Privacy Policy

Gardeners Aldgate Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Gardeners Aldgate collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data of its customers in the Aldgate area and surrounding neighbourhoods. It also explains your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. By using our gardening and related services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

Scope of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to all Gardeners Aldgate customers within our service area. It covers personal data collected when you contact us, request a quote, book a service, use our website or online forms, or otherwise interact with Gardeners Aldgate in relation to our services.

Data Controller

Gardeners Aldgate is the data controller in respect of the personal data it collects and processes about you. As data controller, we are responsible for determining the purposes and means of processing your personal data and for ensuring that such processing complies with applicable data protection law.

Personal Data We Collect

We may collect and process the following categories of personal data about you, depending on how you interact with us and which services you use:

Identity and contact details, such as your name, address, property access details, and general location within the Aldgate area, as well as your preferred communication channels. Service-related information, such as details about your garden, type of property, service preferences, photos you choose to share of the garden or outdoor area, and records of the services provided. Communication data, such as information you provide when you contact us by phone, post, or electronic means, including enquiries, feedback, or complaints. Transaction and payment information, such as records of services purchased, invoices issued, payment status, and basic payment-related references. We do not store full payment card details, which are handled by our payment processing partners. Usage information, such as how you use our website or interact with our online content, including basic technical information like IP address, browser type, and general usage data collected through standard analytics tools.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To provide and manage our gardening services, including preparing quotes, scheduling visits, delivering services, and managing ongoing maintenance arrangements. To communicate with you about your bookings, service updates, changes to appointments, and customer support. To manage billing and payments, including issuing invoices, processing payments through third-party payment processors, and keeping appropriate records for accounting and tax purposes. To improve and develop our services, including by reviewing feedback, monitoring the quality of our work, and analysing how our services are used within the Aldgate area. To comply with our legal obligations, such as record-keeping, responding to requests from public authorities where required by law, and maintaining health and safety records. To protect our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud, secure our systems, and manage disputes or legal claims.

Lawful Bases for Processing

We rely on one or more of the following lawful bases to process your personal data:

Performance of a contract, where processing is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, such as providing gardening services you have requested. Compliance with a legal obligation, where we must process certain information to meet legal or regulatory requirements, including tax, accounting, or health and safety obligations. Legitimate interests, where processing is necessary for our legitimate business interests and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests, such as improving services, managing our relationship with you, securing our systems, and handling queries or claims. Consent, where we rely on your explicit consent for specific activities, such as certain types of marketing communications. Where we rely on consent, you are free to withdraw it at any time.

Data Retention

We keep your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law. In determining appropriate retention periods, we consider the type of data, the purposes of processing, and any legal or regulatory requirements.

In general, customer and service records are kept for the duration of your relationship with Gardeners Aldgate and for a period afterwards in case of queries, complaints, or legal claims. Financial and transaction records may be retained for a number of years to comply with tax and accounting obligations. Communications related to enquiries or quotes that do not lead to a service may be retained for a shorter period before being securely deleted or anonymised.

Data Processors and Third Parties

We may share your personal data with carefully selected third parties who act as data processors on our behalf. These processors may include providers of payment processing services, customer relationship management systems, cloud storage and hosting services, website analytics services, accounting and invoicing tools, and communication platforms used to manage bookings and customer contact.

These processors are only permitted to process your personal data in accordance with our instructions and for the purposes specified in a written data processing agreement. We require all processors to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data. We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We only disclose information to other third parties where necessary for legal reasons, for example to comply with law, respond to lawful requests from public authorities, or establish or defend legal claims.

International Transfers

Where any of our service providers or their servers are located outside the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, we take steps to ensure that your personal data is adequately protected. This may include ensuring that transfers are made to countries with an adequacy decision, or using appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses approved by relevant authorities.

Data Security

We take data security seriously and use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, accidental loss, alteration, or disclosure. Measures may include access controls, secure storage, encryption in transit where appropriate, staff training, and regular review of our security arrangements. However, no system can be guaranteed to be completely secure, and you are encouraged to take care when sharing personal data with us, particularly via open networks.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These rights apply to all Gardeners Aldgate customers in our service area, subject to certain legal conditions and exemptions. Your rights include the following:

Right of access, which allows you to obtain confirmation of whether we process your personal data and, if so, to receive a copy of that data along with certain information about how it is processed. Right to rectification, which allows you to request that inaccurate or incomplete personal data about you is corrected. Right to erasure, in certain circumstances, which allows you to request that we delete your personal data, for example where it is no longer needed for the purpose it was collected or where you withdraw consent and there is no other lawful basis for processing. Right to restriction of processing, which allows you to ask us to limit how we use your personal data in certain situations, such as while we are dealing with a request to rectify or object. Right to object, which allows you to object to processing that is based on our legitimate interests, including profiling based on those interests. We will stop processing your personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds or the processing is required for legal claims. Right to data portability, in certain circumstances, which allows you to receive personal data you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine readable format and to request that we transmit it to another controller where technically feasible. Right to withdraw consent, where processing is based on consent. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

Exercising Your Rights and Complaints

If you wish to exercise any of your data protection rights in relation to Gardeners Aldgate, you can contact us using the contact details provided on our website or in our correspondence with you. We may need to verify your identity before acting on your request.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection authority if you believe that your personal data has been processed in a way that does not comply with data protection law. We encourage you to contact us first so that we have the opportunity to address your concerns directly.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in how we handle personal data, changes in our services, or updates to legal or regulatory requirements. Any changes will be posted in the latest version of the Privacy Policy, and the updated version will apply from the date it is made available. We recommend that you review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how Gardeners Aldgate protects your personal data.