Privacy Policy - Lower Morden Carpet Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how Lower Morden Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data when providing carpet cleaning and related services. It applies to all Lower Morden Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including prospective customers, current customers, and anyone who contacts us about our services. 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.

1. Who We Are

Lower Morden Carpet Cleaners is a local carpet cleaning service provider operating for customers in the area. In the course of delivering our services, we may act as a data controller for the personal data we collect and use. This means we decide why and how your personal data is processed.

Privacy and data protection are important to us. We only collect the information we need for legitimate business purposes and do not use personal data for purposes that are unrelated to the services we provide.

2. What Data We Collect

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

Identity information such as your name, title, and any details you provide when requesting a service.
Contact details such as your address, phone number, and email address.
Service details such as property access information, carpet cleaning requirements, booking preferences, and notes relating to your appointment.
Payment information such as payment confirmation, billing records, and transaction references. We do not store unnecessary financial details.
Communication records such as messages, enquiries, complaints, and correspondence related to bookings or services.
Technical information where applicable, such as limited device or usage data if you interact with our digital systems, online forms, or messages.

We do not intentionally collect special category data unless it is strictly necessary and you choose to provide it. Special category data may include information about health, religion, or other sensitive matters. If such data is ever shared with us, it will be handled with extra care and only where there is a lawful basis 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 schedule, confirm, and manage carpet cleaning appointments.
To deliver services safely and effectively at your property.
To process payments and maintain accurate business records.
To handle customer support, feedback, and service issues.
To meet legal, accounting, and regulatory obligations.
To prevent fraud, misuse, or unauthorised access to our systems or services.

We only use personal data where it is necessary and proportionate to the service being provided.

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 lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data where it is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, or to perform a contract with you. This includes booking services, carrying out carpet cleaning work, and managing service-related communications.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided your rights and freedoms do not override those interests. This may include managing bookings, improving our services, maintaining records, and protecting our business from misuse. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the impact on your privacy and use safeguards where appropriate.

Legal Obligation

We may process certain data to comply with legal and regulatory duties, including tax, accounting, insurance, or record-keeping requirements.

Consent

In limited situations, we may ask for your consent to use your data for a particular purpose. Where consent is used as the lawful basis, you have the right to withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

5. Data Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted third parties where necessary to run our business and provide services. These parties may act as data processors on our behalf or as independent controllers in limited circumstances.

Processors may include:

Payment processing providers.
Booking and scheduling systems.
IT, software, and cloud service providers.
Administrative support services.
Professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers.

Where we use processors, we ensure they are subject to appropriate contractual obligations, confidentiality duties, and data protection safeguards. They may only process your data on our instructions and must protect it appropriately.

We do not sell personal data. We do not disclose personal data to third parties for their own marketing purposes unless you have specifically agreed to this or we are legally required to do so.

6. International Transfers

In some cases, service providers may store or process data outside the United Kingdom. If this happens, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place so that your personal data remains protected to a standard consistent with UK data protection law.

7. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including for legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The retention period depends on the type of information and the reason for processing.

Customer and booking records are generally kept for the period needed to manage the service and handle follow-up queries.
Invoice and payment records may be retained for the periods required by tax and accounting law.
Communication records may be retained for a reasonable period to resolve disputes, maintain service history, or demonstrate compliance.

When personal data is no longer needed, we will delete it securely or anonymise it so it can no longer identify you.

8. Your Rights

You have a number of rights under UK data protection law. These include:

The right of access – to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
The right to rectification – to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
The right to erasure – to request deletion of your data in certain circumstances.
The right to restrict processing – to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain situations.
The right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing where applicable.
The right to data portability – to request your data in a structured, commonly used format where this applies.
The right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent.

These rights are not absolute. In some cases, we may be entitled to refuse a request or continue processing where permitted by law. We will always explain our decision if this happens.

9. Security of Your Data

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These measures are designed to reflect the nature of the data and the risks involved.

Despite our efforts, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure. However, we work to maintain appropriate safeguards and review our practices regularly.

10. Children’s Data

Our services are intended for adults or for arrangements made by adults on behalf of a household. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children unless it is necessary in the context of a service arrangement and provided by an adult with authority to do so.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or service operations. Any updated version will apply from the date it is made available. We encourage customers to review this policy periodically so they remain informed about how personal data is handled.

12. Summary of Key Points

We collect only the data needed to provide and manage carpet cleaning services.
We rely on contract, legitimate interests, legal obligation, and sometimes consent.
We retain data only as long as necessary and then delete or anonymise it securely.
We use trusted processors under contract and do not sell personal data.
You have rights over your data, including access, correction, deletion, and objection.

This Privacy Policy applies to all Lower Morden Carpet Cleaners customers in the area. By using our services or contacting us about our services, you acknowledge that your personal data may be processed in accordance with this policy and applicable data protection law.