Privacy Policy - Acton Cleaners

This Privacy Policy explains how Acton Cleaners collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data when providing cleaning and related services. It applies to all Acton Cleaners customers in the area, including residential and commercial customers, and to anyone who interacts with us in connection with an enquiry, booking, service delivery, invoicing, or customer support.

We are committed to handling personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent way in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. This policy is designed to help you understand what data we collect, why we collect it, how long we keep it, who may process it on our behalf, and what rights you have over your personal information.

1. Personal Data We Collect

We collect only the data necessary to provide our services efficiently, manage our relationship with customers, and meet our legal obligations. Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following types of personal data:

Identity details such as your name or business name.
Contact details such as address and other location details needed to provide services.
Service information including cleaning preferences, instructions, appointment details, property access arrangements, and service history.
Billing and payment information such as invoice details, payment status, and transaction records.
Communication records including messages, complaints, feedback, and notes from customer interactions.
Technical and usage data where relevant, such as basic records generated when you interact with our digital systems or forms.

We generally do not seek to collect special category data. If you voluntarily provide information that could reveal sensitive details, we will only use it where necessary and permitted by law, and we will apply appropriate safeguards.

2. How We Use Personal Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To respond to enquiries and provide quotations.
To schedule, deliver, and manage cleaning services.
To maintain service quality and customer records.
To process payments, invoices, and refunds where applicable.
To handle complaints, disputes, and service follow-up.
To comply with legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory obligations.
To improve our operations, service planning, and customer experience.
To protect our business, staff, customers, and property from fraud, misuse, or security risks.

We only use your personal data for the purposes for which it was collected, unless we reasonably determine that we need to use it for a compatible purpose or another lawful reason permitted by law.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis to process personal data. Acton Cleaners relies on one or more of the following lawful bases, depending on the situation:

Contract

We process personal data where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes managing bookings, delivering cleaning services, handling changes to appointments, and billing for services rendered.

Legal Obligation

We may process personal data where required to comply with legal duties, such as maintaining financial records, meeting tax obligations, or responding to lawful requests from authorities.

Legitimate Interests

We may process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. Examples include managing customer relationships, improving services, preventing fraud, securing our systems, and keeping internal records.

Consent

In limited cases, we may rely on your consent, for example where you agree to receive certain types of optional communications. If we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

4. Retention of Personal Data

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

Customer and service records are generally kept for the period needed to manage the customer relationship and to deal with follow-up issues.
Financial and invoicing records are retained for the period required by applicable tax and accounting laws.
Communication and complaint records may be retained for a reasonable time to resolve disputes, improve service, or demonstrate compliance.
Information no longer needed is securely deleted, anonymised, or otherwise disposed of in a safe and appropriate manner.

When determining retention periods, we consider the nature of the data, potential risks, legal requirements, and the need to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. We review retained information periodically to ensure it is not kept longer than necessary.

5. Data Processors and Third Parties

We may use trusted third-party service providers, sometimes called processors, to help us run our business and deliver services. These processors only handle personal data on our instructions and are required to protect it appropriately. They are not permitted to use your data for their own independent purposes.

Processors may include:

Payment service providers for handling transactions securely.
Accounting or bookkeeping providers for financial administration and legal compliance.
Customer administration or scheduling tools for booking management and record keeping.
IT and cloud service providers for secure data storage, backups, and system support.
Professional advisers such as legal or tax advisers where necessary.

We may also disclose personal data where required by law, to enforce our rights, to protect the rights and safety of others, or in connection with a business reorganisation, provided that appropriate safeguards are in place.

6. Data Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against accidental loss, unauthorised access, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and periodic review of internal procedures.

Although we work hard to safeguard data, no system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. If a personal data breach occurs and there is a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will respond in line with our legal obligations.

7. Your Rights

Depending on the legal basis for processing and the circumstances, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

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 request that we limit how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing where applicable.
Right to data portability to receive certain information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, where applicable.
Right to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.

You also have the right to raise concerns with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe your data protection rights have been infringed. We encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve any concern promptly and fairly.

8. Children’s Data

Our services are intended for adults and business customers. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children unless it is necessary in the context of a service request made by an adult customer and is limited to what is appropriate for that purpose.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal obligations, or data handling practices. The most recent version will apply from the date it is published or made available. We encourage customers to review it periodically so they remain informed about how their data is used.

10. Summary of Our Approach

At Acton Cleaners, we aim to keep personal data relevant, secure, and limited to what is necessary for providing reliable cleaning services. We process data only where we have a lawful basis, keep it only as long as needed, use processors responsibly, and respect the rights of every customer in the area we serve. Our goal is to maintain trust through transparent, responsible, and compliant data practices.