Privacy Policy - North Harrow Carpet Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how North Harrow Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data. It applies to all North Harrow Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including anyone who uses our carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning, stain removal, deep cleaning, or related domestic and commercial services. We are committed to handling personal data fairly, lawfully, and transparently in accordance with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

North Harrow Carpet Cleaners provides professional cleaning services to homes and businesses in the North Harrow area. In this Privacy Policy, "we", "us", and "our" refer to North Harrow Carpet Cleaners. This policy applies to all customers, prospective customers, website visitors where applicable, and any person whose data is provided to us in connection with our services.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We only collect personal data that is necessary for delivering our services, managing our business, and meeting legal obligations. The data we may collect includes:

Identity details such as your name and, where relevant, the name of your business.
Contact details such as your phone number, email address, and service address.
Service details including booking requests, property access information, preferred cleaning dates, service instructions, and records of work carried out.
Payment details such as invoice information, payment method, and transaction status. We do not store full card details where a secure third-party payment provider is used.
Communication records such as emails, text messages, call notes, complaints, quotes, and feedback.
Technical data if you interact with any digital services we use, such as IP address, device details, browser type, and cookies where applicable.
Special category data only where you voluntarily provide it and only if it is needed to meet a specific request, for example access requirements or health-related information that affects service delivery. Such data is handled with extra care and only where permitted by law.

3. How We Collect Personal Data

We may collect data directly from you when you:

request a quote or make a booking;
contact us by phone, email, message, or other communication methods;
provide instructions before, during, or after a service;
submit a complaint, query, or review;
make a payment or ask for an invoice;
otherwise interact with us as a customer or prospective customer.

We may also receive data from third parties where necessary, such as from property managers, landlords, letting agents, business clients, or payment providers, if they are arranging services on your behalf or sharing information required for service delivery.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

We process personal data only when we have a valid lawful basis under UK GDPR. Depending on the situation, we may rely on the following grounds:

Contract – processing is necessary to provide our cleaning services, manage bookings, issue invoices, and fulfil our obligations to you.
Legitimate interests – processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests, such as improving services, handling enquiries, preventing fraud, maintaining records, and managing our operations, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.
Legal obligation – processing is necessary to comply with tax, accounting, insurance, employment, or other statutory requirements.
Consent – where required, for example for certain marketing communications or for processing specific optional information that you choose to provide.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.

5. How We Use Personal Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

to provide and manage cleaning services;
to confirm bookings, quotations, and service availability;
to communicate with you before, during, and after service delivery;
to process payments and issue receipts or invoices;
to respond to enquiries, complaints, and customer support requests;
to maintain business and accounting records;
to meet legal and regulatory obligations;
to improve service quality, training, and customer experience;
to protect our business, staff, and customers from misuse, fraud, or security issues.

We do not sell your personal data. We also do not use it in a way that is inconsistent with the purposes described in this policy.

6. Data Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data only when necessary and only with parties that support our operations. These may include processors acting on our behalf, such as:

payment service providers;
accounting and bookkeeping providers;
IT, cloud storage, and software suppliers;
customer communication and scheduling tools;
professional advisers such as accountants, insurers, or legal advisers;
subcontractors or employees who need access to your data to carry out the service;
public authorities or regulators where disclosure is required by law.

Where we use processors, we require them to handle personal data securely, use it only on our instructions, and comply with data protection law. We do not allow processors to use your data for their own independent purposes.

7. International Transfers

Where any service provider stores or processes personal data outside the UK, we will take appropriate steps to ensure that your data is protected to a standard that is essentially equivalent to UK GDPR requirements. This may include using approved contractual safeguards and assessing the destination country’s protections.

8. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including legal, accounting, and reporting requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information and the reason we hold it.

As a general approach:

Customer and booking records are normally retained for as long as needed to manage the service relationship and handle follow-up queries.
Financial and tax records are kept for the period required by law.
Complaint and communication records may be retained for a reasonable period to resolve disputes and improve services.
Consent records are kept as long as needed to demonstrate compliance.

When data is no longer needed, we will securely delete, anonymise, or archive it as appropriate.

9. Security of Personal Data

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, limited staff access, password protection, and regular review of our data handling practices. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we work to reduce risks to an appropriate level.

10. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These include:

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

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office if you believe your data rights have been infringed. We encourage you to raise any concerns with us first so that we can try to resolve them.

11. Automated Decision-Making

We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects. If this changes, we will update this policy and explain the logic involved, as well as your rights in relation to such processing.

12. Marketing Communications

We may send limited marketing communications where we are legally permitted to do so. You can opt out of marketing at any time. If you choose to stop receiving such communications, we will respect your preference and update our records accordingly.

13. 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 handling practices. Any updated version will apply from the date it is published or otherwise communicated. We recommend reviewing this policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data.

14. Summary of Our Commitments

In plain terms

North Harrow Carpet Cleaners collects only the personal data needed to provide reliable cleaning services and manage our business. We use it lawfully, keep it secure, share it only with trusted processors when necessary, and retain it only for as long as needed. You have clear rights over your information, and we will always handle requests in line with applicable data protection law.

This Privacy Policy applies to all North Harrow Carpet Cleaners customers in the area.