Privacy Policy - Catford Carpet Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how Catford Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data. It applies to all Catford Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including anyone who requests a quote, books a service, receives a service, or otherwise interacts with us in connection with our carpet cleaning services. We are committed to handling personal information in a lawful, fair, and transparent way in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

Catford Carpet Cleaners is a service provider operating in the local area. For the purposes of data protection law, we act as the data controller for the personal information we collect and use in the course of providing our services. This means we decide why and how your personal data is processed.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We only collect information that is necessary for delivering our services, managing our business, and meeting legal obligations. Depending on the nature of your interaction with us, we may collect the following categories of personal data:

Identity information: your name and, where relevant, company name.
Contact information: address, telephone number, and email address.
Service details: property access information, requested cleaning services, appointment times, job notes, and service preferences.
Billing information: invoicing details, payment status, and transaction references. We do not store full card details where payments are processed by a third party.
Communication records: emails, messages, call notes, and correspondence relating to quotes, bookings, complaints, or service queries.
Technical data: limited information such as IP address or device details if you interact with us through digital systems that automatically collect this data.
Special category data: we do not usually seek this information. If you choose to share it with us, for example to explain access needs, we will only process it where necessary and lawful.

We do not knowingly collect personal data from children unless it is provided by an adult customer for a service-related reason. If you believe we have collected child-related data in error, please ask us to review it.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

to provide quotes and respond to enquiries;
to schedule, deliver, and manage carpet cleaning services;
to communicate about appointments, changes, or service updates;
to issue invoices, process payments, and maintain financial records;
to manage complaints, refunds, and customer support;
to maintain internal records and improve service quality;
to comply with legal, tax, and accounting obligations;
to protect our business from fraud, misuse, or unlawful activity.

We will only use your data in ways that are compatible with the purpose for which it was collected, unless we have a lawful reason to do otherwise.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis to process personal data. Depending on the activity, Catford Carpet Cleaners relies on one or more of the following lawful bases:

Performance of a Contract

We process your personal data when it is necessary to provide a quotation you have requested, complete a booking, deliver cleaning services, or manage related administration. Without this information, we may not be able to fulfil our obligations to you.

Legal Obligation

We may process and retain certain information to meet legal and regulatory obligations, including tax, accounting, record-keeping, and fraud prevention requirements.

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. Examples include maintaining service records, handling customer enquiries, improving our operations, and protecting against misuse of our services. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we take care to consider and balance your privacy rights.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example where you voluntarily agree to a specific type of communication or optional processing. When consent is used, you may withdraw it at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

5. Sharing Your Personal Data

We do not sell personal data. However, we may share information with trusted third parties where necessary for business operations, legal compliance, or service delivery. These third parties act as processors or, in some cases, as independent controllers.

We may share your data with:

payment processors to handle transactions securely;
accounting and bookkeeping providers for financial administration;
IT and cloud service providers that store or support our systems;
customer communication tools used to manage messages and service updates;
professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers;
public authorities where disclosure is required by law or a lawful request.

All processors are required to handle data securely, only act on our instructions, and comply with data protection obligations. We take reasonable steps to ensure any third party we use provides appropriate safeguards.

6. International Transfers

Where any processor or service provider stores or accesses data outside the UK, we will ensure that appropriate legal safeguards are in place. These may include adequacy regulations, standard contractual clauses, or equivalent protection measures recognised under data protection law.

7. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in this policy, including legal, accounting, and reporting requirements. Retention periods vary depending on the type of information and the reason it was collected.

Customer and service records are typically retained for a reasonable period after the completion of services in case of follow-up, complaints, or disputes.
Financial and invoicing records are retained for the period required by tax and accounting law.
Communication records may be retained for customer service and audit purposes, then deleted or anonymised when no longer needed.
Consent-based records are kept until consent is withdrawn or the information is no longer required.

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

8. Data Security

We take the security of your information seriously. We use administrative, technical, and organisational measures designed to protect personal data from unauthorised access, loss, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include restricted access, secure storage, password protection, and staff awareness procedures. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we work to reduce risk and respond appropriately to incidents.

9. Your Rights

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

Right of access: you can ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification: you can request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
Right to erasure: you can ask us to delete your data in certain circumstances.
Right to restriction: you can ask us to limit how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to object: you can object to processing based on legitimate interests.
Right to data portability: you can request certain data in a structured, commonly used format.
Right to withdraw consent: where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, we will respond in accordance with legal requirements and may ask for information to verify your identity before fulfilling the request.

10. Complaints and Concerns

If you are concerned about how your personal data has been handled, you have the right to raise the matter with the appropriate data protection authority. We encourage you to contact us first so that we can review and address your concern promptly and fairly. We take privacy complaints seriously and will do our best to resolve them in a timely manner.

11. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal obligations, or internal practices. Any updated version will apply from the date it is published or otherwise communicated. We encourage customers to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how their data is handled.

12. Summary of Our Commitment

Catford Carpet Cleaners is committed to protecting customer privacy through lawful, transparent, and responsible data handling. We collect only the information needed to provide our services, rely on appropriate lawful bases, retain data only as long as necessary, use trusted processors where required, and respect your rights under data protection law. This policy applies to all Catford Carpet Cleaners customers in area and is intended to ensure your information is treated with care and respect.