Westminster Removals Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Westminster Removals collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data relating to our customers and prospective customers. It applies to all Westminster Removals customers and service users within our operating area, including those who contact us for quotes, make bookings, or otherwise engage with our removal and related services.

We are committed to handling your personal data in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Who This Policy Applies To

This Privacy Policy applies to individuals who:

Contact Westminster Removals to request information or a quotation for services; engage us to provide removal, storage, packing, or related services; visit our website or interact with us through online forms; or otherwise communicate with us as a private or business customer within our service area. By using our services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

Personal Data We Collect

We only collect personal data that is necessary for us to provide and manage our services. Depending on how you interact with Westminster Removals, we may collect the following categories of information:

Identity and contact details, such as your name, postal address, billing address, collection and delivery addresses, and any other contact details you choose to provide; service information, such as details about the property you are moving from or to, access requirements, inventory lists, and any special instructions relating to your move; communication data, including the content of messages you send to us, notes of conversations, and your preferences for how we contact you; billing and payment information, including records of invoices and payments. We do not store full payment card details, but our payment processors may do so in accordance with their own legal obligations; technical data, such as basic information about how you access our website or online forms, including internet protocol addresses and browser type, where this is collected through standard web server logs.

We do not seek to collect special categories of personal data, such as health information, unless it is directly relevant to the safe and effective delivery of our services and you choose to share it with us. In such cases, we will only use that information with your explicit consent or where it is necessary to protect your vital interests.

How We Collect Your Data

We collect personal data in several ways:

Directly from you when you contact us by phone, in writing, or through our website or other communication channels; through our service delivery process when we visit your property, carry out surveys, or perform the removal or associated services; from third parties, where lawful and appropriate, such as referrals from business partners or estate agents, or where a third party arranges services on your behalf.

Lawful Basis for Processing Your Data

We rely on the following lawful bases for processing your personal data under GDPR:

Contract: We process your personal data when it is necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, such as providing quotations, booking and carrying out removals, or managing your storage arrangements; legal obligation: We may process your data where it is necessary for us to comply with legal obligations, for example, record keeping, tax, or regulatory requirements; legitimate interests: We process personal data where it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided that your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. This can include managing our business operations, improving our services, handling queries and complaints, and protecting our property and systems; consent: In certain limited situations, we may rely on your consent, for example, to send you selected marketing communications that you have chosen to receive. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To provide quotations, estimates, and service proposals; to plan, manage, and deliver removal, storage, packing, and related services; to communicate with you about your booking, including confirmations, changes, and updates; to manage billing, payments, and accounting records; to handle queries, requests, feedback, and complaints; to improve our services, processes, and customer experience; to comply with legal and regulatory obligations; to protect our rights, property, and safety, and to detect or prevent fraud and misuse of our services.

Data Sharing and Processors

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with third parties only where necessary and in accordance with GDPR. These third parties may act as data processors, processing personal data on our behalf and under our instructions, or as separate controllers where they determine their own purposes and means of processing.

We may share data with the following categories of recipients:

Service providers such as removal crews, storage facilities, and specialist contractors involved in delivering your services; IT and system providers who support our website, booking systems, secure data storage, and communications tools; payment service providers and financial institutions that process payments and assist with fraud prevention; professional advisers such as accountants or legal advisers where necessary for our legitimate interests and legal obligations; public authorities or law enforcement agencies where we are required to do so by law or where it is necessary to protect our rights or the rights of others.

Whenever we use processors, we ensure that appropriate contracts and safeguards are in place to protect your personal data and ensure it is only processed in accordance with our instructions and applicable law.

International Data Transfers

Our primary operations are within the United Kingdom. If personal data is transferred outside the United Kingdom or European Economic Area, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place, such as adequacy decisions, standard contractual clauses, or other lawful mechanisms that provide an equivalent level of data protection.

Data Retention

We keep your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including for the purposes of satisfying legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

In determining the appropriate retention period, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from its unauthorised use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process it and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and applicable legal requirements.

In general, we retain customer records and associated data for a period necessary to manage our relationship with you and to comply with statutory limitation periods for legal claims. After the relevant retention period has expired, we will securely delete or anonymise your data.

Your Data Protection Rights

Under GDPR, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data, subject to certain conditions and exemptions:

Right of access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to obtain information about how we process it; right to rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data; right to erasure: You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data where there is no longer a lawful basis for us to keep it, subject to legal and contractual obligations; right to restrict processing: You can request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances, for example, while we are verifying its accuracy; right to data portability: You can request that we provide your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format, where the processing is based on consent or contract and carried out by automated means; right to object: You have the right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including profiling, and to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing; rights related to automated decision making: You have rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling where it has a legal or similarly significant effect on you. We do not routinely undertake such profiling for our services.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details provided on our website or in your service documentation. We may need to verify your identity before responding to your request, and we will respond within the time periods set by law.

Security of Your Personal Data

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. These measures include limiting access to personal data to those employees, contractors, and service providers who need it to carry out their duties, and requiring them to process it only on our instructions and subject to confidentiality obligations.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal or regulatory developments, or improvements in how we communicate our data protection approach. Any updated version will be made available through our usual customer communication channels. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we protect your personal data.

Contact and Complaints

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how Westminster Removals handles your personal data, or if you wish to exercise your data protection rights, you can contact us using the contact details provided to you as a customer.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority in the United Kingdom. We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly in the first instance.