Gardeners Bexley Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Bexley collects, uses, stores and protects personal data relating to our customers and prospective customers in the Bexley area. We are committed to handling your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

This Privacy Policy applies to all Gardeners Bexley customers and prospective customers in the Bexley area who contact us, request a quote, use our gardening services, or otherwise interact with us.

Who we are

Gardeners Bexley is a local gardening and maintenance service provider operating in the Bexley area. For the purposes of data protection law, Gardeners Bexley is the data controller of the personal data described in this Privacy Policy. This means we decide how and why your personal data is used.

Personal data we collect

We collect and process different types of personal data depending on how you interact with us. The main categories of data we collect are:

Identity and contact data, such as your name, address, and other basic contact details you choose to provide when you contact us or make an enquiry.

Service and contract data, such as details about the gardening services you request or receive, property access instructions that you choose to give, appointment dates and times, and records of our communications with you.

Billing and payment data, such as information required to issue invoices and record payments. If you pay via bank transfer or other methods, we will process the information necessary to confirm the transaction. We do not store full payment card details where payments are taken using third party payment processors.

Communication data, such as notes of your enquiries, emails or other messages you send to us, and any feedback or complaints you submit.

Technical and usage data, in limited circumstances, such as basic information generated when you visit our online pages or digital content, for example general device and browser information and how you interact with our content, where this is necessary for security, analytics or service improvement purposes.

How we collect personal data

We collect personal data in several ways:

Directly from you when you contact us, request a quote, book a service, communicate with us, or provide feedback.

From our service delivery activities, such as when we visit your property to carry out gardening work and create internal records of the services provided.

From limited third parties where necessary, for example payment processors that confirm a successful payment, or digital service providers that help us operate our website or manage bookings.

Lawful basis for processing

We only process your personal data when we have a lawful basis to do so. The main lawful bases we rely on are:

Contract: We process your personal data where this is necessary to enter into a contract with you or to perform a contract for gardening services that you have requested. This includes handling enquiries, preparing quotes, managing bookings, providing services, issuing invoices and handling payments.

Legitimate interests: We process your personal data where this is necessary for our legitimate business interests, and where your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. This may include managing our relationship with you, keeping basic records of work carried out, improving our services, and protecting our business from fraud or misuse.

Legal obligation: We process certain personal data to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, for example in relation to tax, accounting and record keeping.

Consent: In limited cases, we may rely on your consent to process your data, for example if we were to send you optional marketing communications that are not based on our legitimate interests. Where processing is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

How we use your personal data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To respond to your enquiries and provide information about our services.

To assess your requirements, prepare and provide quotations, and manage bookings and appointments.

To deliver gardening and maintenance services at your property.

To communicate with you about your services, including confirmations, updates and follow up messages.

To issue invoices, process payments, and maintain accurate financial records.

To manage our relationship with you, including handling feedback, queries or complaints.

To operate, protect and improve our business, services and customer experience.

To comply with legal and regulatory obligations and to cooperate with authorities where required by law.

Data sharing and processors

We do not sell your personal data. We only share your personal data where it is necessary and lawful to do so. This may include sharing with:

Service providers acting as data processors who provide services on our behalf, such as IT support providers, digital service providers, or payment processing companies. These providers are only allowed to use your personal data in accordance with our instructions and for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Professional advisers such as accountants, where necessary for tax and accounting purposes.

Public authorities, law enforcement, regulators or other bodies where we are required to do so by law, or where this is necessary to protect our rights, property, or safety.

Where we use data processors, we put in place appropriate contracts and safeguards to ensure that your personal data is protected and used only as permitted by law.

Data retention

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

In general, we will keep:

Customer and service records for the duration of our relationship with you and for a period afterwards where there is a valid reason, such as handling any queries or potential disputes.

Financial and billing records for the periods required by tax and accounting laws.

Enquiry records for a reasonable period to allow us to respond and follow up where appropriate, and to understand demand for our services.

When personal data is no longer needed, we will delete it or anonymise it so that it can no longer be linked back to you.

International data transfers

Our core operations are based in the United Kingdom and we aim to keep your personal data in the UK or in the European Economic Area where possible. If we use a service provider that transfers personal data outside the UK or the European Economic Area, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as standard contractual clauses or equivalent protections required by data protection law.

How we protect your data

We take reasonable and appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure, or access. These measures include restricting access to personal data to those people who need it for their role, using appropriate IT and security controls, and regularly reviewing our data handling practices.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These include:

The right to be informed about how we collect and use your personal data, which is the purpose of this Privacy Policy.

The right of access, which allows you to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you and certain information about how we process it.

The right to rectification, which allows you to ask us to correct inaccurate personal data or complete incomplete data.

The right to erasure in certain circumstances, which allows you to ask us to delete your personal data when there is no good reason for us to continue processing it.

The right to restrict processing in certain circumstances, for example where you contest the accuracy of the data or object to our use of it.

The right to data portability in certain circumstances, which allows you to receive the personal data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and to ask us to transfer it to another organisation where technically feasible.

The right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including profiling based on those interests, and the right to object to direct marketing at any time.

The right to withdraw consent where we rely on consent as our lawful basis. Withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw it.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK data protection authority if you are concerned about how we use your personal data. We encourage you to contact us first so we can address your concerns where possible.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal obligations or how we process personal data. When we make significant changes, we will take reasonable steps to bring the updated policy to your attention. The version published by Gardeners Bexley will always set out the current approach to privacy and data protection for our customers in the Bexley area.