Privacy Policy - South Kensington Cleaners

South Kensington Cleaners is committed to protecting the privacy and personal data of all customers in the South Kensington area. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect personal information when you use our cleaning services. It also explains your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

This policy applies to all South Kensington Cleaners customers in the area, including residential and commercial clients, occasional users, and anyone who contacts us to request information, quotes, or services.

1. Information We Collect

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

Identity details such as your name and, where needed, business name.
Contact details such as address, email address, telephone number, and service location.
Service information such as cleaning preferences, booking details, instructions, and access notes.
Payment information such as billing records, transaction references, and invoice details.
Communication records such as messages, complaints, feedback, and service queries.
Technical information that may be collected when you use digital communication tools, such as IP address or device details, where relevant for security and service administration.

We do not intentionally collect special category data unless you choose to share it with us for a specific service-related reason, and only where it is necessary and lawful to do so. If such information is provided, we will treat it with additional care and only process it when permitted under data protection law.

2. How We Use Your Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To arrange, deliver, and manage cleaning services.
To confirm bookings, changes, cancellations, and service updates.
To prepare quotes, invoices, and payment records.
To respond to questions, complaints, and customer requests.
To maintain service quality, internal records, and business administration.
To meet legal, accounting, tax, and insurance requirements.
To protect our business, staff, and customers from fraud, misuse, or security issues.

We will only use your personal data in a way that is compatible with the purposes described in this policy, unless a new lawful basis applies or you have been informed of the change.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under UK GDPR, we must have a lawful basis for processing your data. South Kensington Cleaners relies on one or more of the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process your data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes taking bookings, carrying out cleaning services, managing payments, and handling service-related communication.

Legal Obligation

We may process personal data when needed to comply with a legal requirement, such as record-keeping, tax obligations, accounting, or responding to lawful requests from public authorities.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include managing customer relationships, improving our services, maintaining internal records, preventing fraud, and ensuring operational security.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example where you actively agree to receive certain marketing communications or where special category data must be processed based on your explicit permission. Where consent is used, you can withdraw it at any time.

4. Data Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted third parties who act as data processors on our behalf. These processors only use personal data according to our instructions and are required to protect it appropriately. Examples may include:

Payment processors who handle secure transaction processing.
Accounting and bookkeeping providers who help manage financial records.
IT and cloud storage providers who support secure data storage and business systems.
Communication service providers who help us manage emails, messages, or appointment notifications.
Insurance, legal, or professional advisers where disclosure is needed to protect our rights or meet legal duties.

We may also disclose personal data if required by law, to enforce agreements, to protect the safety of our customers or staff, or to respond to a legitimate request from a public authority.

We do not sell your personal data. Any sharing is limited, controlled, and only carried out where necessary and lawful.

5. International Transfers

Where any processor or service provider stores or accesses data outside the United Kingdom, we will take appropriate steps to ensure the data remains protected. This may include using approved contractual safeguards and assessing the level of protection offered by the destination country.

6. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including to meet legal, accounting, reporting, and insurance requirements.

Customer service and booking records are generally kept for the period needed to manage the service relationship and resolve any issues.
Financial and tax records are retained for the period required by law.
Communication records may be retained for a reasonable period to support customer service, quality control, and dispute handling.
Where consent is the basis for processing, we retain the relevant data until consent is withdrawn or the data is no longer needed.

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

7. Data Security

We take reasonable and appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff awareness, and limiting access to those who need it for business purposes.

Although no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we work to maintain a high standard of protection and review our practices as needed.

8. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have several rights regarding your personal data. These may include:

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 data.
Right to erasure – to request deletion of your data in certain circumstances.
Right to restriction – to ask us to limit processing in certain situations.
Right to data portability – to receive some of your data in a structured, commonly used format where applicable.
Right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing.
Right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

To exercise your rights, you may make a request using the usual service communication channels. We may need to verify your identity before responding. We aim to respond within the time limits required by law.

9. Complaints

If you are concerned about how we handle your personal data, we encourage you to raise the issue with us first so we can review and address it appropriately. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office if you believe your data protection rights have been infringed.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the law, our services, or our data practices. The updated version will apply from the time it is published or otherwise communicated. We encourage customers to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how their data is handled.

11. Summary of Our Approach

South Kensington Cleaners respects your privacy and only processes personal data when it is necessary, lawful, and proportionate. We use your information to provide reliable cleaning services, manage our operations, meet our legal duties, and protect our business. We keep your data only for as long as needed, share it only with trusted processors or where required by law, and support your rights to access, correct, or control your personal information.

This Privacy Policy applies to all South Kensington Cleaners customers in the area.