Privacy Policy - Sutton Carpet Cleaners

Sutton Carpet Cleaners is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect personal information when providing our carpet cleaning and related services. This policy applies to all Sutton Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including individuals who enquire about, book, receive, or pay for our services.

1. Who We Are

For the purposes of data protection law, Sutton Carpet Cleaners acts as a data controller in relation to the personal data we collect from customers, prospects, and other individuals who interact with us. This means we determine the purposes and means of processing personal information for service delivery, administration, compliance, and business management.

2. The Information We Collect

We only collect personal data that is necessary for legitimate business and service purposes. Depending on your interaction with us, we may collect:

Identity information such as your name and title.
Contact details such as address, email address, and telephone number.
Service information including property access instructions, cleaning preferences, requested dates, and details relevant to the work to be carried out.
Payment information where required to process transactions, issue invoices, or maintain financial records.
Communication records including messages, complaints, feedback, and notes from conversations.
Technical information if you contact us through digital channels, such as device type, browser data, and basic usage information, where applicable.
Special instructions that may relate to access needs, property conditions, or other service-related requirements.

We do not seek to collect more data than is reasonably necessary. If we ever need information that is optional, we will make that clear at the point of collection.

3. How We Collect Data

We may collect personal data directly from you when you:

Request a quotation or service.
Make a booking or amend an appointment.
Communicate with us by phone, email, or message.
Provide feedback, raise a complaint, or ask a question.
Complete forms or otherwise share information needed for us to provide our services.

We may also receive information from third parties where necessary for service administration, such as payment providers, trusted business systems, or persons acting on your behalf. In all cases, we apply appropriate safeguards and only use such data for the relevant and lawful purpose.

4. Why We Use Your Personal Data

Sutton Carpet Cleaners processes personal data for the following purposes:

To provide carpet cleaning and related services.
To manage bookings, quotes, and customer accounts.
To communicate service updates, reminders, and operational information.
To process payments, refunds, and invoices.
To maintain internal records and manage our business effectively.
To handle complaints, disputes, and customer support requests.
To comply with legal, tax, insurance, and regulatory obligations.
To improve service quality, safety, and customer experience.

We will not use your personal data for purposes that are incompatible with those listed above unless we have a lawful basis to do so and have informed you where required.

5. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for each use of personal data. We rely on the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes managing quotes, bookings, service delivery, billing, and customer support connected to the services you request.

Legitimate Interests

We may process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. Examples include maintaining records, preventing fraud, improving services, responding to enquiries, and managing internal administration.

Legal Obligation

We process certain data to comply with legal requirements, including accounting, taxation, insurance, and record-keeping obligations.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example where it is required for a specific optional use of your information. Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

We will always choose the lawful basis that best fits the processing activity and will only process data where a lawful basis applies.

6. Data Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted third parties that help us operate our business and provide services. These parties act as processors or, in some cases, separate controllers. They may include:

Payment processors that handle card payments or other financial transactions.
IT and hosting providers that support our systems, data storage, and communications.
Accounting and bookkeeping services used for financial administration and tax compliance.
Customer management or scheduling systems that help us organise bookings and service delivery.
Professional advisers such as accountants, insurers, legal advisers, or regulatory specialists.
Subcontractors or service partners where necessary to deliver a requested service or complete part of a job.

Where processors are used, we require them to handle personal data only on our instructions, keep it secure, and process it in accordance with data protection law. We do not sell personal data.

7. International Transfers

If any of our service providers store or process data outside the United Kingdom, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place. These may include contractual protections or other lawful transfer mechanisms designed to keep your information protected to the required standard.

8. Retention of Personal Data

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected, including to meet legal, accounting, and reporting requirements. The length of retention depends on the nature of the data and the reason for processing.

Customer service records are retained for the period needed to manage the service relationship and resolve any issues.
Financial and invoice records are retained for the period required by tax and accounting laws.
Complaint or dispute records may be kept for longer where necessary to protect legal rights or defend claims.
Marketing or consent-based records are retained until you withdraw consent or object, where applicable.

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

9. Data Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, accidental loss, destruction, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and limited access to personal information on a need-to-know basis. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we take reasonable steps to protect your information at all times.

10. Your Rights

Depending on the circumstances and the legal basis for processing, you may have the following rights under data protection law:

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

We will respond to valid requests within the time limits required by law. In some cases, we may need to confirm your identity before actioning a request.

11. Children’s Data

Our services are intended for adults and businesses arranging cleaning services. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children unless it is incidentally included in service communications or property records necessary for an appointment. If we become aware that we have collected data from a child unlawfully, we will take appropriate steps to delete it.

12. Complaints and Your Supervisory Authority

If you have concerns about how we use your personal data, we encourage you to raise them with us first so that we can try to resolve the issue. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority if you believe your rights have been infringed.

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 operational practices. Any updated version will apply from the date it is published. We encourage you to review this policy periodically so that you remain informed about how we process personal data.

14. Summary of Our Commitment

Sutton Carpet Cleaners respects your privacy and is committed to handling personal data responsibly. We collect only the information we need, use it for clear and lawful purposes, retain it only as long as necessary, and share it only with trusted processors or where required by law. Your rights matter to us, and we aim to process all personal data in line with GDPR principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity, and accountability.