Privacy Policy - Surrey Quays Carpet Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how Surrey Quays Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data relating to our customers and prospective customers in the Surrey Quays area. It applies to all Surrey Quays Carpet Cleaners customers in area, including individuals who enquire about our services, book appointments, receive quotations, or otherwise interact with us in connection with carpet, upholstery, and related cleaning services.

We are committed to handling personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We only process personal data where we have a valid lawful basis, and we take appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep information secure and to respect your privacy rights.

1. Data We Collect

We collect only the personal data necessary to provide our services effectively, manage our relationship with you, and meet legal obligations. The types of data we may collect include:

Identity information, such as your name and title.
Contact details, including your address, telephone number, and email address.
Service details, such as property access instructions, cleaning preferences, room or item descriptions, and any information needed to complete a quotation or service.
Transaction information, including records of payments, invoices, quotes, and service history.
Communication records, such as messages, emails, notes from calls, and complaints or feedback.
Technical data if you interact with our digital systems, such as IP address or device information, where applicable.
Special category data only where strictly necessary and where you choose to provide it, for example if you share details about a condition or accessibility requirement that affects the service.

We do not intentionally collect more information than is required for legitimate business purposes. Where possible, we will ask you to avoid sharing unnecessary personal details.

2. How We Use Personal Data

We use personal data to carry out our services and to support administrative and legal processes. This may include:

Providing quotations and responding to enquiries.
Booking, confirming, and delivering cleaning services.
Managing customer accounts, service records, and operational scheduling.
Processing payments and handling invoices or refunds.
Communicating about appointments, service updates, and service-related issues.
Handling complaints, queries, or requests.
Maintaining business records for accounting, tax, and compliance purposes.
Protecting our business, our staff, and our customers from fraud, misuse, or security incidents.

We will only use your personal data for purposes that are compatible with the reason it was collected, unless we are otherwise permitted or required by law to do so.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis to process your personal data. Depending on the nature of our interaction with you, we may rely on one or more of the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes providing quotations you requested, arranging appointments, delivering cleaning services, issuing invoices, and managing service-related communications.

Legal Obligation

We process personal data where required to comply with legal or regulatory duties, such as accounting, tax record keeping, or responding to lawful requests from authorities.

Legitimate Interests

We may process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate interests and where those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include maintaining business records, improving our services, managing customer relationships, preventing fraud, and ensuring network and information security. We always consider whether the processing is proportionate and whether your privacy is protected.

Consent

In limited circumstances, we may rely on your consent, for example where you voluntarily provide information that is not necessary for the service or where specific marketing permissions are required. If processing is based on consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

Vital Interests and Public Interest

These bases are unlikely to apply in routine business operations, but we may rely on them in exceptional cases where necessary to protect someone’s life or where otherwise required by law.

4. Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted third parties who support our operations. These third parties act as processors when they handle data on our behalf and under our instructions. Processors may include:

Payment service providers that process card or electronic payments.
Accounting and bookkeeping providers who help with tax and financial records.
IT service providers, including secure cloud storage, email, and software systems.
Customer management or scheduling software providers.
Professional advisers such as accountants, auditors, or legal advisers.
Insurance providers, where needed to handle claims or incidents.

We require our processors to keep personal data secure, use it only for the agreed purpose, and process it in compliance with data protection law. Where a third party acts as an independent controller, they will be responsible for their own privacy practices, and we expect them to comply with applicable legal requirements.

We may also disclose personal data if required by law, court order, or regulatory request, or where necessary to protect our rights, property, staff, customers, or the public.

5. International Transfers

If any service provider stores or accesses personal data outside the United Kingdom, we will take appropriate safeguards to ensure the data remains protected in line with UK GDPR requirements. Such safeguards may include adequacy regulations or approved contractual clauses, together with additional security measures where appropriate.

6. Retention of Personal Data

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information and the reason for processing.

Customer service records are usually retained for the duration of the service relationship and for a reasonable period afterwards in case of follow-up queries or disputes.
Financial and tax records are retained for the period required by applicable accounting and tax laws.
Complaint or incident records may be retained longer where needed to demonstrate how a matter was handled or to defend legal claims.
Marketing consent records are retained until you withdraw consent or until they are no longer needed.

When personal data is no longer needed, we will delete it securely or anonymise it so that it can no longer identify you. We review retention regularly to ensure data is not kept for longer than necessary.

7. Security of Your Information

We use appropriate safeguards to protect personal data against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and careful management of data shared with processors. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we take reasonable steps to reduce risk and respond promptly to any suspected incident.

8. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have rights in relation to your personal data. These rights may be subject to conditions and exemptions depending on the circumstances. Your rights include:

Right of access – to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification – to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
Right to erasure – to request deletion of your data in certain circumstances.
Right to restriction – to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to data portability – to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used format, where applicable.
Right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests or to direct marketing.
Right to withdraw consent – where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are unhappy with how your personal data has been handled. We encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve any concern directly.

9. Children’s Data

Our services are generally aimed at adults, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children unless it is necessary for a specific service arrangement and appropriately authorised by a parent or guardian. If we become aware that we have collected data from a child without proper authority, we will take steps to remove it where required.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the law, our services, or our internal practices. Any revised policy will apply from the date it is published or otherwise communicated. We encourage customers in the Surrey Quays area to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we handle personal data.

11. Summary of Our Commitment

Surrey Quays Carpet Cleaners respects your privacy and processes personal data fairly, lawfully, and transparently. We collect only the information needed to provide our services, rely on appropriate lawful bases, retain data only for as long as necessary, use processors carefully, and uphold your rights under data protection law. This policy applies to all Surrey Quays Carpet Cleaners customers in area and is intended to ensure that your personal information is handled responsibly at every stage.