Waste Collection Kensington Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Waste Collection Kensington collects, uses, stores and protects personal data relating to our waste collection services. It applies to all existing and prospective Waste Collection Kensington customers and service users in the Kensington area, including residential and commercial customers who contact us, request a quote, make a booking, or receive our services.

We are committed to handling your personal data lawfully, fairly and transparently in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. This Privacy Policy should be read together with any terms and conditions that apply to the services you use.

Who We Are And How To Contact Us

Waste Collection Kensington is the organisation responsible for determining how and why your personal data is processed in connection with our waste collection services in the Kensington area. For the purposes of data protection law, we act as a data controller.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we handle your personal data, or if you wish to exercise your data protection rights, you can contact us using the contact details published on our main customer communications, invoices or booking confirmations.

Types Of Personal Data We Collect

We only collect personal data that is necessary for the provision and management of our waste collection services. Depending on how you interact with us, we may collect and process the following categories of personal data:

Identification and contact details such as your name, title, postal address, service address, billing address, email address and telephone number.

Service and account information such as details of your waste collection requirements, type and size of containers, collection frequency, access instructions, notes about the property that are relevant to safe service delivery, customer reference numbers and records of payments and balances.

Communication records such as any enquiries, complaints, feedback or correspondence you send to us by phone, email, online forms or post, and notes of our interactions with you.

Transaction and payment information such as payment method, billing status and records of invoices and receipts. We do not retain full payment card details; where card payments are taken, these are processed securely by our chosen payment processor.

Technical and usage information such as details about how you interact with our website or online booking tools, including IP address, device and browser type, and information derived from cookies or similar technologies where these are used in accordance with applicable law.

How We Collect Your Data

We collect personal data directly from you when you contact us by phone, email or through our website, when you request a quote, place a booking, sign a service agreement, set up or amend your account, or when you communicate with us for any other reason.

We may also receive personal data from third parties where this is necessary for us to deliver services, for example from property managers, letting agents, business partners or local authorities who arrange waste services on your behalf. In such cases we rely on those parties to confirm that they have provided you with appropriate privacy information where required.

Our Lawful Bases For Processing

We process your personal data only where we have a lawful basis under data protection law. The main lawful bases we rely on are:

Contract: to take steps at your request before entering into a contract and to perform our contract with you, for example to provide waste collection services, manage your account, take payment and communicate with you about your bookings.

Legal obligation: to comply with applicable legal and regulatory requirements, including waste management regulations, health and safety obligations, tax and accounting rules, and requirements to retain certain business records.

Legitimate interests: to pursue our legitimate business interests while respecting your rights and freedoms, for example to manage our operations efficiently, improve our services, handle service queries and complaints, prevent fraud or misuse of services, recover debts and protect our staff, customers and property.

Consent: where we rely on your consent, for example for certain optional marketing communications or for the use of certain non-essential cookies or similar technologies. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the details on our customer communications or by following any unsubscribe instructions provided.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use the personal data we collect for the following purposes:

To provide and manage waste collection services, including setting up your account, arranging collections, adjusting service levels, and responding to your service requests.

To communicate with you about your bookings, changes to services, service disruptions, invoices, payments, reminders and any issues requiring your attention.

To handle customer support, complaints and disputes, and to keep appropriate records of our communications with you.

To manage payments, invoicing, refunds and debt recovery, and to maintain accurate financial and business records.

To comply with legal and regulatory obligations relating to waste management, health and safety, environmental reporting, taxation and audit requirements.

To protect our business, our staff and our customers, including by preventing and detecting fraud, misuse of our services or criminal activity that may affect our operations.

To improve, monitor and develop our services and website, including analysing service usage and website performance where permitted by law.

Data Sharing And Processors

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with trusted third parties where this is necessary for the operation of our services or required by law. These third parties include:

Service providers who act as data processors on our behalf, such as waste handling and recycling partners, IT and cloud hosting providers, customer relationship management systems, communications providers, payment processors, and professional advisers such as accountants.

Other organisations where required by law or regulation, such as law enforcement agencies, regulators, courts, tax authorities, or other public bodies when we are under a legal obligation to disclose data.

Third parties involved in a business transaction, such as a merger, transfer of services or reorganisation, in which case we will take steps to ensure that your personal data remains protected and that you are informed of any material changes.

Where we engage processors, we only use organisations that provide sufficient guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data. We ensure that data processing agreements are in place requiring processors to act only on our instructions and to keep your data secure.

International Data Transfers

Where possible, we aim to keep your personal data within the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area. If we use a service provider that transfers or stores personal data outside these territories, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with data protection law, such as standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision, and that your rights continue to be protected.

Data Retention

We keep your personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, including for the purpose of meeting any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

The exact retention period will depend on the type of data and the applicable legal and business requirements. In general, we will retain your core account and service data as long as you are an active customer and for a reasonable period after the end of your contract to deal with any queries, disputes or legal claims. Financial and invoice records are usually retained for a period required by tax and accounting law.

When we no longer need personal data for the purposes for which it was collected, we will securely delete it, anonymise it or otherwise remove it from our systems.

How We Protect Your Data

We take the security of your personal data seriously. We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access.

These measures may include access controls, encryption, secure storage, staff training, regular review of our security practices, and careful selection and monitoring of third party service providers. While we take reasonable steps to protect your data, no transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Your Data Protection Rights

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

The right to be informed about how your data is collected and used, which is the purpose of this Privacy Policy.

The right of access to obtain confirmation of whether we process your personal data and to request a copy of your personal data.

The right to rectification to have inaccurate or incomplete personal data corrected.

The right to erasure, also known as the right to be forgotten, in certain circumstances where there is no longer a lawful basis for us to continue processing your data.

The right to restrict processing in certain circumstances, for example while we verify the accuracy of data or assess an objection.

The right to data portability to receive personal data you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and to transmit it to another controller where technically feasible and where the processing is based on consent or contract.

The right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including any direct marketing. We will consider your objection and stop processing unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue or we need to process the data for legal claims.

The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects or significantly affects you, where applicable.

If you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us using the details provided in your service documentation or on our main customer communications. We may need to verify your identity before responding to your request.

Complaints

If you have concerns about how we handle your personal data, we encourage you to contact us first so that we can try to resolve the issue. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK supervisory authority for data protection if you are unhappy with our response. Details of the current supervisory authority and how to contact them are widely available from official government sources.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal requirements or how we process personal data. Any updated version will apply to all Waste Collection Kensington customers and service users in the Kensington area from the date it is published. We recommend that you review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data.