in some cases, request that we provide your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine readable format, or transmit it to another controller where this is technically feasible.
Withdrawal of consent: where we rely on your consent for specific processing, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.
You may exercise your rights by contacting us using the details provided in our standard communications and documentation. We may need to verify your identity before responding to your request. We aim to respond without undue delay and within the time limits set by law.
Complaints
If you have concerns about how we handle your personal data, we encourage you to contact us first so that we can try to resolve the issue. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection supervisory authority in the United Kingdom.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, business operations, or legal requirements. Any changes will take effect when the updated version is made available through our usual communication channels. We recommend that you review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data.
