Privacy Policy - Gardeners Mile End

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Mile End collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data for all customers in the Mile End area. It applies to every customer, prospective customer, and website visitor who engages with our gardening services in the area, whether by enquiry, booking, or ongoing service arrangement. We are committed to handling personal information in a lawful, fair, and transparent way in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

By using our services, you acknowledge that your information may be processed as described in this policy. We only collect information that is necessary for providing gardening services, managing customer relationships, meeting legal obligations, and improving the quality and safety of our work. We do not sell personal data. We also take appropriate technical and organisational measures to help protect the information we hold.

1. Data We Collect

We may collect and process the following types of personal data:

Identity details such as your name and, where relevant, business name.
Contact details such as address, email address, telephone number, and preferred communication method.
Service details including property access notes, service preferences, garden requirements, appointment history, and instructions you give us.
Billing and payment information such as invoicing details, payment status, and limited transaction records.
Communication records including messages, enquiries, complaints, feedback, and service confirmations.
Technical information where applicable, such as basic website usage data or device information used for security and performance monitoring.

We generally do not seek to collect special category data. If you choose to provide any sensitive information, we will only use it where necessary and where a lawful basis applies.

2. How We Use Your Data

Gardeners Mile End uses personal data for the following purposes:

to respond to enquiries and provide quotations;
to arrange and deliver gardening services;
to manage appointments, access arrangements, and work schedules;
to issue invoices, process payments, and maintain accounting records;
to communicate about changes, service updates, or follow-up matters;
to handle complaints, feedback, and service quality concerns;
to maintain internal records and business administration;
to comply with legal, tax, insurance, and regulatory obligations;
to protect our business, staff, customers, and property against fraud, misuse, or security risks.

We only use your data in ways that are compatible with the reason it was collected. Personal data is never used for unrelated purposes without a valid lawful basis.

3. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for every use of personal data. Gardeners Mile End relies on the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes arranging services, carrying out gardening work, managing billing, and responding to service-related requests.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided your rights and freedoms do not override those interests. Examples include managing customer records, improving services, preventing fraud, securing systems, and maintaining efficient business operations. We always consider whether such processing is proportionate and respectful of your privacy.

Legal Obligation

We process certain information where required to comply with legal duties, including tax, accounting, insurance, employment, and regulatory requirements.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example if you choose to receive certain optional communications. Where consent is used, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

We do not rely on consent where another lawful basis is more appropriate and more reliable for the service relationship.

4. Retention of Personal Data

We keep personal data only for as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected, or as long as required by law. Retention periods depend on the type of information and why we hold it.

Customer service records are kept for the duration of the service relationship and for a reasonable period afterwards.
Financial and tax records are retained for the period required by accounting and tax laws.
Communication records may be retained while relevant to the management of services, disputes, or follow-up.
Complaint or legal records may be stored longer where necessary to resolve issues or defend legal claims.

When information is no longer needed, we will securely delete, anonymise, or archive it in a manner appropriate to the circumstances. We apply the principle of storage limitation, meaning we do not keep personal data indefinitely without justification.

5. Data Processors and Sharing

Gardeners Mile End may use trusted third-party service providers, sometimes called processors, to help us operate our business. These processors only process personal data on our instructions and must keep it secure and confidential.

Examples of processors may include:

payment service providers for handling transactions;
accounting or bookkeeping systems;
IT, cloud storage, or software providers;
communication tools used for email or scheduling;
professional advisers such as insurers, accountants, or legal advisers where necessary;
service contractors who support operations under confidentiality obligations.

We may also disclose personal data where required by law, court order, regulator request, or to protect our legal rights. If data is transferred outside the UK, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place as required by law.

We do not allow processors to use your data for their own purposes. Any sharing is limited to what is necessary and proportionate.

6. Security of Your Data

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These steps may include access controls, password protection, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and careful handling of records. While no system is completely risk-free, we work to maintain a level of security appropriate to the nature of the data and the services provided.

7. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These rights may be subject to certain conditions or exemptions. They include:

Right of access – to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification – to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
Right to erasure – to request deletion of your data in certain circumstances.
Right to restrict processing – to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain situations.
Right to object – to object to processing based on legitimate interests, including certain forms of direct communication.
Right to data portability – to request transfer of certain data in a structured, commonly used format where applicable.
Right to withdraw consent – where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

You also have the right to raise concerns with the UK data protection authority if you believe your rights have not been respected. We encourage you to review any concerns with us first so that we can try to resolve the matter promptly and fairly.

8. Children’s Data

Our gardening services are directed to adult customers and property holders. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where it is incidentally included in household or property-related communications and only where necessary for service delivery or legal compliance.

9. Automated Decision-Making

Gardeners Mile End does not use personal data for decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects. Any service decisions are made by people using relevant information and professional judgment.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the law, our services, or our data handling practices. The latest version will apply to customers in the Mile End area. Where changes are significant, we will take reasonable steps to make them known. Continued use of our services after an update indicates acceptance of the revised policy.

11. Area Coverage and Applicability

This Privacy Policy applies to all Gardeners Mile End customers in the Mile End area, including prospective customers, existing clients, and anyone who provides us with personal information in connection with our services. If you engage us for work at a residential or commercial property in the area, your personal data will be handled under the terms set out in this policy.

In summary: we collect only the information needed to deliver reliable gardening services, we process data on clear lawful bases, we keep it only as long as necessary, we use processors carefully, and we respect your data protection rights.