Cleaners Richmond upon Thames Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Cleaners Richmond upon Thames collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data relating to customers in Richmond upon Thames and the surrounding area. It also sets out your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. This Privacy Policy applies to all Cleaners Richmond upon Thames customers within our service area, including current, former, and prospective customers.

1. Who We Are

Cleaners Richmond upon Thames provides domestic and commercial cleaning services within the Richmond upon Thames area. In the context of data protection law, we act as the data controller for the personal data we collect and process about our customers.

2. Scope of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy covers personal data we process in connection with enquiries, bookings, service delivery, customer support, and related activities. It applies whether you contact us by phone, through an online form, in writing, or in any other way, and whether you are an individual customer, a representative of a business customer, or an occupant at a property where we provide cleaning services.

3. Personal Data We Collect

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

Identification and contact details, such as your name, postal address, service property address, and communication details.

Booking and service information, such as preferred dates and times, type of cleaning required, access instructions, information about specific areas or items to be cleaned, and any special requirements you choose to share with us.

Customer account and payment information, such as records of bookings, invoices, payments, and payment status. Payment card details are handled by secure payment processors and are not stored in full by us.

Communication records, such as notes and correspondence relating to your enquiries, feedback, or complaints.

Technical and usage data, such as basic information generated when you interact with our online forms or digital tools, including the time and date of submission and basic device or browser information, where applicable.

4. How and Why We Use Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To handle enquiries and provide quotes, including responding to your requests for information and advising you on suitable services.

To set up and manage bookings, including confirming appointments, arranging access to the property, and communicating any changes to your booking.

To deliver cleaning services, including instructing our cleaners, organising schedules, and ensuring services meet your specifications.

To manage billing and payments, including issuing invoices, processing payments via our chosen payment processors, and maintaining financial records.

To provide customer service and support, including dealing with questions, feedback, and complaints, and handling any claims or disputes.

To improve our services and operations, including internal training, service quality monitoring, and planning future service offerings.

To comply with legal obligations, including tax, accounting, and other regulatory requirements.

5. Lawful Bases for Processing

We rely on the following lawful bases under the UK GDPR when processing your personal data:

Contract: We process data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract for cleaning services, for example to manage bookings, complete service visits, and handle payment.

Legal obligation: We process certain data to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, for example maintaining financial and tax records.

Legitimate interests: We process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and where your rights and freedoms do not override those interests. This includes responding to enquiries, managing and improving our services, ensuring security of our operations, and handling complaints or disputes.

Consent: If we rely on your consent for a specific purpose, we will make this clear at the time, and you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.

6. Data Retention

We will retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

In general, we keep customer and booking records for as long as you remain an active customer and for a period afterwards where reasonably necessary for our legitimate interests, such as dealing with queries or potential disputes.

Financial and invoicing records are typically retained for a number of years as required by tax and accounting law. Communication records may be kept for an appropriate period to support service history, training, and dispute resolution.

When personal data is no longer needed, we will take reasonable steps to delete it or anonymise it so that it can no longer be associated with you.

7. Data Sharing and Processors

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with selected third parties where necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and in accordance with data protection law.

Service providers and processors. We may use trusted third party providers to help deliver our services and support our operations. These may include cleaning contractors or staff, scheduling tools, secure payment processors, IT support and hosting providers, and administrative or accounting services. These third parties act as data processors and only process personal data on our instructions and for our purposes. They are required to protect your data and keep it confidential.

Professional advisers. We may share relevant data with professional advisers such as accountants, auditors, or legal advisers where necessary for advice, auditing, or managing legal claims.

Authorities and regulators. We may disclose personal data where required by law or where we believe it is necessary to protect our rights or the rights of others, for example to law enforcement, regulatory bodies, or courts.

Whenever we share personal data, we only share what is necessary and ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place.

8. International Transfers

Where we use third party service providers that store or process data outside the United Kingdom, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, in line with UK data protection law. This may include using countries that have been recognised as providing an adequate level of protection, or entering into suitable data protection agreements with the relevant providers.

9. Data Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff training, and careful selection of third party service providers.

However, no system can be completely secure. You are responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect your own information, for example by not sharing sensitive access instructions more widely than necessary.

10. Your Data Protection Rights

Under the UK GDPR, you have several rights in relation to your personal data, subject to certain conditions and exceptions:

Right of access: You can request confirmation of whether we hold personal data about you and receive a copy of that data.

Right to rectification: You can ask us to correct or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.

Right to erasure: In certain circumstances, you can ask us to delete your personal data.

Right to restriction of processing: You can ask us to limit the way we use your data in certain situations.

Right to data portability: In certain cases, you can request that we provide your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format or transfer it to another controller.

Right to object: You can object to our processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis. We will stop processing unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests or where processing is necessary for legal claims.

Right to withdraw consent: Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw that consent at any time.

If you exercise any of these rights, we may need to verify your identity before responding. We aim to respond to all valid requests within the time period required by law.

11. Complaints

If you have concerns about how we handle your personal data, you can raise them with us using your usual contact channel with Cleaners Richmond upon Thames. We will do our best to resolve your concerns. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office as the data protection supervisory authority.

12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal obligations, or data protection best practice. The updated version will apply from the date it is made available. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we handle your personal data.