Elephant and Castle Cleaner Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Elephant and Castle Cleaner collects, uses, stores and protects your personal data when you use our cleaning services. It applies to all Elephant and Castle Cleaner customers located in the Elephant and Castle area, including prospective customers who make enquiries and past customers whose details we continue to retain for lawful purposes.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal data in a transparent and lawful manner, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Who this Privacy Policy applies to

This Privacy Policy applies to individuals and small business customers who request, use or have used our cleaning services in the Elephant and Castle area. It covers information collected through our website, over the phone, via messaging services, in person, and through any other method by which you interact with us in relation to our services.

Personal data we collect

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

Identification and contact details, such as your full name, residential or business address in the Elephant and Castle area, billing address, and any contact details you choose to provide, such as email address or messaging handle.

Service and booking information, including details of the services you request, property access information that you provide to enable us to perform the service, booking dates and times, frequency of cleaning, special instructions and notes relating to your property or preferences.

Billing and payment information, such as invoices issued, amounts due and paid, payment method details to the extent needed for invoicing and reconciliation, and basic transaction records. We do not store full payment card details if we use a third party payment processor.

Communication records, including records of your enquiries, complaints or feedback, and any correspondence we have with you via email, phone, messaging services or other communication channels.

Technical and usage information, where relevant, such as basic device and browser information, IP address and pages viewed on our website, collected through cookies or similar technologies where you have consented or where it is strictly necessary for the operation of the site.

Lawful bases for processing your data

We process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis under data protection law. Depending on the context, we may rely on the following legal bases:

Contract. We process your data to enter into and perform a contract with you, including taking steps at your request before entering into a contract. This includes handling enquiries, providing quotes, managing bookings, delivering cleaning services, issuing invoices and processing payments.

Legitimate interests. We may process your data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and where your rights and interests do not override those interests. This includes improving our services, managing our relationship with you, retaining basic records of previous bookings, and defending legal claims.

Legal obligation. We process some data to comply with our legal obligations, such as tax and accounting requirements, record-keeping duties and responding to lawful requests from regulators or law enforcement.

Consent. In certain limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example for specific types of optional marketing communications where required by law or for non-essential cookies. Where we rely on consent, you have the right to withdraw it at any time.

How we use your personal data

We use the personal data we collect for the following purposes:

To provide and manage cleaning services in the Elephant and Castle area, including handling bookings, scheduling cleaners, accessing your premises where authorised, and tailoring the service to your instructions.

To communicate with you, including responding to your enquiries, sending booking confirmations and reminders, notifying you of changes to appointments, and addressing complaints or support issues.

To manage payments and accounts, including issuing invoices, processing payments via chosen payment providers, managing any debt recovery where appropriate, and maintaining financial records.

To manage our business operations, such as monitoring service quality, staff training, internal reporting, and maintaining appropriate business records.

To comply with legal and regulatory obligations, including responding to lawful requests, and retaining records required under tax or accounting laws.

To send you service-related information and, where permitted, limited marketing about our services that may be of interest to you, with the ability to opt out at any time.

Data retention

We keep your personal data for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, and to meet legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

Service and booking records are typically retained for up to six years after your last interaction or booking, in line with tax and contractual limitation periods. Communication records may be held for similar periods where they are relevant to our services or any potential disputes.

Where we rely on your consent for processing, such as for optional marketing, we will generally retain your contact details for as long as you remain subscribed and will remove or suppress them when you opt out.

After the applicable retention periods expire, personal data will be securely deleted, anonymised or otherwise put beyond use.

Sharing your personal data and processors

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your information with selected third parties where necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and where appropriate safeguards are in place.

Service providers acting as processors may process personal data on our behalf, for example providers of booking and scheduling tools, customer relationship management systems, cloud storage services, payment processing, invoicing and accounting platforms, and IT support services.

Professional advisers, such as accountants, auditors, legal advisers or insurers, may receive limited personal data where necessary for the provision of their services.

Public authorities, regulators or law enforcement agencies may receive personal data where we are under a legal obligation to disclose it or where disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, property or safety, or that of our customers, staff or others.

Where processors are used, they are only authorised to process your data in accordance with our instructions and must implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect it.

International transfers

Where we use service providers located outside the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, or where data is stored in or accessed from such locations, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. These may include using providers in countries that have been recognised as providing an adequate level of protection, or entering into contracts incorporating standard data protection clauses approved by relevant authorities.

How we protect your data

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration or disclosure. Measures may include access controls, secure storage, encryption in transit where appropriate, staff confidentiality commitments and regular review of our data handling practices.

Your data protection rights

As a customer in the Elephant and Castle area, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data under data protection law. These include:

The right of access. You can request confirmation of whether we hold personal data about you and obtain a copy of that data, together with information about how we use it.

The right to rectification. You can ask us to correct or complete personal data that is inaccurate or incomplete.

The right to erasure. In certain circumstances, you can request that we delete your personal data, for example where it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected and we have no legal obligation to retain it.

The right to restrict processing. You may ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in certain situations, such as where you contest its accuracy or object to our use of it.

The right to object. You have the right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to object at any time to the use of your data for direct marketing.

The right to data portability. In certain cases, you may request that we provide you or a third party with a copy of the personal data you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

Where we rely on consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

Exercising your rights and contacting us

If you wish to exercise any of your data protection rights or have questions about how we handle your personal data, you can contact us using the usual communication channels that you use for our services. Please clearly state that your enquiry relates to data protection or this Privacy Policy, and provide sufficient information to allow us to identify you and respond to your request.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection supervisory authority if you are unhappy with how we use your personal data. We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly before you contact the authority.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, how we process personal data, or legal and regulatory developments. Any updated version will apply to all customers in the Elephant and Castle area from the date it is made available. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your information.