Privacy Policy

Gospel Oak Carpet Cleaners is committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect personal information when you use our cleaning services. It applies to all Gospel Oak Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including anyone who enquires about our services, requests a quotation, books an appointment, or receives cleaning work from us.

We process personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. This policy is designed to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it, how long we keep it, who may process it on our behalf, and what rights you have over your information.

1. Personal Data We Collect

We only collect personal data that is necessary to provide our services, manage our business, and meet legal obligations. The information we may collect includes:

Identity details such as your name and, where relevant, the name of a business or property manager.
Contact details such as your address, email address, and telephone number.
Service information including details of the cleaning service requested, property access notes, preferred appointment times, and any special instructions.
Billing and payment information such as payment status, invoice records, and transaction references. We do not store more payment data than is necessary to complete a transaction and maintain financial records.
Communication records including messages, call notes, complaint details, and correspondence relating to quotes, bookings, or service issues.
Technical information if you contact us by electronic means, such as basic metadata from emails or booking systems.

We do not intentionally collect special category data unless you voluntarily provide it and it is necessary for a specific service request. Special category data includes information about health, religion, ethnicity, or similar sensitive matters. If such information is ever shared with us, it will only be used where lawful and necessary, and with appropriate safeguards.

2. How We Use Your Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To provide quotes and respond to enquiries.
To schedule, deliver, and manage carpet cleaning and related services.
To communicate with you about appointments, service updates, or changes.
To issue invoices, record payments, and manage account administration.
To handle complaints, follow-up queries, and customer service requests.
To maintain business records and comply with tax, accounting, and legal obligations.
To improve our services, processes, and customer experience.
To prevent fraud, misuse, or unlawful activity.

We only use your information where we have a lawful basis to do so. We do not sell personal data.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must identify a lawful basis for each use of personal data. The lawful bases we rely on are:

Contract

We process your 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 managing enquiries, providing quotations, confirming bookings, carrying out the cleaning service, and processing payments.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided that these interests do not override your rights and freedoms. This includes maintaining service records, responding to customer queries, improving service quality, and protecting our business from fraud or misuse. When relying on legitimate interests, we consider the impact on your privacy and ensure the processing is proportionate.

Legal Obligation

We may process and retain certain information to meet legal obligations, such as accounting requirements, tax rules, insurance obligations, and record-keeping duties.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example if we need to use information for a purpose that is not covered by another lawful basis. Where consent is used, it will be informed, specific, and easy to withdraw. If you withdraw consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

4. How We Share Your Data

We only share personal data where necessary and only with trusted service providers or where required by law. We may share your data with:

Payment processors to handle card or electronic payments.
Accounting or bookkeeping services to manage invoices, tax records, and financial administration.
IT and system providers that support email, scheduling, document storage, and secure business communications.
Business advisers such as legal, insurance, or compliance professionals where required.
Public authorities if we are legally required to disclose data.

Where we use third-party service providers, they act as processors and only process personal data on our instructions. They are required to protect your information and may not use it for their own purposes.

5. Data Processors

Processors are organisations that process personal data on our behalf. We select processors carefully and require appropriate security and confidentiality standards. Examples of processor functions may include:

Appointment scheduling and calendar management.
Email hosting and secure communications.
Accounting, invoicing, and financial record support.
Cloud storage and backup services.
Payment handling services.

Gospel Oak Carpet Cleaners remains responsible for ensuring that any processor we use meets data protection requirements. We do not allow processors to keep your data longer than necessary or use it for unrelated marketing purposes without a lawful basis.

6. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, and in accordance with legal and business requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of data and the reason we hold it.

Enquiry and quotation records are normally kept for a limited period after the enquiry ends so we can respond to follow-up questions or rebookings.
Customer service and job records are retained for a reasonable period to manage service history and resolve disputes.
Financial and accounting records are retained for the period required by law and tax rules.
Complaints or legal correspondence may be kept longer if needed to defend or establish legal claims.

When data is no longer required, we will securely delete or anonymise it. We review retention regularly to make sure information is not kept for longer than necessary.

7. International Transfers

Where any processor or system provider stores or accesses data outside the United Kingdom, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place. These may include adequacy regulations, contractual protections, or other lawful transfer mechanisms designed to protect your personal data to UK GDPR standards.

8. Data Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality practices, and regular review of our data handling processes. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we work to keep your information safe.

9. Your Rights

You have a number of rights under data protection law. Depending on the circumstances, these may 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 in certain cases, sometimes called the right to be forgotten.
The right to restrict processing in certain circumstances.
The right to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
The right to data portability where processing is based on consent or contract and carried out by automated means.
The right to withdraw consent where consent is the lawful basis.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, we may need to verify your identity before responding. We will respond within the time limits required by law unless an extension is permitted.

10. Complaints

If you have concerns about how we handle your personal data, we encourage you to raise them with us first so we can try to resolve the issue. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe your data protection rights have been infringed. This right exists regardless of whether you first contact us.

11. 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 made available. We encourage customers to review this policy periodically so they remain informed about how their data is used.

12. Scope of This Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to all Gospel Oak Carpet Cleaners customers in area, as well as prospective customers and anyone who communicates with us in connection with our services. By using our services, you acknowledge that your personal data may be processed in the ways described above, in line with applicable data protection laws and the principles of fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, security, and accountability.

Summary: This policy explains how Gospel Oak Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, shares, retains, and protects customer data, and outlines lawful bases and user rights under UK GDPR.