Privacy Policy - Lee Carpet Cleaners

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This Privacy Policy explains how Lee Carpet Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data when providing carpet cleaning and related services. It applies to all Lee Carpet Cleaners customers in the area, including prospective customers, current customers, and anyone who contacts us for an enquiry, quotation, booking, or customer support.

We are committed to handling personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. This policy is written to give you clear information about your rights and our responsibilities.

1. Who We Are

Lee Carpet Cleaners is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. This means we decide how and why your personal information is used for the purposes of delivering our cleaning services, managing our business, meeting legal obligations, and improving our operations.

2. Personal Data We Collect

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

• Identity data: name, title, and any details you provide when making a booking or enquiry.
• Contact data: address, email address, telephone number, and preferred contact method.
• Service and booking data: property access details, appointment times, service history, cleaning instructions, and notes relating to your service requirements.
• Payment data: payment status, invoices, and transaction records. We do not normally store full card details if payments are processed through third-party payment providers.
• Communication data: messages, complaints, feedback, and records of any discussions with our team.
• Technical data: limited information such as device type, browser type, and basic usage data if you interact with our online services.
• Special category data: we do not intentionally collect sensitive personal data. If you provide such information to support a service requirement, we will only process it where lawful and necessary.

We normally collect data directly from you when you request a quote, book a service, complete a form, communicate with us, or otherwise use our services. We may also receive data from third parties such as payment processors, service platforms, or referral partners where relevant and lawful.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

• to provide carpet cleaning and related services;
• to manage bookings, scheduling, and customer communications;
• to issue invoices, process payments, and manage accounts;
• to respond to enquiries, complaints, and service requests;
• to maintain records of work completed;
• to meet legal, tax, and accounting obligations;
• to improve our services, customer experience, and business operations;
• to protect against fraud, misuse, or security incidents.

We only use your personal data where we have a valid legal reason to do so and where the use is fair, necessary, and proportionate.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis to process your personal data. Depending on the situation, 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 taking bookings, providing services, and managing payments or service changes.

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 includes managing customer relationships, improving service quality, preventing fraud, and maintaining internal records.

Legal Obligation

We process personal data where required to comply with legal obligations, including tax, accounting, regulatory, and record-keeping requirements.

Consent

In limited cases, we may rely on your consent, for example where you agree to receive optional marketing communications. You may withdraw consent at any time.

Vital Interests

This basis is unlikely to be used, but it may apply where processing is necessary to protect someone’s life in an emergency.

5. Sharing Your Personal Data

We may share your personal data with trusted third parties who help us run our business. These organisations act as processors when they process data on our instructions, or as independent controllers where they determine their own purposes.

Examples of processors may include:

• payment service providers;
• booking, scheduling, or customer management systems;
• IT, cloud storage, and data backup providers;
• accounting and invoicing software providers;
• email, messaging, and customer communication tools;
• professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers where needed.

We require processors to protect personal data, use it only for authorised purposes, and apply appropriate security measures. We do not sell your personal data.

We may also disclose data where required by law, court order, or a public authority, or where necessary to protect our rights, customers, staff, or property.

6. International Transfers

If any of our processors store or access data outside the UK, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place. These safeguards may include adequacy regulations, standard contractual clauses, or equivalent measures required by law.

7. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including satisfying legal, accounting, and reporting obligations.

• Customer service records: generally retained for the period needed to manage the customer relationship and any follow-up queries.
• Invoice, payment, and tax records: retained for the period required by applicable tax and accounting laws.
• Communication records: retained for a reasonable period to manage complaints, disputes, and service history.
• Marketing records: retained until you withdraw consent or object to further marketing.

When personal data is no longer required, we will delete, anonymise, or securely destroy it.

8. Data Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff training, and limited data access on a need-to-know basis. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we work to maintain strong safeguards appropriate to the nature of the data we handle.

9. Your Rights

As a data subject, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

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

Important: these rights are not absolute and may be subject to legal exceptions. If you make a request, we may need to verify your identity before responding.

10. Children’s Data

Our services are intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where it is necessary and provided by a parent, guardian, or authorised adult in connection with a service arrangement.

11. Complaints

If you are concerned about how we handle your personal data, you should raise the matter with us so we can try to resolve it promptly. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK data protection supervisory authority if you believe your data protection rights have been infringed.

12. Changes to This 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 to you.

13. Summary of Key Points

In short: we collect only the information needed to deliver our services, we use it on lawful grounds, we keep it only as long as necessary, we share it only with trusted processors or where required by law, and you have clear rights over your personal data.

This policy is intended to be clear, fair, and respectful of your privacy. If you use Lee Carpet Cleaners in the area, your information will be handled in line with this policy and applicable data protection law.