Privacy Policy - Bermondsey Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how Bermondsey Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data when providing cleaning services. It applies to all Bermondsey Cleaners customers in the area, including private households, landlords, tenants, and business clients who use our services.

We are committed to handling personal information in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner in accordance with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. This policy is intended to help you understand what personal data we process, why we process it, how long we keep it, who we share it with, and what rights you have.

1. Who We Are

Bermondsey Cleaners provides domestic and commercial cleaning services. In the context of data protection law, we are the data controller for the personal data we collect and use about our customers, prospective customers, and other individuals whose information we process in the course of our services.

This means we decide why and how personal data is processed. We take our responsibility seriously and apply appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the information entrusted to us.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We collect only the information necessary to deliver our services, manage our business, and meet legal obligations. Depending on your interaction with us, we may collect the following categories of data:

Identity data such as your name or title.
Contact data such as your address, phone number, and email address.
Service details including booking preferences, cleaning instructions, property access notes, and service history.
Payment data such as billing details, transaction references, and payment confirmation information.
Communication data including messages, complaints, feedback, and records of enquiries.
Technical data where relevant, such as basic device or browser information if communications are sent electronically.
Marketing preferences where you choose to receive or decline service updates or promotions.

We do not deliberately collect special category data unless it is strictly necessary and you have provided the relevant lawful basis, or unless we are required to do so for a specific legal reason. We ask customers to avoid sharing unnecessary sensitive information.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To provide quotations and respond to enquiries.
To manage bookings and deliver cleaning services.
To confirm property access arrangements and service requirements.
To process payments and maintain accurate accounts.
To communicate about schedules, changes, complaints, or service issues.
To improve service quality and maintain internal records.
To comply with legal, regulatory, and tax obligations.
To prevent fraud, misuse, or unauthorized access to our systems or services.

We will only use your data in ways that are compatible with the purposes described in this policy.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

We process personal data only where we have a valid lawful basis under data protection law. Depending on the situation, the relevant basis may be one or more of the following:

a) Contract

We process data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes managing bookings, providing cleaning services, handling payments, and communicating service updates.

b) Legal Obligation

We may process and retain certain information to comply with legal duties, including accounting, tax, insurance, and record-keeping requirements.

c) Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and where those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include service administration, internal quality control, fraud prevention, and responding to customer complaints.

d) Consent

Where required, we rely on your consent. For example, this may apply to optional marketing communications or the collection of certain information that is not necessary for contract performance. You may withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent.

We do not rely on consent where another lawful basis is more appropriate and more reliable for service delivery.

5. Sharing Your Information and Processors

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

Payment service providers used to process transactions.
Accounting or bookkeeping service providers.
Booking, scheduling, or customer management software providers.
IT and cloud storage providers that securely host business systems.
Professional advisers such as insurers, legal advisers, or accountants where necessary.

We may also share information with public authorities, regulators, law enforcement, or courts where required by law or where it is necessary to protect our rights, customers, staff, or property.

We do not sell personal data. We do not share it for purposes unrelated to our business unless you have been informed and, where required, have given consent.

6. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including to meet legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Our retention periods depend on the type of data and the reason we hold it. In general:

Customer booking and service records are kept for the duration of the relationship and for a reasonable period afterwards.
Payment and invoicing records are retained for the period required by tax and accounting law.
Enquiry and correspondence records are retained only as long as needed to manage the matter or for business reference.
Records relating to complaints, disputes, or claims may be kept longer where necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

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

7. Data Security

We take appropriate security measures to protect personal data against accidental loss, destruction, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or misuse. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, password protection, staff training, and careful management of supplier relationships.

Although we work hard to safeguard your information, no system can be guaranteed completely secure. If we become aware of a data breach affecting your rights and freedoms, we will handle it in line with our legal obligations.

8. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have several rights regarding your personal data. Subject to legal exceptions, 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 how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
Right to data portability – to request that certain data be provided in a structured, commonly used format.
Right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

You also have the right to raise concerns about our handling of your personal data with the relevant supervisory authority if you believe your rights have been infringed.

9. Children’s Data

Our services are aimed at adult customers. We do not intentionally collect personal data from children except where it is incidental to a service arrangement and necessary for lawful business purposes. If we become aware that we have collected information from a child without appropriate grounds, we will take steps to delete it or obtain the necessary permissions.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in law, our services, or our data-handling practices. When we make material changes, we will take reasonable steps to ensure customers are informed. The most current version will always govern how we process personal data.

11. Our Commitment

We believe privacy is a fundamental right. Bermondsey Cleaners is committed to using personal data responsibly, transparently, and only where necessary to provide a reliable cleaning service. We aim to keep our data practices clear, proportionate, and respectful of your expectations.

In summary: we collect only the data needed to provide and manage our cleaning services, process it on a valid lawful basis, share it only with trusted processors or where legally required, keep it only for as long as needed, and respect your legal rights at every stage.