Privacy Policy

Gardeners Harrow on the Hill Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Harrow on the Hill collects, uses, stores and shares personal data about its customers and prospective customers in the local area. It also explains your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and related data protection laws. This policy applies to all Gardeners Harrow on the Hill customers in the area, including individuals and businesses who contact us, request a quote, book services or otherwise interact with us.

Who We Are and Scope of This Policy

Gardeners Harrow on the Hill provides gardening and related services to customers in the Harrow on the Hill area. For the purposes of data protection law, we act as the data controller in relation to the personal data we collect and use about you in connection with our services. This Privacy Policy applies whenever you deal with us, including when you contact us to make an enquiry, request a quotation, book a visit, receive services or engage with us for aftercare or feedback.

Personal Data We Collect

We only collect personal data that we need in order to provide our services, manage our business and meet our legal obligations. The types of personal data we may collect include:

Your identification and contact details, such as your name, home or business address, billing address, and any other address where services are to be provided.

Communication details you choose to provide, such as your preferred means of contact and the content of messages, enquiries or feedback you send to us.

Service information, such as details about your property relevant to gardening or maintenance, access instructions, photographs you share with us of the areas to be worked on, and records of services provided.

Account and transaction information, such as services requested, quotes provided, invoices issued, amounts paid and payment status. Payment card details are handled through secure payment processors and are not stored by us where processing is carried out directly by the payment provider.

Usage and interaction data, such as information about how you interact with our communications, for example if you open or respond to messages, and any preferences you communicate to us regarding services or contact methods.

How We Collect Your Data

We collect personal data in several ways:

Directly from you when you contact us by any means to make an enquiry, request a quote, book a service, provide feedback or otherwise communicate with us.

During the provision of services at your property, for example when we record information about the work carried out or conditions at the premises that are relevant to the service.

From third parties where necessary, for example payment processors in relation to payment confirmations, or platforms that you may use to contact or review our services.

Lawful Bases for Processing

We only process your personal data when we have a lawful basis to do so under data protection law. Depending on the circumstances, we may rely on the following lawful bases:

Contractual necessity, where processing your data is required to enter into or perform a contract with you, such as when preparing a quotation, arranging visits, delivering services or handling payments.

Legitimate interests, where we have a legitimate business interest in processing your data and our interests are not overridden by your rights and interests. This includes managing our relationship with you, improving our services, maintaining accurate records and defending legal claims.

Legal obligation, where we need to process your data to comply with laws and regulations, for example tax, accounting and record-keeping requirements.

Consent, where we rely on your explicit agreement to process certain data, such as when you ask us to use particular images you have provided for testimonials, or where we send marketing communications to you that require your consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To respond to enquiries, provide quotations and arrange appointments for gardening and related services.

To deliver and manage services at your property, including planning work, accessing the premises, recording work carried out and following up on any issues.

To manage billing and payments, including issuing invoices, processing payments through third-party payment processors and maintaining financial records.

To communicate with you about your bookings, changes to appointments, service updates, safety information and similar service-related matters.

To manage our customer records, including keeping accurate and up to date information about your property and service history for future visits or ongoing maintenance.

To handle complaints, resolve disputes, enforce our contractual terms and protect our legal rights.

To comply with legal and regulatory obligations, including responding to lawful requests from authorities where applicable.

Data Sharing and Processors

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your data with trusted third parties who act as data processors on our behalf, solely for the purposes described in this policy and under our instructions. These can include:

Providers of booking, scheduling or customer management tools used to organise appointments and service records.

Payment processing providers who handle payments and refunds securely on our behalf.

Accountants or bookkeeping services, where necessary for preparing accounts and meeting tax obligations.

IT and communication service providers who support our systems, storage and communications.

Where we use data processors, we ensure there is a written agreement in place requiring them to protect your data, use it only for the agreed purposes and comply with applicable data protection laws.

We may also share personal data where required by law, for example with regulatory bodies, law enforcement or courts, or where sharing is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Data Retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including for satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. The specific retention period will depend on the type of data and our obligations. In general:

Basic customer and service records may be retained for several years after the end of our relationship, to enable us to respond to queries, provide follow-up services and maintain accurate business records.

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

Correspondence and complaints may be retained for as long as needed to resolve the matter and for an appropriate period afterwards for legal and operational reasons.

Where data is no longer required, we will securely delete or anonymise it.

International Transfers

Some of our service providers may store or access data from outside the United Kingdom. Where this occurs, we take steps to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal data, such as using service providers in countries that have been recognised as providing an adequate level of protection or implementing standard contractual safeguards approved by relevant authorities.

Security of Your Data

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, accidental loss, disclosure or destruction. These measures include restricting access to personal data to those who need it for their role, using secure systems and taking care when handling records at customer premises. While we strive to protect your information, no system can be completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have a range of rights in relation to your personal data, subject to certain conditions and exceptions. These rights include:

The right to access, which allows you to request copies of the personal data we hold about you, together with information about how it is used.

The right to rectification, which allows you to ask us to correct or complete inaccurate or incomplete personal data we hold about you.

The right to erasure, in some circumstances, which allows you to ask us to delete your personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue processing it.

The right to restrict processing, which allows you to ask us to suspend the use of your data in certain situations.

The right to object, where you can object to our processing of your personal data based on our legitimate interests, and we must consider your objection.

The right to data portability, which in certain circumstances allows you to request that we provide your data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, or transfer it to another organisation.

Where we rely on your consent to process data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.

Exercising Your Rights and Complaints

If you wish to exercise any of your data protection rights or have questions about this Privacy Policy, you can contact us using the usual communication channels you use as a customer. We will respond to your request or query as required by law. If you are not satisfied with how we handle your personal data, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection supervisory authority.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, how we use personal data or changes to legal requirements. Any updates will apply from the date they are made available. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data as a customer of Gardeners Harrow on the Hill in the local area.