Waste Collection Kennington Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Waste Collection Kennington collects, uses, stores and shares personal data relating to our customers and prospective customers within the Kennington area. It is intended to meet the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. This Privacy Policy applies to all Waste Collection Kennington customers, including individuals and businesses, who use or inquire about our services within our service area.

Who We Are

Waste Collection Kennington provides waste collection and related services in the Kennington area. For the purposes of data protection law, we act as the data controller for the personal data described in this Privacy Policy, which means we decide how and why your personal data is processed.

Personal Data We Collect

We collect and process different types of personal data depending on how you interact with us and the services you use. This may include:

Identification and contact details: name, title, billing address, service address, email address, telephone numbers and, where relevant, business contact details for commercial customers.

Service and account information: records of waste collection services provided, type and frequency of collections, bin or container identifiers, service preferences, customer reference numbers, invoices, payment history and communication records with our customer service team.

Payment-related information: details necessary to process payments such as partial card details or bank information, as provided when you make a payment. We do not store full payment card details where a secure payment provider is used.

Technical and usage information: information about how you interact with our website or digital services, such as IP address, browser type, pages visited, dates, times and duration of visits. Where used, cookies and similar technologies are limited to what is necessary for the proper functioning and security of our website and services.

Correspondence and feedback: information that you provide when you contact us by phone, email, online forms or post, including complaints, service feedback and any additional information you choose to share.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To provide waste collection services: managing bookings, delivering scheduled and ad hoc collections, handling changes to your service, issuing invoices, processing payments and communicating with you about your service.

Customer support and communication: responding to your enquiries, complaints or requests, sending service updates, reminders or notices about changes to our services, terms or prices and maintaining accurate customer records.

Business administration: managing our operations, accounts, finance, tax and audit requirements, preventing fraud, ensuring service quality, training staff and maintaining our internal systems and records.

Legal and regulatory compliance: meeting our legal obligations, including health and safety rules, waste management and environmental regulations, and responding to lawful requests from public authorities or regulators.

Service improvement and planning: monitoring service performance, gathering feedback and analysing aggregated and anonymised data to improve our services and plan routes and capacity more efficiently.

Lawful Basis for Processing

We rely on one or more of the following lawful bases under data protection law when processing your personal data:

Contract: processing is necessary to enter into or perform our contract with you for waste collection and related services. This includes taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, such as providing a quote or setting up an account.

Legal obligation: processing is necessary to comply with legal and regulatory obligations that apply to us, including obligations relating to waste management, environmental regulations, tax and accounting.

Legitimate interests: we may process your personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests and these interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. Examples include managing our relationship with you, preventing or detecting fraud or misuse of our services, ensuring network and information security and improving our services.

Consent: in limited circumstances, we may rely on your consent, for example for certain optional communications or specific forms of data collection not covered by the above bases. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time by contacting us using the details provided in this Privacy Policy.

Sharing Your Personal Data

We may share your personal data with carefully selected third parties where necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. These third parties act either as data processors on our behalf or as separate data controllers where appropriate.

Service providers and processors: companies that provide services to us, such as IT and hosting providers, customer relationship management systems, payment processing providers, waste transfer and disposal partners, route planning and logistics providers and professional advisers such as accountants or auditors. These providers are only permitted to process your personal data on our instructions and must keep it secure.

Public authorities and regulators: we may share personal data with local authorities, environmental regulators, law enforcement or other public bodies where required by law or where necessary to protect our rights, property or safety or that of others.

Business transfers: in the event of a reorganisation, merger, sale or transfer of all or part of our business, personal data may be transferred to the relevant third parties as part of the transaction to the extent permitted by law.

Data Retention

We keep your personal data only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and to meet our legal, regulatory, tax and accounting obligations.

Customer account and service data: typically retained for the duration of your relationship with us and for a defined period afterwards, usually up to six years, in order to resolve disputes, respond to queries, maintain accurate records and comply with tax and accounting requirements.

Payment records and invoices: retained for periods required by tax and financial regulations, which are generally up to six years from the end of the relevant financial year.

Enquiries and correspondence: information from general enquiries, complaints or feedback may be kept for a reasonable period, usually up to three years, depending on the nature of the communication and any follow up.

Technical and usage data: retained for shorter periods necessary for security, troubleshooting and service improvement, after which it may be deleted or irreversibly anonymised.

When personal data is no longer required, we take steps to securely delete or anonymise it.

International Transfers

Where we use service providers or systems that store or process personal data outside the United Kingdom, we take steps to ensure that your data is given appropriate protection. This may include using countries that have been recognised as providing an adequate level of data protection or putting in place approved contractual safeguards. Further information about specific safeguards can be provided on request.

How We Protect Your Data

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, accidental loss, destruction or damage. These measures include access controls, staff training, secure systems and regular review of our policies and procedures. While we take reasonable steps to protect your data, no system can be completely secure and there is always some level of risk when transmitting information.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under data protection law, you have certain rights in relation to your personal data. These rights may be subject to legal conditions and exemptions. They include:

Right of access: you can request confirmation that we process your personal data and obtain a copy of the data we hold about you.

Right to rectification: you can ask us to correct or complete inaccurate or incomplete personal data.

Right to erasure: in certain circumstances, you can request that we delete your personal data, for example where it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected or where you withdraw consent and there is no other lawful basis for processing.

Right to restriction of processing: you can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in specific situations, for example while we investigate a concern you have raised.

Right to data portability: in some cases, you can request that we provide certain personal data to you or to another organisation in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format.

Right to object: you can object to processing based on our legitimate interests where you consider that your rights and interests override ours. We will stop processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds or where processing is required for legal claims.

Rights in relation to consent: where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK data protection authority if you are unhappy with how we handle your personal data. We encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve your concerns.

Contacting Us About Privacy

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, how we use your personal data, or if you wish to exercise any of your data protection rights, you can contact our data protection contact point using the contact details provided on our customer communications and service documentation.

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 Kennington customers in our service area from the date it is made available. You should review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data.