Privacy Policy - Tree Surgeons Highbury

This Privacy Policy explains how Tree Surgeons Highbury collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data when providing tree surgery and related services. It applies to all Tree Surgeons Highbury customers in the area, including prospective customers, existing customers, property owners, tenants, commercial clients, and other individuals who interact with us in connection with our services.

1. Who We Are

Tree Surgeons Highbury provides tree surgery, tree maintenance, site clearance, stump grinding, pruning, and related arboricultural services. In the course of delivering these services, we may process personal data about customers, site contacts, property managers, contractors, and other relevant individuals. We are committed to handling personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner in accordance with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

2. Data We Collect

We collect only the personal data necessary for business, legal, and operational purposes. The categories of data we may collect include:

Identity data such as name and title.
Contact data such as telephone number, email address, and service address.
Property and job data such as details of trees, site conditions, access information, photos of the work area, and service requirements.
Payment data such as billing details and records of payments made or received.
Communication data such as enquiries, quotes, complaints, feedback, and correspondence.
Technical data such as limited website or device information if you interact with our digital systems, where applicable.
Compliance data such as records needed for insurance, legal, health and safety, and tax purposes.

We may also collect information you choose to provide voluntarily, including details that help us assess work safely and accurately. We aim to keep personal data accurate and up to date.

3. How We Use Personal Data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

To provide quotes, assessments, and tree surgery services.
To manage bookings, scheduling, invoicing, and payments.
To respond to enquiries, complaints, and customer requests.
To assess site safety and carry out work responsibly.
To maintain internal records and service history.
To comply with legal, tax, insurance, and regulatory obligations.
To improve our services and customer experience.

We will only use personal data for the purposes for which it was collected, unless we reasonably consider that another compatible purpose is required or permitted by law.

4. Lawful Basis for Processing

Under data protection law, we must have a lawful basis for using personal data. Tree Surgeons Highbury relies on the following lawful bases:

Contract

We process personal data where it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you. This includes providing quotations, arranging work, carrying out tree surgery services, issuing invoices, and managing customer accounts.

Legal Obligation

We may process personal data where necessary to meet legal requirements, such as tax record keeping, health and safety compliance, and insurance obligations.

Legitimate Interests

We may process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and where those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include maintaining records, improving services, preventing fraud, managing business administration, and handling customer communications. We always consider the impact on your privacy before relying on this basis.

Consent

In limited cases, we may rely on your consent, for example where you have clearly agreed to receive certain marketing communications or where we need consent for a specific optional activity. You may withdraw consent at any time.

5. Sharing Data and Processors

We may share personal data with trusted third parties, known as processors or service providers, who help us run our business. These parties only process data on our instructions and are required to keep it secure and confidential. Processors may include:

Accounting and bookkeeping providers.
Payment processing services.
IT and cloud storage providers.
Communication and email service providers.
Scheduling, quoting, or customer management systems.
Insurance providers and professional advisers.
Subcontractors assisting with tree surgery work where necessary.

We may also disclose data to public authorities, regulators, courts, or law enforcement where required by law. Where data is shared with subcontractors or other third parties, we take steps to ensure they handle it appropriately and only for the intended purpose.

6. Retention of Personal Data

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy, and to meet legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The length of time we retain data depends on the type of information and the reason it was collected.

Customer and job records may be kept for a reasonable period after the work is completed for audit, service history, and dispute handling.
Invoices and payment records are typically retained for the period required by tax and accounting law.
Safety and compliance records may be retained longer where required by insurance, legal, or regulatory obligations.
Enquiry records may be kept for a limited time if no service is provided.

When personal data is no longer needed, we will delete it securely or anonymise it where appropriate.

7. Data Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures may include access controls, secure storage, staff confidentiality obligations, and careful selection of service providers. While we take data security seriously, no method of transmission or storage is completely risk-free, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. Your Rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These rights may apply in different circumstances and may be subject to legal limitations. They include:

Right of access – you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification – you may ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
Right to erasure – you may ask us to delete your data in certain situations.
Right to restriction – you may request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
Right to object – you may object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
Right to data portability – you may request that certain data be provided to you or another provider in a structured format.
Right to withdraw consent – where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office if you believe your data rights have been infringed. We encourage you to raise any concerns with us first so we can try to resolve the matter promptly.

9. Marketing and Communications

We do not send unnecessary marketing communications. If we contact you for service-related reasons, such as updates about a quotation or scheduled work, this is not marketing. Where we do send optional marketing messages, we will do so only where permitted by law and, if required, with your consent. You can opt out at any time.

10. Children’s Data

Our services are aimed at adults and business customers. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children except where it is necessary in a limited and incidental way, such as when a property contact includes family-related information relevant to the service. If we learn that we have collected data from a child inappropriately, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.

11. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal requirements, or data handling practices. Any updated version will apply from the date it is published or otherwise communicated. We recommend reviewing this policy periodically to stay informed about how personal data is processed.

12. Summary of Key Points

Tree Surgeons Highbury collects only the data needed to provide safe and effective services, communicate with customers, manage payments, and comply with legal obligations. We process data on the basis of contract, legal obligation, legitimate interests, and, in limited cases, consent. We retain data only as long as necessary and share it only with trusted processors and other parties where required. All Tree Surgeons Highbury customers in area are covered by this policy and may exercise their data protection rights at any time.

This Privacy Policy is intended to be clear, fair, and compliant with applicable data protection law.