Privacy Policy - Carpetcleaning E16

This Privacy Policy explains how Carpetcleaning E16 collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data. It applies to all Carpetcleaning E16 customers in the area and to anyone who contacts us, requests a quotation, books a service, or otherwise uses our cleaning services. We are committed to handling personal information in a lawful, fair, and transparent way, in line with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

Carpetcleaning E16 provides carpet cleaning and related household cleaning services. In the course of delivering these services, we act as a data controller for the personal information we collect and use for our own business purposes. This means we decide why and how your personal data is processed.

2. Information We Collect

We only collect information that is necessary for providing our services, managing customer relationships, meeting legal obligations, and improving service quality. The types of data we may collect include:

Identity data such as your name and title.
Contact data such as address, telephone number, and email address.
Service data such as property details, cleaning preferences, appointment information, and service history.
Payment-related data such as transaction records, billing details, and payment status. We do not intentionally store full card details when payments are processed securely by third-party providers.
Communication data such as messages, complaints, feedback, and correspondence related to bookings or services.
Technical data where relevant, such as device or usage information if you interact with our digital systems.

We may also receive data from third parties where lawful and relevant, for example from a person making a booking on your behalf, property management representatives, or secure payment processors.

3. How We Use Your Personal Data

Your personal data is used for specific and legitimate business purposes. These include:

providing quotations and managing bookings;
delivering cleaning services at your premises;
processing payments and maintaining financial records;
communicating with you about appointments, service updates, and queries;
handling complaints, claims, or customer service requests;
improving our services, staff training, and internal administration;
meeting legal, tax, insurance, and regulatory obligations;
protecting against fraud, misuse, or security incidents.

We will only use your personal information where we have a valid legal reason to do so.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. Carpetcleaning E16 relies on the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes taking bookings, arranging cleaning services, managing schedules, and processing payments for services requested by you.

Legal Obligation

We may process and retain personal data to comply with legal obligations, such as accounting requirements, tax law, consumer law, and record-keeping obligations.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided that those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include customer administration, quality control, service improvement, fraud prevention, and business record management. We always consider whether such processing is reasonable and proportionate.

Consent

In some situations, we may rely on your consent, for example for certain forms of optional marketing or non-essential communications. Where consent is used, you can withdraw it at any time.

5. Sharing Your Data and Processors

We do not sell personal data. However, we may share personal information with trusted third parties, known as processors or service providers, when necessary for business operations. These may include:

Payment processors that handle secure payment transactions;
IT and hosting providers that support our systems, data storage, and communication tools;
Administrative service providers that help manage bookings, records, or customer communications;
Professional advisers such as accountants, insurers, or legal advisers;
Authorities or regulators where disclosure is required by law.

When we use processors, we ensure they are subject to appropriate data protection obligations and only process data on our instructions. They are required to protect the information they handle and to use it only for the agreed purpose.

6. International Transfers

If any of our processors store or access data outside the United Kingdom, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. This may include adequacy regulations, standard contractual clauses, or equivalent legal protections. We take reasonable steps to make sure personal data remains protected wherever it is processed.

7. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including legal, accounting, insurance, and service-related requirements. Retention periods can vary depending on the type of data and the reason for processing.

As a general approach:

booking and service records are kept for a period needed to manage service history and customer support;
financial and tax records are retained for the duration required by law;
complaints, claims, and dispute-related records may be kept for longer where necessary;
information no longer needed is securely deleted or anonymised.

We review retention periods regularly to ensure data is not kept longer than necessary.

8. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of important rights in relation to your personal data. Subject to legal conditions and exemptions, these 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 information.
Right to erasure – to request deletion of your data where there is no lawful reason for us to keep it.
Right to restrict processing – 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 direct marketing.
Right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority if you believe your data protection rights have been violated. We encourage you to raise any concerns so we can address them promptly.

9. Data Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and restricted use of data on a need-to-know basis. While no system can be guaranteed to be completely secure, we work to maintain a level of protection that is appropriate to the nature of the information we process.

10. Children’s Data

Our services are intended for adults or for persons acting on behalf of a household. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where it is incidentally provided in connection with a household service request and only where appropriate and necessary.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or operational needs. Any revised version will apply from the date it becomes effective. We recommend that customers review this policy periodically to stay informed about how their information is protected.

12. Summary of Key Commitments

Carpetcleaning E16 is committed to processing personal data fairly, securely, and transparently. We collect only the information needed to provide services, rely on lawful bases such as contract, legal obligation, legitimate interests, and consent, and retain data only for as long as necessary. We use carefully selected processors, protect data with appropriate safeguards, and respect your rights under data protection law.

This policy applies to all Carpetcleaning E16 customers in the area.