Gardeners Blackfen Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Blackfen collects, uses, stores and shares personal data about its customers and prospective customers in the local service area. It also sets out your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and related data protection laws. This policy applies to all Gardeners Blackfen customers and individuals who make enquiries or otherwise interact with our gardening services in the area we serve.

Who we are and scope of this policy

Gardeners Blackfen is a local gardening and grounds maintenance service provider. In the course of providing our services, we may collect and use information that identifies you or could be used to identify you. We act as the data controller for this information, which means we determine the purposes and means of processing your personal data.

This Privacy Policy applies when you contact us, request a quote, use our services, visit work sites at your property, make a complaint or otherwise interact with Gardeners Blackfen offline or online.

What personal data we collect

The personal data we collect will depend on how you interact with us, but typically includes:

Identification and contact details such as your name, home or property address, billing address, and any contact details you choose to provide, such as an email or postal address. We may also record the contact details of a secondary contact person you nominate, for example a tenant or building manager.

Service and property information such as descriptions of your garden or outdoor space, photographs of areas requiring work where you share them with us, access instructions, notes about previous work, and information about any particular requirements or preferences you mention.

Contract and billing information such as records of quotations, services agreed, invoices issued, payment amounts, payment status and the dates and times of services provided.

Communication records including information contained in your enquiries, feedback, complaints or other correspondence with us, as well as any notes we make of telephone conversations or in person discussions relevant to the services.

Usage and technical data in limited circumstances, for example basic information about how you reached us or interacted with any online presence we may use, such as date and time of contact, but we do not systematically profile customers.

How we collect your personal data

We collect personal data directly from you when you contact us to request a quote, make a booking, confirm or change an appointment, make a payment, or provide feedback. This may occur by phone, in person, by post or through any online enquiry forms or messages you choose to use.

We may also receive personal data from third parties where you have asked them to contact us on your behalf or where it is necessary to fulfil a service, such as a landlord, tenant, estate agent or property manager who provides details of the property and contact details to arrange gardening work.

In limited situations, we may create or infer information about you, such as internal notes about the type of service you prefer, communication preferences, or access arrangements that help us perform our contract with you safely and effectively.

Lawful bases for processing your personal data

We rely on the following lawful bases under data protection law to process your personal data:

Contract: We process your personal data where it is necessary to enter into and perform a contract with you. This includes taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, such as providing a quote, and performing the gardening services you have requested.

Legal obligation: We may process your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations, for example maintaining accounting records, complying with tax laws, or responding to lawful requests from public authorities.

Legitimate interests: We may process your personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and these interests are not overridden by your rights and interests. Our legitimate interests include managing and developing our services, protecting our business, handling enquiries and complaints, maintaining accurate records and improving customer experience.

Consent: In limited cases, we may process your personal data on the basis of your consent, for example if you specifically agree to receive certain types of marketing or to the use of optional photos of your garden for promotional purposes. Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time.

How we use your personal data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To provide and manage our gardening services, including creating quotes, scheduling visits, carrying out work, sending confirmations and managing any changes to appointments.

To communicate with you about your enquiries, bookings, garden requirements, invoices, payments, complaints or requests, and to respond to your questions.

To manage our business operations, including internal administration, record keeping, budgeting, reporting and quality control.

To comply with legal and regulatory obligations, such as maintaining proper financial records and cooperating with authorities if required.

To improve our services, for example by reviewing feedback and understanding typical customer needs in our service area.

Where you have given consent or where permitted by law, to send you information about our services, special offers or relevant updates that may be of interest to you. You can opt out of such communications at any time.

Data retention and storage

We keep your personal data only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and to meet any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

In general, we keep core customer and contract records for a period that allows us to respond to queries, deal with any disputes, and satisfy our tax and accounting obligations. After the applicable retention period expires, we will either securely delete your personal data or irreversibly anonymise it so that it can no longer be associated with you.

The specific retention periods may vary depending on the type of data and the context in which it was collected, taking into account factors such as legal limitation periods for claims, regulatory requirements and our legitimate business needs.

Data processors and sharing your information

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

Examples of processors we may use include accounting or bookkeeping service providers who handle invoicing and financial records, information technology or cloud storage providers that host our electronic records, and providers of scheduling or administration tools used to manage appointments and customer information.

We may also share your personal data with other third parties in limited circumstances, such as professional advisers including accountants or legal advisers, where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, or with public authorities where we are legally required to do so.

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

International transfers

Where we use service providers that are located outside the United Kingdom or where data may be stored or accessed from outside the United Kingdom, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal data. These safeguards may include the use of standard contractual clauses or other lawful transfer mechanisms recognised under data protection law.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to the personal data that we hold about you. These rights may be subject to certain conditions and exemptions. Your rights 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 the personal data we hold about you and certain other information.

Right to rectification: You have the right to request that inaccurate or incomplete personal data about you is corrected or completed.

Right to erasure: In certain circumstances, you may 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 legal basis for processing.

Right to restriction of processing: You may have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain situations, for example while we verify the accuracy of the data or consider an objection you have raised.

Right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data that is based on our legitimate interests, including profiling, and we will stop processing the data unless we have compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. You also have the right to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing.

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

Right to withdraw consent: Where we rely on consent as the lawful basis for processing, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdrew your consent.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection supervisory authority if you believe that your rights have been infringed. We encourage you to contact us first so that we can attempt to resolve your concerns directly.

Security of your personal data

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access. Measures include restricting access to personal data to those who need to know it for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and taking reasonable steps to ensure that any processors we use also protect your data.

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. 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 protect your personal data.