Privacy Policy - Gardeners Bickley

Gardeners Bickley is committed to protecting the privacy of all customers in our area and to handling personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent way. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how long we keep it, who may process it on our behalf, and the rights available to you under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. This policy applies to all Gardeners Bickley customers in the area, including prospective customers, current customers, and anyone who has previously used our services.

1. Information We Collect

We collect only the personal data that is necessary to provide and manage our gardening services, maintain records, and meet legal obligations. Depending on your interaction with us, this may include:

Identity details: name and, where needed, business or property name.
Contact details: address, email address, and telephone number.
Service information: details about the gardening work requested, service preferences, appointment notes, and property access information.
Communication records: messages, enquiry details, feedback, complaints, and notes of calls or emails.
Billing and transaction data: invoicing details, payment status, and records needed for accounting.
Technical data: limited information collected if you interact with us electronically, such as date, time, and basic device or browser data where relevant to security or service improvement.

We do not intentionally collect special category data, such as health information, unless it is necessary and you have knowingly provided it for a specific reason. If such information is ever supplied, we treat it with extra care and only use it where a lawful basis exists.

2. How We Use Personal Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

to respond to enquiries and provide quotations;
to arrange and deliver gardening services;
to manage customer relationships and service records;
to invoice, process payments, and maintain financial records;
to deal with complaints, queries, or service issues;
to comply with legal, tax, insurance, and regulatory requirements;
to protect our business, customers, and staff from fraud or misuse;
to improve the quality and organisation of our services.

We will only use your information in ways that are compatible with the reason it was collected. We do not sell personal data. We also do not use personal data for automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis before processing personal data. Gardeners Bickley relies on the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes arranging services, carrying out work, and managing payments or service records.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. Examples include maintaining customer records, improving service quality, managing enquiries, preventing misuse, and protecting our business operations.

Legal Obligation

We process data where necessary to meet legal duties, such as tax, accounting, insurance, or record-keeping obligations.

Consent

In limited cases, we may rely on your consent, for example where you specifically agree to a particular use of your data. Where consent is used, you may withdraw it at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

We only collect and use data where there is a valid reason to do so, and we aim to keep our processing proportionate to the service provided.

4. Sharing and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted third parties who act as processors on our behalf or with independent organisations where required by law or necessary for service delivery. These may include:

IT and hosting providers: for secure storage, communication systems, and data back-up;
accounting or bookkeeping processors: for invoicing, tax compliance, and financial records;
payment service providers: where payments are handled electronically;
professional advisers: such as insurers, legal advisers, or auditors when necessary;
subcontractors or operational partners: where they assist in delivering a service you have requested.

Any processor we use is required to handle personal data securely, only on our instructions, and only for the agreed purpose. We do not permit processors to use your data for their own purposes. Where personal data is shared with third parties acting as independent controllers, they are responsible for their own compliance with data protection law.

5. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, or as long as required by law. Retention periods depend on the type of record and the reason for holding it.

Customer and service records: retained for a reasonable period after the end of a service relationship so we can manage follow-up queries, disputes, and continuity of service.
Financial and tax records: retained for the period required by law and accounting practice.
Correspondence: retained for as long as needed to resolve the matter or maintain an accurate service history.
Consent-based records: retained until consent is withdrawn or the purpose ends.

When data is no longer required, we securely delete it or anonymise it so it can no longer identify you. Retention is reviewed regularly to ensure data is not kept longer than necessary.

6. Your Rights

As a data subject under UK GDPR, you have a number of rights. These include:

Right of access: you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification: you may ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
Right to erasure: you may request deletion of your data in certain circumstances.
Right to restriction: you may ask us to limit how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to object: you may object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing, where applicable.
Right to data portability: you may request that data you provided to us is returned in a structured, commonly used format where legally applicable.
Right to withdraw consent: where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time.

If you wish to exercise a right, we will respond in line with data protection law and within the required timeframes. To protect your privacy, we may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

7. Security of Your Information

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, limited data sharing, and staff awareness measures. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we take reasonable and proportionate steps to safeguard the information we hold.

8. International Transfers

Where personal data is processed outside the UK, we will ensure suitable safeguards are in place, such as approved transfer mechanisms or equivalent protections required by law. We aim to keep data within secure environments and only use providers that meet appropriate privacy standards.

9. Children’s Data

Our services are aimed at adult customers and property owners or occupiers. We do not intentionally collect data from children. If we become aware that information relating to a child has been provided without a valid reason, we will take appropriate steps to review and remove it where necessary.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in law, operational practice, or the way we deliver services. The latest version will apply from the date it is made available. We encourage customers to review it periodically so they remain informed about how their data is handled.

11. Summary of Our Commitment

Gardeners Bickley respects your privacy and uses personal data only where needed for service delivery, administration, compliance, and legitimate business purposes. We keep data secure, retain it only for as long as necessary, and share it only with appropriate processors or where the law requires it. Your rights matter, and we are committed to handling requests fairly and transparently. This policy applies to all Gardeners Bickley customers in area and reflects our ongoing duty to protect personal information with care and responsibility.