Privacy Policy - Landscaping Limehouse

Landscaping Limehouse is committed to protecting the privacy and personal data of all customers, prospective customers, and website or service users within the Limehouse area. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. It applies to all Landscaping Limehouse customers in the area and to anyone who engages with our landscaping, maintenance, design, consultation, or related services.

1. Information We Collect

We collect only the personal data that is necessary for providing our services, managing our business relationship, and meeting legal obligations. The type of information we may collect includes:

Identity information such as your name, title, and business or household name where applicable.
Contact details such as your address, email address, and telephone number.
Service information such as property details, job instructions, access notes, design preferences, and service history.
Billing and payment information such as invoices, payment records, and transaction details.
Communication records including emails, messages, notes from phone calls, and records of complaints or feedback.
Technical information if you interact with our digital systems, such as IP address, browser type, and basic usage data.
Photographic or site records where needed to document existing conditions, progress, or completed work.

We do not intentionally collect special category data unless it is necessary and you have provided it voluntarily, or we are required to handle it for a lawful reason. Special category data includes information relating to health, religion, race, or similar sensitive matters. If such data is ever needed, we will treat it with additional care and only process it where a specific legal condition applies.

2. How We Use Your Personal Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To provide quotes, assessments, and landscaping services.
To manage bookings, scheduling, and site access.
To communicate with you about your project, service updates, or changes.
To issue invoices, process payments, and maintain financial records.
To deal with complaints, queries, and customer support matters.
To comply with legal, tax, accounting, and regulatory requirements.
To improve our services, internal processes, and customer experience.
To maintain security, prevent fraud, and protect our business, staff, and customers.

We will only use your data where we have a lawful basis to do so and will not use it in a manner that is incompatible with the original purpose for which it was collected.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis before processing personal data. Landscaping Limehouse 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 preparing quotations, delivering services, issuing invoices, and managing customer accounts.

Legal Obligation

We process personal data where required to comply with legal obligations, such as tax law, accounting rules, health and safety obligations, record-keeping duties, and responding to lawful requests from public authorities.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided those interests do not override your rights and freedoms. This may include managing and improving services, maintaining security, preventing fraud, defending legal claims, and handling operational communications. We carry out a balancing test when relying on legitimate interests.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example where the law requires it or where we use optional marketing communications. When we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

Vital Interests and Public Interest

These bases are used only in exceptional circumstances, such as where processing is necessary to protect someone’s life or where required for a task carried out in the public interest.

4. Sharing Your Data with Processors and Other Third Parties

We may share personal data with trusted third parties who act as processors on our behalf. Processors only handle your data according to our instructions and are required to keep it secure and confidential. Examples of processors may include:

IT and cloud storage providers.
Accounting and bookkeeping service providers.
Payment processing services.
Appointment management and communications tools.
Professional advisers such as solicitors, insurers, or auditors.
Waste disposal, procurement, or subcontracting partners where necessary to complete a job.

We may also disclose personal data where required by law, to enforce agreements, to protect rights and property, or to prevent unlawful activity. Where a third party acts as an independent controller rather than a processor, they are responsible for their own compliance with data protection law.

5. International Transfers

If any of our processors store or access data outside the United Kingdom, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. These may include adequacy regulations, standard contractual clauses, or other approved transfer mechanisms designed to protect your data to a standard equivalent to UK requirements.

6. Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including legal, accounting, and reporting requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of data and the reason for processing.

Customer and project records are typically retained for the duration of the service relationship and for a reasonable period afterwards.
Financial and tax records are generally kept for the period required by law.
Communication records may be retained for as long as needed to resolve issues or maintain accurate business records.
Photographs and site notes are kept only while relevant to the project, warranty, dispute resolution, or record-keeping needs.

When data is no longer required, it will be securely deleted, anonymised, or archived in line with our retention practices. We do not keep data longer than necessary.

7. Security of Your Data

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, accidental loss, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and careful selection of processors. While we aim to protect all personal data, no method of transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

8. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. Subject to legal limits and exemptions, these rights may include:

The right of access – to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
The right to rectification – to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
The right to erasure – to request deletion of your data in certain circumstances.
The right to restriction – to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain cases.
The right to data portability – to request transfer of data you provided to us, where applicable.
The right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
The right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent.
The right to complain – to raise concerns with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office if you believe your data rights have been breached.

We will respond to rights requests within the time limits required by law and may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. In some situations, we may not be able to fully comply if a legal exemption applies.

9. Children’s Data

Our services are generally intended for adults and property owners or authorised representatives. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children unless it is necessary for a service arrangement and an appropriate legal basis exists. If we become aware that we have collected data inappropriately, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in law, business practices, or service arrangements. Any revised version will apply from the date it is made available. We encourage you to review this policy periodically so that you remain informed about how your information is used.

11. General Principles

We are committed to the core data protection principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity, and confidentiality. Landscaping Limehouse will only process personal data in ways that are necessary, proportionate, and respectful of your privacy. We aim to ensure that all processing is transparent and that customers in the Limehouse area can have confidence in how their information is handled.

By using our services, you acknowledge that this Privacy Policy applies to all Landscaping Limehouse customers in area.