Gardeners Sands End Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Sands End collects, uses, stores and protects personal data of its customers. It applies to all Gardeners Sands End customers in the local service area who use or enquire about our gardening and related services.

We are committed to handling personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. This Privacy Policy is intended to provide clear and transparent information about our data practices and your rights.

1. Data controller

Gardeners Sands End is the data controller for the personal data described in this Privacy Policy. As data controller, we determine the purposes and means of processing your personal data and are responsible for ensuring that such processing complies with applicable data protection laws.

2. Personal data we collect

We may collect and process the following categories of personal data when you contact us, make a booking, use our services, or interact with us in any other way:

Identification and contact details, such as your name, postal address, property address for service visits, and general location within our service area.

Communication details, such as your preferred contact method and the content of any messages or correspondence you send to us, including enquiries, feedback, and complaints.

Service information, such as details of the services you request or receive, property access notes you voluntarily provide, appointment dates and times, and related service history.

Billing and payment information, such as records of payments made and amounts due. Card or bank details are handled only by our payment processor or your bank, not stored directly by us, except where required for accounting records in a limited and secure manner.

Technical and usage information, where applicable, such as basic device or browser information and logs of when you visit our website or online pages we control. We only collect what is necessary for security, performance, or basic analytics and do not use this information to identify you directly unless it is combined with other data you provide.

3. How we collect personal data

We collect personal data in the following ways:

Directly from you when you contact us by any communication method, request a quote, book a visit, or enter into a service contract with us.

During the course of providing services, for example when our team visits your property and records information required to deliver or schedule services safely and effectively.

From third parties where you have authorised them to share your data with us, such as referral partners or payment service providers. In such cases we only receive limited information necessary to complete the relevant task.

4. Lawful bases for processing

We will only process your personal data where we have a lawful basis under data protection law. Depending on the specific processing activity, we rely on the following lawful bases:

Performance of a contract: We process your personal data to provide you with our gardening services, to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, to manage bookings, to issue invoices and handle payments, and to respond to service-related communications.

Legal obligation: We may process personal data when this is necessary for compliance with legal obligations, including tax, accounting, record-keeping, and health and safety requirements.

Legitimate interests: We may process personal data based on our legitimate interests in managing and improving our services, ensuring security, preventing fraud, maintaining records of customer interactions, and promoting our services in a proportionate manner. When relying on legitimate interests, we balance our interests against your rights and freedoms.

Consent: In some cases, we may ask for your consent to process your personal data for specific purposes, such as certain types of marketing communications that are not covered by legitimate interests. Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time.

5. How we use personal data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To provide and manage our gardening services, including scheduling visits, carrying out work at your property, communicating about your bookings, and handling any changes or issues.

To manage our relationship with you, including responding to enquiries, recording service history, and handling feedback or complaints.

To administer billing and payments, including issuing invoices, recording payments received, and maintaining financial records.

To improve our services, for example by reviewing service outcomes, monitoring demand in the local area, and training our team members using aggregated or carefully limited personal data.

To send you service-related information and, where permitted, relevant news or offers relating to Gardeners Sands End. You can object to or opt out of marketing communications at any time.

To comply with legal and regulatory obligations, and to protect our rights, property and safety, including the detection and prevention of fraud or misuse of our services.

6. Data retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or to meet legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of data and the reason for processing.

Customer and service records are generally retained for a period that allows us to manage any ongoing relationship, respond to queries, and handle potential legal claims. Financial and invoicing records are kept for the period required by applicable tax and accounting laws.

When personal data is no longer required, we will delete it securely or anonymise it so that it can no longer be linked to an individual.

7. Data processors and sharing of personal data

We may share your personal data with trusted third parties that act as data processors on our behalf. These processors only process your data according to our instructions and for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, and they are required to implement appropriate security measures.

Typical categories of processors include providers of payment processing services, bookkeeping or accounting support, customer management or scheduling tools, IT hosting or storage services, and communication service providers. We only share the minimum personal data necessary for each specific task.

We may also share personal data where necessary with professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers, and with law enforcement authorities, courts or regulators if we are legally obliged to do so or if this is necessary to protect our rights or the rights of others.

We do not sell your personal data and do not share it with third parties for their own independent marketing purposes.

8. International transfers

Where we use service providers located outside the United Kingdom, or where data is stored or accessed from outside the United Kingdom, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal data in accordance with data protection law. This may include using countries recognised as providing an adequate level of protection or entering into standard contractual clauses approved for international data transfers.

9. Data security

We take 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 employees and processors who need it to perform their duties, maintaining secure storage systems, and reviewing our data protection practices on a regular basis.

10. Your data protection rights

As a customer of Gardeners Sands End in our service area, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data under data protection law. These include:

Right of access: You have the right to request confirmation as to whether we process your personal data and, if so, to receive a copy of that data and certain additional information.

Right to rectification: You have the right to request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.

Right to erasure: In certain circumstances, you have the right to 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 withdraw consent and there is no other lawful basis for processing.

Right to restriction of processing: You may request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain situations, for example while we are assessing a request for rectification or objection.

Right to data portability: In certain circumstances, you have the right to receive the personal data you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format, and to request that we transmit that data to another controller where technically feasible.

Right to object: You have the right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including profiling based on those interests, and to object at any time to the use of your personal data for direct marketing.

Where we process personal data on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.

11. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, how we process personal data, or legal requirements. Any changes will take effect when the updated policy is made available. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we handle personal data.