Privacy Policy - St Margarets Carpet Cleaners

St Margarets Carpet Cleaners is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal data fairly, transparently, and securely. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect personal information when you use our carpet cleaning and related services. It applies to all St Margarets Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including prospective customers, current customers, and former customers whose personal data we retain for lawful business purposes.

1. Who We Are

For the purposes of the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, St Margarets Carpet Cleaners is the data controller of the personal information collected in connection with our services. This means we determine the purposes and means of processing your personal data.

We are committed to processing personal data in accordance with the principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity, and confidentiality.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We collect only the information necessary to provide and manage our services, respond to enquiries, and meet our legal obligations. The types of data we may collect include:

• Identity information such as your name.
• Contact details such as phone number, email address, and service address.
• Service information such as details about the cleaning service requested, property access instructions, preferred appointment times, and notes about carpet types or stains.
• Billing and payment information such as transaction records, invoice details, and payment confirmations.
• Communication records including emails, phone call notes, messages, feedback, and complaints.
• Technical information if you interact with our digital services, such as basic device or usage data collected through website forms or analytics tools.

We do not intentionally collect special category personal data unless you provide it to us voluntarily and it is strictly necessary for a specific service request. If such information is shared, we will handle it with additional care and only where lawful to do so.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

• To respond to enquiries and provide quotations.
• To arrange, deliver, and manage carpet cleaning services.
• To communicate about appointments, service updates, and customer support.
• To issue invoices, process payments, and maintain accounting records.
• To handle complaints, disputes, and aftercare requests.
• To improve our services, customer experience, and operational efficiency.
• To comply with legal, regulatory, tax, and insurance obligations.
• To protect our business against fraud, misuse, and security incidents.

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

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. Depending on the context, we rely on one or more of the following bases:

Contract

We process personal data where it is necessary to perform a contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. This includes providing quotations, scheduling services, carrying out cleaning work, and managing payments.

Legal obligation

We may process data where necessary to comply with legal requirements, such as tax recordkeeping, accounting rules, insurance duties, and responses to lawful requests from authorities.

Legitimate interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, provided that your rights and freedoms do not override those interests. This can include improving service delivery, maintaining business records, preventing fraud, and managing customer relationships. We balance our interests against your privacy rights before relying on this basis.

Consent

In some cases, we may rely on your consent, particularly for non-essential communications or optional processing. Where consent is used, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

5. Data Sharing and Processors

We do not sell your personal data. However, we may share it with trusted third parties when necessary to operate our business and deliver our services. Where we use third-party service providers to process data on our behalf, they act as processors and are contractually required to safeguard your information and use it only according to our instructions.

Examples of processors and recipients may include:

• Payment processors for secure transaction handling.
• Accounting and bookkeeping providers for invoicing and financial records.
• IT and cloud service providers for data storage, email, and system maintenance.
• Scheduling or customer management tools used to organise appointments and service notes.
• Professional advisers such as insurers, auditors, or legal advisers where necessary.
• Public authorities where disclosure is required by law.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that all processors and partners handle personal data securely, confidentially, and in compliance with applicable data protection laws. If personal data is transferred outside the UK, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place.

6. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, and in line with legal, accounting, and operational requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of data and the reason for processing.

• Customer enquiry data may be retained for a reasonable period to allow follow-up and service continuity.
• Service and transaction records are typically retained for the duration needed to manage the customer relationship and meet tax or accounting obligations.
• Complaint and correspondence records may be retained to resolve disputes and maintain internal records.
• Marketing preferences are retained until you withdraw consent or object, where applicable.

When personal data is no longer required, we will securely delete, anonymise, or archive it in accordance with our retention practices. We review retention periods regularly to ensure that we do not keep data for longer than necessary.

7. Data Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from accidental loss, unlawful use, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and data minimisation practices. Although no method of transmission or storage is completely risk-free, we work to maintain a level of security appropriate to the nature of the data we process.

8. Your Rights

Depending on the circumstances and the legal basis for processing, you may have the following rights under data protection law:

• Right of access to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure to request deletion of your data in certain situations.
• Right to restriction to limit how we use your data in specific cases.
• Right to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
• Right to data portability to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used format where applicable.
• Right to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.

We may need to verify your identity before responding to a rights request. In some cases, legal obligations or legitimate grounds may allow us to continue processing despite a request to erase or restrict data.

9. Children’s Data

Our services are intended for adult customers and property occupiers arranging carpet cleaning services. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where it is incidentally included in service communications and only where necessary for the service context. If you believe a child’s personal data has been provided to us in error, we will take appropriate steps to address the issue.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in law, our business practices, or the services we provide. Any revised version will apply from the date it is published or otherwise communicated. We encourage you to review this policy periodically so you remain informed about how your personal data is handled.

11. Contact and Complaints

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise your rights, or want to raise a concern about how your personal data is handled, you may contact us using the usual service channels provided at the time of booking or enquiry. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office if you are unhappy with how we process your personal data.

By using the services of St Margarets Carpet Cleaners, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.