Gardeners St. John's Wood Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners St. John's Wood collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data of its customers. It applies to all Gardeners St. John's Wood customers and prospective customers located in the St. John's Wood area who engage with our gardening and related services, whether by telephone, in writing, online, or in person.
Gardeners St. John's Wood acts as the data controller for the personal data described in this Privacy Policy. We are committed to complying with applicable data protection laws, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Personal Data We Collect
We collect and process different categories of personal data to enable us to provide our services and manage our relationship with you. The personal data we may collect includes: your full name; home or business address in the St. John's Wood area; billing address if different from the service address; contact details such as your preferred communication channel; information about your garden or outdoor space, such as property type, size of garden, access details, and any specific requirements or instructions; details of the services you request or receive from us, including visit dates, times, and service specifications; records of communications between you and Gardeners St. John's Wood, such as service enquiries, feedback, or complaints; invoicing information and payment status, including amounts, dates, and methods of payment, but not full card numbers or banking passwords; and information that you choose to provide voluntarily, such as preferences, special instructions, or accessibility information relating to your property.
We do not intentionally collect special categories of personal data, such as health information, unless you provide such information voluntarily where it is necessary for us to safely deliver our services, for example information about allergies relevant to products used in your garden. Where this occurs, we will handle this information with a higher level of care and only for the purposes described to you.
How We Collect Personal Data
We collect personal data about you in several ways: directly from you when you contact Gardeners St. John's Wood to request a quote, make a booking, or communicate with us about services; during site visits and service delivery, when we record relevant information about your garden and the work carried out; through our invoicing and accounting processes, when we record payments made and amounts due; and indirectly from third parties where lawful and relevant, such as referrals from existing customers or partners who have your permission to share your details with us.
We aim to ensure that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and up to date. You can help us by informing us of any changes to your contact details or other information that is relevant to our services.
Lawful Bases for Processing
Gardeners St. John's Wood processes your personal data only where we have a lawful basis to do so under data protection law. Depending on the circumstances, we rely on the following lawful bases: performance of a contract, where processing your data is necessary to provide gardening services you have requested, prepare a quote, manage bookings, and handle payments; legitimate interests, where we have a legitimate business interest that is not overridden by your rights and interests, such as managing schedules, maintaining service records, improving our services, and handling customer enquiries; consent, where you have clearly agreed that we may process your personal data for a specific purpose, such as receiving optional updates or communications; and compliance with legal obligations, where we must process and retain certain information to meet tax, accounting, or other regulatory requirements.
Where we rely on consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
How We Use Personal Data
We use your personal data only for purposes that are compatible with the reasons for which it was collected. These purposes include: providing and managing gardening and maintenance services at your property; creating and managing quotes, bookings, and service schedules; contacting you regarding appointments, access requirements, or changes to services; issuing invoices, processing payments received, and managing accounts; responding to your queries, requests, and complaints; keeping internal records of the services provided to you, including any instructions or preferences you have shared; planning and improving our services, including resource allocation and training; and complying with our legal and regulatory responsibilities.
We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We also do not use automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on you.
Data Processors and Sharing of Personal Data
In some situations, Gardeners St. John's Wood uses external service providers that act as data processors, processing personal data on our behalf. These processors may include: providers of scheduling or job management tools used to organise service visits; invoicing or accounting service providers that help us create and manage invoices and financial records; and information technology support or cloud storage providers that host or maintain our systems securely.
Where we use processors, we ensure that appropriate contractual and technical safeguards are in place so that your personal data is processed only according to our instructions, kept secure, and not used for the processor's own purposes. Personal data is shared with these processors only to the extent necessary to perform their services for us.
We may also share personal data when required to do so by law, for example with tax or regulatory authorities, or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. Where possible and lawful, we will inform you when we are required to disclose personal data in this way.
Data Retention
Gardeners St. John's Wood keeps personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, or to meet legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The specific retention period will vary depending on the type of data and the context in which it was collected.
In general, we keep core customer and service information, such as contact details, service records, and invoices, for a period consistent with relevant tax and accounting rules. After the applicable retention period has expired, your personal data will either be securely deleted, anonymised so that it can no longer be linked to you, or archived in a secure and restricted manner if there is an ongoing need, such as a dispute or legal claim.
Where we rely on consent for non-essential communications, we will keep your contact details for that purpose until you withdraw consent or we no longer need to send such communications, whichever comes first.
Data Security
We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. These measures include limiting access to personal data to those individuals and processors who need it for their role and who are subject to duties of confidentiality, using secure methods to store and transmit information, and maintaining internal policies and practices aimed at ensuring data security.
While we take steps to protect your personal data, no method of transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be completely secure. We therefore cannot guarantee absolute security but are committed to reviewing and improving our security measures on an ongoing basis.
Your Data Protection Rights
As a customer of Gardeners St. John's Wood, you have a number of rights under data protection law in relation to your personal data. These include: the right to access your personal data and receive a copy of the information we hold about you, subject to certain limitations; the right to request correction of any inaccurate or incomplete personal data; the right to request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or where you withdraw consent and there is no other legal basis for processing; the right to request restriction of processing of your personal data in specific situations, such as when you contest the accuracy of the data or object to processing based on our legitimate interests; the right to object to processing of your personal data where we rely on legitimate interests, including the right to object to direct marketing if we were to carry it out; and the right to data portability, which allows you, in certain circumstances, to obtain the personal data you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and to request that we transmit that data to another controller where technically feasible.
These rights may be subject to limitations or conditions under applicable law. If you exercise any of your rights, we will respond within the time limits set by data protection legislation.
Scope and Changes to This Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy applies to all customers and prospective customers of Gardeners St. John's Wood located in the St. John's Wood area who use or enquire about our services. By engaging with us, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or legal obligations. Any significant changes will be communicated by updating the date or content of this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we handle your personal data.
