Gardeners Earlsfield Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Earlsfield collects, uses, stores and protects personal data about its customers. It applies to all Gardeners Earlsfield customers located in the Earlsfield area who use our gardening and related services, whether the services are requested in person, by phone or online.

Gardeners Earlsfield is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal data in a lawful, fair and transparent way, in compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Data Controller

For the purposes of data protection law, Gardeners Earlsfield is the data controller of the personal data it collects and processes about its customers. This means we determine the purposes and means of processing your personal data.

Types of Personal Data We Collect

We only collect personal data that is relevant and necessary to provide our services and manage our relationship with you. The types of data we may collect include:

Identification details such as your name and, where applicable, the name of a contact person for a property.

Contact details such as your address, property location, and other contact information you choose to provide for arranging visits and services.

Service information such as details of the gardening services you request, visit schedules, access instructions, specific preferences about your garden or outdoor space, and records of our communications with you.

Billing and payment information such as records of payments you make to us and related transaction information. We do not store full payment card details if you pay by card; these are processed securely by third party payment processors.

Technical and usage information that may be generated when you interact with our website or online content, such as basic log information, device type and pages visited, where applicable. This is used to improve our services and understand how our site is used.

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 a visit or ask a question about our services.

We may also collect data when we visit your property to assess the work required or to carry out services, for example notes on the layout of your garden, access points and specific instructions that you provide.

If you contact us through a third party platform or directory, we may receive limited personal data from that provider, such as your name, contact details and the nature of your enquiry.

Lawful Basis for Processing

We process your personal data only when we have a lawful basis to do so. The main lawful bases we rely on are:

Contract: We process your personal data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, for example to provide gardening services, manage bookings, respond to enquiries and issue invoices.

Legitimate interests: We process personal data when it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and these interests are not overridden by your rights. This includes managing our day to day operations, improving our services, maintaining records and protecting our business from fraud or misuse.

Legal obligation: In some cases we must process personal data to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, such as record keeping for tax and accounting purposes.

Consent: Where required by law, for example for certain forms of direct marketing, we will rely on your consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To provide and manage gardening and related services you request, including arranging visits, carrying out work, and following up on any issues or additional work required.

To manage our relationship with you as a customer, including responding to your enquiries, providing quotes, confirming bookings, and dealing with complaints or feedback.

To process payments, maintain financial records and meet our accounting and tax obligations.

To improve our services and operations, for example by reviewing the types of services requested and how often, so that we can plan resources and improve customer experience.

To maintain the security of our systems, data and premises, and to prevent or detect fraud or misuse of our services.

To send you information about our services that may be of interest to you, where permitted by law and, where required, with your consent. You can opt out of marketing communications at any time.

Data Retention

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

Customer and service records are generally retained for as long as you remain an active customer and for a reasonable period afterwards, to enable us to respond to queries, maintain records of work carried out, and comply with our legal obligations.

Financial and transaction records are kept for the period required by tax and accounting laws.

Where we no longer need personal data, we will delete it or anonymise it so that it can no longer be linked to you.

Data Processors and Third Parties

We may share your personal data with trusted third parties who act as data processors on our behalf. These processors only process your data in accordance with our instructions and for the purposes we specify, and we take steps to ensure they protect your data.

Examples of such processors and third parties include:

IT and hosting providers that support our website, email, and data storage systems.

Payment service providers that process card or electronic payments.

Professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers where necessary for our business operations.

We may also share personal data if required to do so by law or to protect our rights, property, or the safety of our staff, customers or others.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties.

Data Transfers Outside the UK

Where our service providers or systems involve transfers of personal data outside the UK or European Economic Area, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as standard contractual clauses or equivalent protection measures, in accordance with data protection law.

Security of Your Personal Data

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access.

These measures include limiting access to your personal data to those staff and contractors who need it to perform their duties, and using suitable technical security solutions for our systems. While we take reasonable steps to protect your data, no system or transmission can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Your Data Protection Rights

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

The right of access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you and information about how we process it.

The right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to correct or complete personal data that you believe is inaccurate or incomplete.

The right to erasure: In certain circumstances you may ask us to delete your personal data, for example where it is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was collected and we have no other legal basis to retain it.

The right to restrict processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain situations, such as when you contest its accuracy.

The right to object: You may object to our processing of your personal data where we are relying on legitimate interests as our lawful basis. You also have the right to object at any time to the use of your data for direct marketing.

The right to data portability: In certain cases you may request that we provide your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format or that we transmit it to another organisation.

You can exercise your rights by contacting us using the contact methods you normally use for our services. We may need to verify your identity before responding to certain requests.

Complaints

If you have concerns about how we handle your personal data, please contact us so we can try to resolve the issue. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office, which is the supervisory authority for data protection in the UK.

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 applicable law. We will publish the updated version and the revised policy will apply from the date it is made available. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically.