Gardeners New Addington Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners New Addington collects, uses, stores and shares personal data. It applies to all Gardeners New Addington customers located in the New Addington area and anyone who contacts us about our gardening and related services.

Who we are and scope of this policy

Gardeners New Addington is a local gardening service provider operating in and around the New Addington area. In the context of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, Gardeners New Addington is the data controller for the personal data described in this Privacy Policy.

By using our services, contacting us, or providing us with your personal data, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy. This document explains in clear terms what personal data we collect, the lawful basis we rely on, how long we keep it, who we share it with, and your rights.

Personal data we collect

We only collect personal data that is necessary for the provision and management of our services. Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect the following categories of information:

Identification and contact details, such as your name, postal address, service address, and any other contact information you choose to share when you enquire about or book our services.

Service and contract information, such as details of the gardening services requested or provided, property access instructions you choose to share, visit dates and times, and records of quotations and invoices.

Communication records, including information you provide when you contact us by any method, such as the content of emails, messages, or notes of phone conversations, and any feedback or complaints you submit.

Payment related information, including information necessary to process payments for our services, such as payment date, amount and method. We do not store full payment card details; if a payment processor is used, it handles these details securely on our behalf.

Technical and usage data, where applicable, that may include basic information about how you interact with any online presence we operate, such as dates and times of access and general device or browser details. We do not seek to identify you from this data unless it is necessary for security, fraud prevention or to respond to a specific enquiry.

Lawful basis for processing your data

We process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis under data protection law. The main lawful bases we rely on are:

Contract: We use your personal data to provide you with gardening services, to respond to enquiries, to prepare quotations, to schedule and carry out visits, to manage our relationship with you and to administer billing and payments.

Legitimate interests: We may process your personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This includes managing our business operations, improving our services, keeping appropriate records, preventing fraud and ensuring site security.

Legal obligation: We may process and retain certain personal data where we are required to do so by law, for example for tax, financial reporting or to comply with court orders and requests from regulatory authorities.

Consent: In limited circumstances, where required by law, we may rely on your consent, for example for certain direct marketing activities. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

How we use your personal data

We use the personal data we collect for the following purposes:

To respond to enquiries, provide quotations, and book appointments for gardening and related services in the New Addington area.

To deliver and manage services at your property, including planning work, allocating staff, and recording progress and completion of jobs.

To manage our relationship with you, including sending information about scheduled visits, changes to services, and important updates relating to your bookings or this Privacy Policy.

To process payments, issue invoices and receipts, manage accounts and maintain appropriate records for financial and tax purposes.

To handle feedback, queries, and complaints, and to resolve disputes.

To protect our rights, property, and safety, and that of our staff, customers, and the public, including preventing and detecting fraud or misuse of our services.

To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Data processors and sharing of information

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with trusted third parties who act as data processors on our behalf, only where this is necessary for the operation of our business and the delivery of services to you. These may include:

Service management and scheduling tools that help us organise appointments, staff schedules and work records.

Accounting or invoicing service providers that help us manage billing, payments and financial records.

Payment processing providers that securely process payments and refunds. These providers handle your payment card or bank details securely and in accordance with data protection laws.

Information technology and hosting providers that support our data storage, backup, and security arrangements.

Professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers, where this is necessary for legitimate business or legal reasons.

Where we use processors, they only process personal data following our instructions, under a written contract, and are required to implement appropriate security measures and comply with data protection law.

We may also share personal data with law enforcement, regulatory bodies, courts, or other third parties where we are required or permitted to do so by law, or where this is necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Data retention and storage

We keep personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or to meet legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The retention period will vary depending on the type of data and the nature of our interactions with you, but we apply the following general principles:

Customer and service records are normally kept for a period after the end of our relationship with you, to enable us to answer follow up queries, manage any disputes, and comply with legal obligations.

Financial and invoicing records are typically retained for a longer period in order to meet tax and accounting requirements.

General correspondence and enquiry information is normally kept only as long as necessary to resolve your enquiry or issue and to maintain a record of our communications where appropriate.

When personal data is no longer required, we will delete it or anonymise it so that it can no longer be associated with you.

Data security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. These measures include limiting access to personal data to personnel and service providers who have a business need to know it, using secure storage solutions where appropriate, and maintaining procedures to deal with suspected data breaches.

Your data protection rights

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

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

Right to rectification: You can ask us to correct or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.

Right to erasure: In some circumstances, you can request that we delete your personal data, for example where it is no longer needed 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 can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain situations, such as while we are verifying its accuracy or considering an objection you have raised.

Right to object: You can object to processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis, and we will consider your request unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue.

Right to data portability: Where processing is based on consent or contract and is carried out by automated means, you may be entitled to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format and to have it transmitted to another controller where technically feasible.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using your usual contact method with Gardeners New Addington. We may need to verify your identity before responding to your request.

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 apply from the date the updated Privacy Policy is made available. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data.