Privacy Policy

Last updated: 17 August 2026

Southend Cleaners ("we", "us", "our") is the data controller for personal data collected via southendcleaners.co.uk. This policy explains what we collect, why, and your rights under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. What we collect

• Account data: name, email, password hash (cleaners & customers).
• Cleaner profile: business name, services, postcodes, insurance/DBS status, uploaded documents and photos.
• Lead/enquiry data: name, contact details, postcode, service requested, message.
• Enquiry pop-up captures: when you complete the short on-site questionnaire (for cleaners or customers) we collect your name, email address, mobile number, your three answers, your marketing preferences by channel, the page you were on, campaign/UTM parameters, a one-way hashed version of your IP address and your browser user-agent. The hash is used only for abuse prevention — we do not store your raw IP address from this form.
• Technical data: IP address, browser type, device, pages visited (via essential cookies & analytics).

2. Lawful basis

• Contract / steps prior to a contract — to provide the marketplace, respond to your enquiry, match cleaners with customers and manage accounts.
• Legitimate interests — handling and following up enquiries you submit, fraud and spam prevention, service improvement, security monitoring.
• Consent — non-essential cookies and any marketing by email, SMS/WhatsApp or telephone, and for sharing your contact details with a specific cleaner when you message them through a profile.
• Legal obligation — tax, accounting, responding to lawful requests.

3. How we use it

To verify cleaners, route enquiries, send transactional and service emails (such as the confirmation you receive after submitting the enquiry pop-up), prevent abuse, and improve the service. Service emails confirm what you asked for and are not marketing. We do not sell your data.

3a. Contact requests and cleaner matching

When you message a cleaner through their profile, we collect your name, email address, phone number, postcode, the service you need and your message. Your details are sent to us first — they are not shown to the cleaner straight away.

The cleaner initially receives only a preview: the service, area or postcode, your message and when it arrived. Your name, email and phone number stay hidden.

Those details are only revealed to the cleaner when they click "Accept & see details" in their dashboard. By ticking the consent box on the contact form, you agree that we may share your name, email and phone number with that cleaner once they accept your request. If the cleaner declines, your contact details remain hidden and we may re-route your enquiry to another suitable cleaner.

Every accept, decline and reveal is recorded in our audit log. You can ask us to delete or re-route a request at any time by emailing privacy@southendcleaners.co.uk.

4. Marketing preferences

Marketing is always optional and never a condition of getting the help, guide or profile draft you asked for. We record your choice separately for each channel:

• Email — helpful updates and offers by email.
• SMS/WhatsApp — helpful updates and offers by text or WhatsApp.
• Phone — a call about your enquiry and suitable services.

Boxes are never pre-ticked. We store the exact wording version you agreed to, the date and time, the page and the form you used, so we can evidence your consent.

Email marketing uses double opt-in. If you tick the email box we send one confirmation message asking you to confirm. If you don't confirm within 14 days the request expires and you receive no marketing. That confirmation message is separate from — and never replaces — the service email confirming your enquiry.

You can change or withdraw any of these at any time on our preference centre (linked from every email), using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email, by replying STOP to a text, or by emailing privacy@southendcleaners.co.uk. The preference centre controls marketing only: service messages about an enquiry you have already made, your account, billing or security are administrative and continue.

5. Sharing & data processors

Customer enquiries are shared with the cleaner(s) you select. We use the following sub-processors to run the service — each is bound by a data processing agreement:

• Supabase — database, authentication and file storage (EU/UK region), including form submissions and consent records.
• Stripe — payment processing for cleaner subscriptions.
• Mailgun (via our email platform) — transactional, service and notification email delivery.
• Google — OAuth sign-in, and Google Places API for address and postcode lookup.
• Google Analytics 4 / Google Tag Manager — consent-gated site analytics. We never send names, emails or phone numbers to analytics.
• Cloudflare — CDN, DNS and edge security in front of the site.

Where a processor transfers data outside the UK/EEA, we rely on appropriate safeguards (Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK IDTA).

6. Retention

• Account data: while your account is active, then 12 months.
• Uploaded verification documents: until verified + 24 months, or removal request.
• Leads and enquiry pop-up captures: 24 months from submission, then permanently anonymised.
• Consent records: for as long as the consent is relied on, plus 24 months as proof.
• Audit logs: 24 months for security.

Retention is enforced automatically by a daily job, not by hand. At 24 months your name, email address, phone number and technical identifiers are irreversibly removed from enquiry pop-up records; only the non-identifying answers and the consent record remain. Each run is logged with the number of records anonymised so we can evidence compliance. Do-not-contact records are kept indefinitely — deleting them would risk contacting you again by mistake.

7. Your rights

You can request access, correction, erasure, restriction, portability, or object to processing, and withdraw consent at any time. Email privacy@southendcleaners.co.uk. We respond within 30 days. You can also complain to the ICO.

8. Security

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Access is role-based with row-level security policies, audit logging and admin-only access to verification documents.

9. International transfers

Our processors may host data in the EU/UK or US under Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK IDTA.

10. Children

The service is not intended for under-18s.

11. Changes

We'll post updates here and notify account holders of material changes.

12. Contact

Southend Cleaners — privacy@southendcleaners.co.uk

See also: Cookies Policy · Terms & Conditions