Privacy Policy - New Addington Carpet Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how New Addington Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data when providing carpet cleaning and related services. It applies to all New Addington Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including individuals who enquire about services, book appointments, receive quotations, make payments, or otherwise interact with us in connection with our business.

We are committed to handling personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. This policy should help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it, how long we keep it, who may process it on our behalf, and what rights you have.

1. Who We Are

For data protection purposes, New Addington Carpet Cleaners acts as the data controller in relation to the personal data we collect and use about our customers, prospective customers, suppliers, and other business contacts. This means we determine the purposes and means of processing personal data in connection with our services.

We only collect data that is relevant, adequate, and limited to what is necessary for the purposes described in this policy.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We may collect different types of personal data depending on how you interact with us. The information we collect may include:

Identity details such as your name and, where relevant, business or household name.
Contact details such as your address, telephone number, and email address.
Service information such as booking dates, cleaning requirements, property access details, carpet or upholstery conditions, and job notes.
Payment information such as payment status, billing records, and transaction references. We do not intentionally store full card details unless a secure payment provider requires limited information for processing.
Communication records including enquiries, complaints, feedback, and messages exchanged by phone, email, or other means.
Technical and usage data if you interact with our digital systems, such as device identifiers or basic log data necessary to operate and secure our services.
Special instructions you may provide, such as access arrangements, parking information, or cleaning sensitivities relevant to service delivery.

We do not intentionally collect special category personal data unless you voluntarily provide it and it is necessary for a specific service or safety-related purpose. If such data is provided, we will handle it with additional care and only where a valid legal basis applies.

3. How We Use Personal Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To respond to enquiries and provide quotations.
To book, deliver, and manage cleaning services.
To communicate about appointments, service updates, or aftercare.
To process payments, invoices, and refunds where applicable.
To maintain business and financial records.
To handle complaints, disputes, and customer support matters.
To improve our services and customer experience.
To comply with legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory obligations.
To protect our business, staff, and customers from fraud, misuse, or security risks.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another compatible purpose and that such use is lawful.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a valid lawful basis to process personal data. Depending on the context, we may rely on one or more of the following bases:

Contract

We process personal data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes managing quotations, bookings, service delivery, invoicing, and customer communications related to the service you requested.

Legal Obligation

We may process personal data where required to meet legal obligations, including bookkeeping, tax compliance, record keeping, consumer law obligations, and responding to lawful requests from authorities.

Legitimate Interests

We may process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate interests, provided these interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include improving our operations, maintaining service quality, securing our systems, managing business administration, and handling routine customer communications.

Consent

In limited cases, we may rely on your consent, for example where optional marketing or non-essential communications are involved. Where consent is used, you may withdraw it at any time.

We do not process personal data unless a lawful basis applies. If we ever need to rely on a different basis for a new purpose, we will inform you where required.

5. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including for legal, accounting, and reporting requirements. The length of time may vary depending on the type of record and the reason for holding it.

Customer and service records are generally retained for a period necessary to complete the service and resolve any follow-up issues.
Financial and tax records are retained for the period required by law.
Communication records may be retained for a reasonable period to support customer service, dispute handling, and business administration.
Unused enquiry records may be kept for a limited time and then deleted or anonymised.

When personal data is no longer needed, we will delete, anonymise, or securely archive it in accordance with our retention practices.

6. Sharing Personal Data and Processors

We do not sell personal data. However, we may share personal data where necessary and lawful with trusted third parties who support the operation of our business. These parties act as processors or, in some cases, independent controllers.

Examples of processors may include:

Payment processing providers used to handle transactions securely.
Accounting and bookkeeping providers used for financial administration and tax compliance.
IT and cloud service providers used for email, data storage, scheduling, and secure record keeping.
Customer management or booking system providers used to organise appointments and service records.
Professional advisers such as accountants, insurers, or legal advisers where necessary.

Where processors are used, they are required to handle personal data only on our instructions, keep it secure, and comply with applicable data protection requirements. We take reasonable steps to ensure that any third party processing personal data for us does so appropriately and securely.

We may also disclose personal data where required by law, by a court order, or to protect our rights, staff, customers, or property.

7. International Transfers

If any processor or service provider stores or processes data outside the UK, we will take appropriate safeguards to ensure your personal data remains protected. Such safeguards may include adequacy regulations, contractual protections, or other approved transfer mechanisms.

8. Data Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, restricted permissions, staff awareness, and reasonable administrative safeguards.

Although we work hard to protect your information, no system can be guaranteed completely secure. If a data breach occurs and there is a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will take steps to investigate, contain, and address the issue, and notify relevant parties where required by law.

9. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These rights may be subject to conditions or exemptions in certain circumstances.

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

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, we will consider your request in accordance with applicable law and respond within the required timeframe. We may need to verify your identity before acting on your request.

10. Children’s Data

Our services are intended for adults who arrange property cleaning or related services. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where it is incidental and necessary for service delivery at a household location, and even then only to the extent required and lawful.

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 updated version will apply from the date it is made available. We encourage customers to review it periodically.

12. Summary of Key Points

New Addington Carpet Cleaners collects and uses personal data only where necessary, lawful, and proportionate. We retain information for appropriate periods, share it only with carefully selected processors or where legally required, and respect your data protection rights. This policy applies to all New Addington Carpet Cleaners customers in the area and is designed to support transparent, responsible handling of your information.

We are committed to processing personal data fairly, securely, and in line with GDPR principles.