Dulwich Cleaners Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how Dulwich Cleaners collects, uses, stores and shares personal data about its customers in the Dulwich area and surrounding neighbourhoods. It also describes your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and related data protection laws. This policy applies to all customers of Dulwich Cleaners, including domestic and business customers, regardless of how you contact us or use our services.
Who we are
Dulwich Cleaners provides cleaning and related services to customers in the local area. We are the controller of the personal data we collect and are responsible for deciding how and why your data is processed. We are committed to handling your information lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner.
Personal data we collect
We only collect personal data that is relevant and necessary for providing our services and managing our relationship with you. The types of personal data we may collect include:
Contact and identification details, such as your name, residential or business address, billing address, and any contact details that you choose to provide, such as an online account username.
Service information, such as the type of cleaning or related services you request, details about your property necessary to provide the service, access instructions you provide to us, and records of appointments, cancellations and preferences.
Payment and transaction information, such as payment confirmations, invoices, records of payments received and outstanding balances. We do not store full card details where payments are processed by secure third party payment providers.
Communication records, such as enquiries, complaints, feedback, and any correspondence or notes of conversations we have with you in the course of providing our services.
Technical and usage data, such as information provided automatically by your browser or device when you visit our website, including general location, pages visited and basic diagnostic data. This may include the use of cookies or similar technologies where permitted.
How we collect your data
We collect personal data directly from you when you contact us to request a quote, make a booking, create an account, pay for services, or communicate with us in any way. We may also collect data when you use our website or other online services.
In limited cases, we may receive information from third parties, for example when a landlord, managing agent or employer arranges cleaning services on your behalf, or when a payment or booking platform passes details of your order to us. In these cases we treat your data with the same level of protection as if you had provided it directly.
Lawful basis for processing your data
We process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis to do so. Depending on the circumstances, we rely on the following legal bases:
Performance of a contract. We use your personal data to provide you with cleaning and related services, manage bookings, take payment, communicate with you about the services, and meet our contractual obligations to you.
Legitimate interests. We may process your data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and these interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This can include managing and improving our services, keeping appropriate business records, handling customer queries, and preventing or detecting fraud.
Legal obligations. We may need to process your personal data to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, such as tax, accounting and record keeping obligations.
Consent. In some cases we may rely on your consent, for example for certain types of marketing communications or non-essential cookies. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time by contacting us or using the options provided in the relevant communication or service.
How we use your personal data
We use your personal data for the following purposes:
To provide and administer our cleaning and related services, including scheduling visits, customising services to your needs and managing your account.
To process payments, issue invoices and receipts, and manage any refunds or disputes.
To communicate with you about bookings, changes to services, updates to our terms, and important information about your relationship with us.
To respond to enquiries, requests and complaints, and to provide customer support.
To maintain business records, conduct internal reporting, and protect the security and integrity of our systems.
To comply with legal requirements and cooperate with regulators and law enforcement where necessary and lawful.
Where lawful and with appropriate safeguards, to inform you about services, offers or updates that may be relevant to you, and to understand the effectiveness of such communications.
Data sharing and processors
We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with third parties only where necessary and with appropriate safeguards in place. These third parties may act as our processors, meaning they process data on our behalf and under our instructions.
Typical categories of processors and recipients include:
Payment service providers that securely process your payments and manage related transactions.
IT and hosting providers that supply and maintain the systems we use to store and manage your data.
Scheduling, booking or customer management tools that help us organise appointments and communications.
Professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers where required for our business operations and compliance.
Regulators, law enforcement bodies or other authorities where we are legally required or permitted to do so.
We ensure that all processors are bound by appropriate contracts requiring them to protect your data, use it only for specified purposes and comply with applicable data protection laws.
International transfers
Where we use service providers or systems that involve transferring personal data outside the UK or the European Economic Area, we take steps to ensure that an adequate level of protection is in place. This may include using jurisdictions recognised as having adequate data protection laws or implementing standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards.
Data retention
We keep your personal data only for as long as it is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to provide services to you, to meet legal, accounting or reporting requirements, and to resolve disputes.
In general, we retain key customer and transaction records for a period that allows us to respond to queries, manage our relationship, and comply with tax and legal obligations. When personal data is no longer needed, we will either delete it securely, anonymise it so that it can no longer be linked to you, or, where this is not immediately possible, store it securely and restrict access until deletion is feasible.
Your data protection rights
As a customer in the Dulwich area or surrounding neighbourhoods, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data under data protection law. These include:
The right of access. You can request confirmation that we process your personal data and ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, along with certain details about how we use it.
The right to rectification. You can ask us to correct or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.
The right to erasure. In certain circumstances, you can request that we delete your personal data, for example where it is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected or where you have withdrawn consent and no other legal basis applies.
The right to restriction. You can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in specific situations, such as if you contest the accuracy of the data or object to our processing.
The right to object. You can object to our processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests as the legal basis, particularly in relation to direct marketing.
The right to data portability. In certain cases, you can ask us to provide your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format, or request that we transfer it to another controller where technically feasible.
Where we rely on consent to process your data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.
How to exercise your rights and complaints
If you wish to exercise any of your rights, or if you have questions or concerns about how we handle your personal data, you can contact us using the usual contact methods you use for our services, clearly stating that your request relates to data protection or privacy.
We will respond to your request as soon as reasonably possible and within the time limits set by law. We may need to ask you for additional information to confirm your identity before fulfilling certain requests.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority if you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data. We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly before you approach any authority.
Security of your data
We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, destruction or damage. These measures are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risks associated with the data we process. While no system is completely secure, we regularly review and enhance our safeguards to protect your information.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal obligations or the way we process personal data. Any changes will be posted in the most recent version of this policy. We encourage you to review this policy periodically so that you remain informed about how we protect your personal data.
