Gardeners Bowes Park Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Bowes Park collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data about customers in the Bowes Park area. It also explains your rights under applicable data protection laws, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. This policy applies to all Gardeners Bowes Park customers in our service area, whether you contact us online, in writing, by telephone, or in person.

Who We Are and Scope of This Policy

Gardeners Bowes Park provides gardening and related services to residential and commercial customers in and around the Bowes Park area. For the purposes of data protection law, Gardeners Bowes Park is the controller of the personal data it collects and processes about its customers and prospective customers. This Privacy Policy covers all customers and enquiries within our service area.

Types of Personal Data We Collect

We may collect and process the following categories of personal data about you:

Identity and contact information, such as your name, address, service address, and preferred contact details.

Communication data, such as emails, messages, and notes of conversations relating to enquiries, bookings, quotations, and customer support.

Service and contract data, such as details of the gardening services requested or provided, visit dates and times, quotations issued, invoices, and payment status.

Payment-related information, such as records of payments made and payment method used. We do not store full payment card details when third party payment processors are used.

Technical and usage data, where applicable, such as details of how you use any of our online forms or digital services, including the date and time of your enquiry and basic device information.

Marketing preferences, such as your preferences for receiving service updates, seasonal offers, and other communications from us.

How We Collect Your Personal Data

We collect personal data directly from you when you contact us for a quotation, request or receive services from us, or communicate with us about your account or our services. This may be done by phone, in writing, through online forms, or in person.

We may also receive personal data about you from third parties where it is necessary to provide our services, such as referral partners or payment service providers. In such cases, we only process that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable law.

Lawful Bases for Processing Your Data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. We rely on the following lawful bases:

Contract: We process your personal data to take steps at your request before entering into a contract and to perform our contract with you. This includes handling enquiries, providing quotations, scheduling and delivering gardening services, and managing billing and payments.

Legitimate interests: We may process your personal data for our legitimate business interests where these are not overridden by your rights and interests. This covers activities such as managing and improving our services, responding to general queries, keeping basic records of previous work, and pursuing or defending legal claims.

Legal obligations: We may process your personal data where this is necessary to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, including tax, accounting, and health and safety obligations.

Consent: In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example for certain types of optional marketing communications. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time, and we will explain how you can do this when we ask for your consent.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To respond to your enquiries, provide quotations, and communicate about potential or agreed services.

To plan, schedule, and deliver gardening and related services at your property or premises.

To issue invoices, process payments, and maintain accurate financial and service records.

To manage customer relationships, including handling feedback, complaints, and requests.

To send you important service messages, such as appointment confirmations, rescheduling notices, and information on service changes.

To improve our services and operations, including reviewing the types of services requested and the areas we cover.

To meet our legal, regulatory, and insurance requirements.

To send you relevant news, updates, or offers where we are permitted to do so and you have not opted out.

Data Processors and Third Parties

We may share your personal data with carefully selected third parties who provide services to us and act as processors on our behalf. These may include:

IT and hosting providers that store or process our data securely.

Customer management and scheduling tools used to organise appointments and service records.

Payment service providers that process payments and help prevent fraud.

Professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers, where necessary.

These processors are only permitted to use your personal data in accordance with our instructions and for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We require all processors to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data.

We may also share personal data where required by law, to comply with legal obligations, or to protect our rights, property, or safety or that of our customers.

Data Retention

We retain your personal data only for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements.

In general, we follow these guidelines:

Enquiry records are kept for a limited period after we last hear from you, in case you return to proceed with services.

Customer and service records are retained for the duration of our relationship and for a reasonable period afterwards to address any queries, warranty issues, or disputes.

Financial records, such as invoices and payment records, are kept for the period required by applicable tax and accounting laws.

When we no longer need your personal data, we will securely delete or anonymise it.

International Transfers

If any of our service providers are located outside the United Kingdom, we take steps to ensure that your personal data is protected with safeguards that meet the requirements of data protection law. This may include using standard contractual clauses or relying on other lawful transfer mechanisms.

How We Protect Your Personal Data

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. These measures include limiting access to personal data to those staff and processors who need it to perform their duties, using secure systems to store records, and regularly reviewing our practices and procedures.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have certain rights in relation to your personal data. Subject to certain conditions and exemptions, you may have the right to:

Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you and information about how we process it.

Rectification: Request correction of any inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.

Erasure: Request the deletion of your personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue processing it.

Restriction: Request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.

Objection: Object to our processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests, including profiling, or where we process your data for direct marketing.

Portability: Request that we provide your personal data to you or to a third party in a structured, commonly used, and machine readable format where the processing is based on consent or contract and carried out by automated means.

Where our processing is based on your consent, you also have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing before consent was withdrawn.

Marketing Communications

We may use your personal data to provide you with information about our services that we consider may be of interest to you. You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting us or following any opt out instruction we provide. We will still contact you with essential service messages relating to current or past services you receive from us.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or the services we offer. Any updates will take effect from the date they are published. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we handle your personal data.