Privacy Policy - Bermondsey Carpet Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how Bermondsey Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data. It applies to all Bermondsey Carpet Cleaners customers in the Bermondsey area, as well as prospective customers, website visitors, and anyone who communicates with us in connection with our services. We are committed to handling personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent way in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

Bermondsey Carpet Cleaners provides carpet cleaning and related domestic and commercial cleaning services. For the purposes of data protection law, we are the data controller for the personal data we collect and determine the purposes and means of processing that data.

We respect your privacy and only process personal data where we have a valid legal basis to do so.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We may collect and process the following categories of personal data:

Identity data such as your name.
Contact data such as your telephone number, email address, and service address.
Service information such as details about the type of cleaning requested, property access notes, and job history.
Billing and payment data such as invoice details, payment confirmations, and transaction references.
Communication data such as messages, enquiries, complaints, and feedback.
Technical data such as basic device or usage information if you interact with digital systems we operate.
Special category data only where necessary and only if you voluntarily provide it, for example information that may affect access arrangements or cleaning requirements. We will limit any such data to what is strictly necessary.

We do not intentionally collect more information than needed to provide our services and manage our business responsibly.

3. How We Collect Your Data

We usually collect personal data directly from you when you:

request a quote or make a booking;
communicate with us by phone, email, text, or through other channels;
provide service instructions or feedback;
make a payment or receive an invoice;
interact with our service records or administrative processes.

We may also receive personal data from third parties where necessary for service delivery, such as property managers, letting agents, employers, or household members who arrange services on your behalf, provided they have the authority to share that information.

4. How We Use Personal Data

We process personal data for the following purposes:

to provide quotations and deliver cleaning services;
to manage appointments, access arrangements, and customer records;
to issue invoices and process payments;
to respond to enquiries, complaints, and service requests;
to maintain business records and service quality;
to comply with legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory obligations;
to protect our business from fraud, misuse, or security risks;
to improve our services and customer experience.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which it was collected, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for a compatible purpose or a purpose permitted by law.

5. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under UK GDPR, we must have a lawful basis for each processing activity. Depending on the circumstances, Bermondsey Carpet Cleaners relies on one or more of the following bases:

Contract

We process your personal data where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes arranging services, delivering cleaning work, sending confirmations, and managing payments.

Legal Obligation

We may process data to comply with legal obligations, including tax, accounting, record-keeping, and responding to lawful requests from authorities.

Legitimate Interests

We may process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided your interests and rights do not override those interests. Examples include improving service quality, maintaining internal records, handling customer queries, and preventing fraud or misuse.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example for certain optional communications or if you provide information beyond what is required for service delivery. Where consent is used, you may withdraw it at any time.

We do not rely on consent where another lawful basis is more appropriate or required.

6. Data Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted third parties only when necessary and only to the extent required to deliver our services or operate our business. These third parties may act as processors on our behalf or, in some cases, as independent controllers.

Examples of processors may include:

payment service providers;
accounting and bookkeeping providers;
IT and cloud storage providers;
email, messaging, and administrative software providers;
customer management and record-keeping systems;
professional advisers who support legal, tax, or compliance matters.

Where we use processors, we require them to process personal data only on our instructions, to keep it secure, and to comply with applicable data protection law. We do not sell personal data.

We may also disclose data where required by law, court order, or regulatory request, or where necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

7. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy legal, accounting, tax, and record-keeping requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information and the reason we hold it.

In general:

customer and booking records are kept for a period necessary to manage the customer relationship and resolve queries;
financial and invoicing records are kept for the periods required by tax and accounting law;
correspondence and complaint records are kept for as long as needed to respond and document outcomes;
data no longer required is securely deleted or anonymised.

We periodically review the data we hold to ensure it is not kept for longer than necessary.

8. Data Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, accidental loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and limits on who can view your information.

Although no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we take reasonable steps to safeguard the information entrusted to us.

9. Your Rights

As a data subject under UK GDPR, you may have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

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 restrict processing – to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to data portability – to request transfer of data you provided to us, where applicable.
Right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
Right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

These rights are not absolute and may be subject to legal exemptions or limitations. If you exercise a right, we may need to verify your identity before responding.

10. International Transfers

If any of our processors store or handle data outside the UK, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your information in line with applicable data protection law. These safeguards may include adequacy decisions or standard contractual protections.

11. Children’s Data

Our services are not aimed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where necessary in the context of providing services to a household and only with appropriate authority from a responsible adult. If we become aware that we have collected such data without proper justification, we will take steps to delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal obligations, or service arrangements. Any updated version will apply from the date it is published or otherwise made available.

13. Contact and Complaints

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your rights, you may contact us using the relevant business channels provided in your service documentation.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your personal data, you also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). We encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve your concern promptly.

In summary: Bermondsey Carpet Cleaners processes personal data fairly, lawfully, and transparently, using it only for legitimate service, business, and legal purposes, and retaining it only as long as necessary.