Soho Carpet Cleaning Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Soho Carpet Cleaning collects, uses, stores and shares personal data about its customers and prospective customers within our service area. It is intended to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and any applicable data protection laws. It applies whenever you contact us, book or use our services, visit our website, or otherwise interact with Soho Carpet Cleaning as a customer or potential customer.

Who We Are and Scope of This Policy

Soho Carpet Cleaning provides professional carpet and related cleaning services to residential and commercial customers. For the purposes of data protection law, Soho Carpet Cleaning is the data controller of the personal data described in this Privacy Policy. This Policy applies to all Soho Carpet Cleaning customers and prospective customers in our service area, including people who contact us for quotations, information, bookings, or aftercare.

Personal Data We Collect

We collect and process personal data that you provide directly to us, that is generated in the course of providing our services, or that is obtained from limited third-party sources. The types of personal data we may collect include:

Identification and contact details: name, title, postal address, property or business address, billing address, and any contact details you choose to provide such as electronic contact details and communication preferences.

Service and booking information: details of cleaning services requested or provided, property type and access instructions, dates and times of appointments, records of quotes given, invoices issued, and payment status.

Payment-related information: information needed to take and record payments and refunds, such as transaction references, payment method type, amounts, and dates. We do not store full payment card numbers on our own systems if a third-party payment processor is used.

Communication records: copies of messages and correspondence between you and Soho Carpet Cleaning, including enquiries, instructions, feedback, complaints, and any photographs or other information you choose to send us in relation to a service.

Technical and usage data: limited technical data collected when you visit our website, such as IP address, browser type, access times, and pages visited. This may be collected through cookies or similar technologies where permitted by law and your settings.

Marketing and preference data: your preferences for receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences, as well as records of any consent you provide or withdraw.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To provide our services: managing bookings, arranging access to your property, providing quotations, carrying out carpet and related cleaning services, and handling payments and billing.

Customer support: responding to your enquiries, handling complaints, providing aftercare and service information, and maintaining records of our interactions.

Business administration: keeping appropriate business and financial records, managing our accounts, auditing, and general administration of our operations.

Service improvement: monitoring service quality, training staff, and improving the way we deliver our cleaning services and communicate with customers.

Marketing and promotions: sending you information about Soho Carpet Cleaning services or offers where we are permitted to do so by law and always allowing you to opt out at any time.

Legal and regulatory purposes: complying with legal or regulatory obligations, responding to lawful requests from authorities, and establishing, exercising, or defending legal claims.

Lawful Bases for Processing

We rely on one or more of the following lawful bases under data protection law when processing your personal data:

Contract: where processing is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, for example to accept a booking, provide an agreed service, or process a payment.

Legal obligation: where we must process your data to comply with legal or regulatory requirements, for example retaining certain financial records for tax purposes.

Legitimate interests: where processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests or those of a third party, and these interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This includes running and improving our services, preventing fraud, and communicating with you about similar services where you would reasonably expect this.

Consent: where we rely on your explicit consent, for example for certain types of electronic marketing. You can withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before it was withdrawn.

Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The exact retention period will depend on the type of data and the reason it was collected, but generally:

Customer and service records are usually retained for a period that allows us to respond to queries about past work, handle any potential disputes, and meet legal obligations relating to contract and tax law.

Financial and invoicing information is kept for the period required by applicable tax and financial record-keeping laws.

Marketing data, including contact details used for promotional messages, is kept until you opt out or we no longer reasonably need it for the relevant marketing purpose.

Technical and website usage data is kept for a shorter period necessary to ensure security, understand traffic patterns, and improve our site.

When the relevant retention period expires, we will securely delete, anonymise, or otherwise remove your personal data from our systems.

Sharing Your Personal Data and Use of Processors

We do not sell your personal data. We may share it with carefully selected third parties where this is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy or where we are legally required to do so. These third parties may act as data processors on our behalf or as separate controllers.

Data processors: We may use service providers to support the operation of our business, such as payment processing providers, customer relationship management tools, cloud storage and hosting providers, accounting and invoicing systems, communication platforms, and IT support. These processors only process your personal data on our documented instructions, are bound by appropriate confidentiality obligations, and are required to implement suitable technical and organisational measures to protect your data.

Professional and legal advisers: We may share necessary information with accountants, legal advisers, or other professional advisers where required for advice, compliance, or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Authorities and law enforcement: We may disclose personal data where required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities, including for the prevention or detection of crime.

Business transfers: In the event of a sale, merger, or reorganisation of Soho Carpet Cleaning, your personal data may be transferred as part of the relevant transaction, subject to ongoing protection consistent with this Privacy Policy.

International Transfers

Where we use service providers located outside the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, or where data is otherwise transferred internationally, we will take steps to ensure that your personal data is afforded an equivalent level of protection. This may include using standard contractual clauses or relying on adequacy regulations or other lawful transfer mechanisms recognised under applicable data protection laws.

Security of Your Personal Data

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the personal data we hold against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure, or access. Measures may include access controls, secure storage, encryption or pseudonymisation where appropriate, staff training, and regular review of our security practices. However, no method of transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Your Data Protection Rights

Subject to certain conditions and exemptions under data protection law, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

Right of access: to obtain confirmation of whether we process your personal data and to request a copy of the data we hold about you.

Right to rectification: to have inaccurate personal data corrected and incomplete data completed.

Right to erasure: to request that we delete your personal data, for example where it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected and we have no legal obligation to retain it.

Right to restriction: to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, such as while we verify its accuracy or consider an objection you have raised.

Right to data portability: to receive personal data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and to have it transmitted to another controller where technically feasible and where the legal basis is consent or contract.

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

Right to withdraw consent: where we rely on consent for processing, you can withdraw that consent at any time.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority if you are concerned about how we handle your personal data. We would encourage you to contact us first so we can address your concerns directly.

Updates 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 changes in applicable law. The updated version will be effective when it is made available. We recommend that you review this Policy periodically to stay informed about how Soho Carpet Cleaning uses and protects your personal data.