Privacy Policy - Rubbish Less

Effective date: This Privacy Policy explains how Rubbish Less collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal data. It applies to all Rubbish Less customers in area, as well as anyone who visits our services, requests a quote, books a collection, or otherwise interacts with us.

1. Who We Are

Rubbish Less provides waste removal and related services. In order to deliver these services, we handle personal data relating to customers, prospective customers, property occupants, billing contacts, and other individuals whose information is needed to carry out a booking or service request.

We are committed to handling personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, and other applicable privacy laws.

2. The Personal Data We Collect

We only collect personal data that is relevant and necessary for the services we provide. Depending on your interactions with us, we may collect:

Identity data such as your name and title.
Contact data such as address, email address, and telephone number.
Service details such as collection address, access notes, service preferences, and information about the items or waste to be removed.
Billing and payment data such as payment status, transaction details, and invoice information.
Account and communication data such as correspondence with our team, complaints, feedback, and service history.
Technical data such as basic device and usage information collected when you interact with our online systems.
Proof and verification data where needed to confirm identity, service location, or lawful authority to arrange a collection.

We do not seek to collect special category data unless it is strictly necessary and lawful to do so. If such data is ever shared with us inadvertently, we will handle it with heightened care and only where appropriate safeguards and legal requirements are met.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To provide quotes, schedule collections, and deliver our services.
To communicate with you about bookings, changes, updates, or service issues.
To process payments, send invoices, and manage account administration.
To verify instructions, prevent misuse, and maintain service security.
To handle complaints, disputes, and customer support requests.
To comply with legal, regulatory, tax, and accounting obligations.
To analyse service performance and improve our operations.
To defend, establish, or exercise legal claims where necessary.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes described above or for compatible purposes that you would reasonably expect.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

We process personal data only where a lawful basis applies. The main lawful bases we rely on are:

Contract

We process data where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, such as arranging a collection, managing your booking, or providing customer support related to a service you have requested.

Legal Obligation

We process data where we must comply with legal obligations, including record-keeping, tax, accounting, and waste-related regulatory duties.

Legitimate Interests

We may process data where it is necessary for our legitimate interests and where those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include improving services, managing customer relationships, preventing fraud, maintaining system security, and handling disputes. We always consider whether our interests are proportionate and appropriate.

Consent

In limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example where you choose to receive certain communications or where consent is required by law. Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

Vital Interests

In rare cases, we may process personal data where it is necessary to protect someone’s vital interests, such as in an emergency.

5. Sharing Your Personal Data

We do not sell personal data. We may share data with trusted third parties only where necessary for the purposes described in this policy. These may include:

Service providers that help us with booking management, administration, communications, payment processing, IT support, or data storage.
Professional advisers such as accountants, auditors, insurers, or legal advisers where needed for business, compliance, or dispute resolution.
Regulators or public authorities where disclosure is required by law or necessary to protect rights, safety, or security.
Operational partners that assist in carrying out collections or related services under our instructions.

Where we use processors, they act only on our instructions and are subject to appropriate contractual obligations to protect personal data, maintain confidentiality, and implement suitable security measures. We require processors to handle data in accordance with applicable data protection law.

6. International Transfers

If any personal data is transferred outside the United Kingdom, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. These may include adequacy regulations, standard contractual clauses, or other lawful transfer mechanisms designed to protect your data to a standard consistent with UK GDPR requirements.

7. Retention of Personal Data

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy legal, accounting, tax, and regulatory requirements. Retention periods may vary depending on the type of data and the reason it is held.

As a general approach:

Booking and service records are retained for a period necessary to manage the service and handle follow-up issues.
Financial and invoice records are retained for the period required by law or accounting practice.
Communication records are kept for as long as needed to respond to queries, manage complaints, or resolve disputes.
Data no longer needed is securely deleted, anonymised, or archived in accordance with our retention practices.

Where data is processed on the basis of consent and you withdraw consent, we will stop processing the relevant data unless another lawful basis applies. In some cases, we may need to retain limited information to meet legal obligations or establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

8. Security of Your Data

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures are designed to be proportionate to the nature of the data and the risks involved. While no system can be guaranteed completely secure, we continually review our safeguards and apply reasonable and appropriate protections.

9. Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. Subject to legal limits and exemptions, these may 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 data.
Right to erasure - to request deletion of your data in certain circumstances.
Right to restriction - to ask us to limit the way we use your data in certain situations.
Right to object - to object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
Right to data portability - to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used format where applicable.
Right to withdraw consent - where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

You also have the right to raise concerns with the relevant data protection authority if you believe your data has not been handled lawfully. We encourage you to contact us first so we can review and address any concerns promptly.

10. Automated Decision-Making

We do not make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you, unless this is lawful, necessary, and subject to suitable safeguards. If this changes, we will provide clear information about the logic involved and your rights.

11. Children’s Data

Our services are not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where it is necessary for service delivery and lawfully provided by an appropriate adult or authorised person.

12. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or operational needs. Any updated version will apply from the effective date shown. We encourage you to review this policy periodically so you remain informed about how we use personal data.

13. Summary of Key Principles

In short: we collect only the data needed to provide and manage our services, process it on a valid lawful basis, keep it only as long as necessary, use trusted processors under contract, and respect your data protection rights. We aim to keep all handling of personal data transparent, proportionate, and secure.