Privacy Policy

Section 1Introduction

MM Rubbish Clearance Ltd respects your privacy and handles personal information responsibly.

This policy explains how we use personal information when you contact us, request a quotation, book a collection or use our website.

We collect only the information reasonably necessary to respond to you, provide our services and meet our legal obligations. We do not create customer profiles or keep personal information for unrelated purposes.

Section 2Who we are

For data-protection purposes, MM Rubbish Clearance Ltd is responsible for deciding how and why personal information is used.

Waste carrier registration

We are registered as an upper-tier waste carrier with the Environment Agency under registration number CBDU418527, verifiable on the public register.

Data protection registration

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number [INSERT ICO REGISTRATION NUMBER].

Section 3Information we may receive

When you contact or book with us, we may receive:

• your name;
• your telephone number or email address;
• the collection address and postcode;
• photographs or videos of the waste;
• information about access, parking and the work required;
• messages and other communications;
• quotation, booking, invoice and payment information; and
• information needed for a waste transfer note, consignment note or other legally required record.

Please do not send personal, confidential or sensitive information unless it is genuinely necessary for us to carry out the work.

When sending photographs, please avoid including people, confidential documents, vehicle registration numbers or anything else that is not relevant to the quotation.

Website information

When you visit our website, our website and security providers automatically receive certain technical information, including your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you visit and the website that referred you.

This information is used to operate the site securely, diagnose problems and understand how the site is used. Section 14 explains how we use cookies and similar technologies.

Section 4How we use information, and why we are allowed to

To respond to enquiries and prepare quotations

We use your contact details, the collection address, photographs and job information to answer your enquiry, assess the work and give you a price.

Our lawful basis: taking steps at your request before entering into a contract.

To arrange and carry out a collection

We use your contact and access information to schedule the work, keep you informed, carry out the collection, issue an invoice and take payment.

Our lawful basis: performance of our contract with you. Where a booking is made by someone else on your behalf, our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in carrying out the work we have been engaged to do.

To meet our legal obligations

We prepare and retain waste transfer documentation, keep accounting and tax records, and respond to regulators, HM Revenue & Customs and law-enforcement bodies where we are required to.

Our lawful basis: compliance with a legal obligation.

To handle questions, complaints and disputes

We use your information to investigate and resolve problems, and to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Our lawful basis: performance of our contract, compliance with a legal obligation, and our legitimate interest in resolving matters properly and protecting our position.

To run the business safely and securely

We use information to allocate work, maintain service quality, prevent fraud and protect our staff, vehicles and equipment.

Our lawful basis: our legitimate interest in operating a safe, efficient and responsible clearance business. We consider whether our interests are outweighed by your rights and freedoms before relying on this basis, and you may object to this processing at any time — see section 17.

We do not sell personal information or share it with another business for that business’s own marketing.

Section 5What we need, and what happens if you do not provide it

To give you an accurate quotation and carry out a collection, we need your contact details, the collection address, and enough information about the waste and the access arrangements to price and plan the work.

If this information is not provided, we may be unable to quote or to complete the collection. There is no obligation to provide anything beyond this, and you should not send us information that is not needed for the work.

Section 6Information supplied by someone else

A landlord, estate agent, property manager, employer, executor or other person may sometimes arrange a clearance on someone else’s behalf.

The information we receive in these circumstances is normally limited to contact details, the property address and information needed to complete the work.

Where we hold information about you that we obtained from someone else, we will provide you with this privacy policy when we first contact you, or within the applicable legal period, unless an exemption applies. You may ask us at any time what information we hold about you and where we obtained it.

Section 7Sensitive information

We do not normally need information about anyone’s health, religion, ethnicity or other sensitive personal circumstances.

Please provide only information that is genuinely necessary for us to carry out the work safely and appropriately.

Sometimes a customer chooses to tell us about a bereavement, an illness, a disability or another personal circumstance, because it affects how or when the work needs to be done. Where we record this kind of information, we do so only with your explicit consent, and only to carry out the work safely and appropriately and to communicate with you sensitively.

You can withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us, and we will delete the information unless we are required to keep it. Withdrawing consent will not affect anything we have already done.

We do not use sensitive information for marketing or profiling.

Section 8Photographs and cleared items

Photographs sent for quotation purposes should show only the items to be removed and relevant access conditions.

Customers are responsible for removing valuables, confidential paperwork, identity documents and personal electronic devices that they wish to keep before the clearance begins.

Our staff must not deliberately read, copy or use information found in cleared documents or electronic devices. Confidential-document destruction or secure electronic-device disposal must be agreed separately before collection. We will not represent ordinary waste disposal as secure destruction.

We may set aside an obviously important document or device and bring it to the customer’s attention where it is reasonable and safe to do so.

Section 9Cameras on our vehicles

Our vehicles are fitted with cameras that record while the vehicle is in use.

We use recordings to protect the safety of our staff and other road users, to deal with road-traffic incidents and insurance claims, and to protect the business against false allegations, including allegations about how waste has been handled or disposed of.

Recordings are overwritten automatically after [INSERT NUMBER] days unless they are needed for an incident, claim, complaint, or legal or regulatory matter. Access is limited to those who need it, and we share footage only with insurers, legal advisers, the police or other public authorities where necessary.

Our lawful basis: our legitimate interest in protecting our staff, our vehicles and our business, and in being able to evidence lawful waste disposal. You can object to this processing — see section 17.

Section 10Sharing information

We share personal information only where necessary. This may include sharing limited information with:

• people working for or on behalf of MM Rubbish Clearance;
• authorised waste transfer or recycling facilities;
• payment, email, telephone, website and communications providers;
• accountants, insurers or professional advisers;
• public authorities, regulators or law-enforcement bodies where required by law; and
• another organisation involved in a sale or reorganisation of the business.

Where another organisation processes personal information on our behalf, we put a written contract in place requiring them to keep it secure, use it only on our instructions and only for the service they provide to us, and delete or return it when it is no longer needed.

If you contact us through WhatsApp or another third-party service, that provider will process information under its own privacy terms.

Section 11Information sent outside the UK

Some of the providers we use — including messaging, email, website and payment providers — process information outside the United Kingdom.

Where information is transferred outside the UK, we rely on an appropriate safeguard permitted by data protection law. This may be UK adequacy regulations, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, the UK Addendum to the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses, or another recognised safeguard.

If you would like details of the safeguard used for a particular transfer, please contact us.

Section 12How long information is kept

We do not keep personal information indefinitely or merely because it may be useful in the future.

Information is deleted or anonymised when it is no longer reasonably needed. Some records must be retained to meet legal, accounting, waste-management, insurance or dispute-resolution requirements.

In particular:

• Unsuccessful quotations and general enquiries: deleted within 12 months of the last contact.
• General correspondence that does not form part of another record below: deleted within 12 months of the last contact.
• Customer, booking, invoice and payment records: retained for six years from the end of the financial year to which they relate.
• Non-hazardous waste transfer notes: retained for at least two years from the transfer.
• Hazardous waste consignment notes: retained for at least three years from the date of transfer.
• Job photographs and videos: deleted within 12 months of completion, unless they form part of a complaint, claim or compliance record.
• Vehicle camera recordings: overwritten automatically as described in section 9.
• Complaints, disputes and claims: retained until the matter is resolved and any relevant legal limitation period has expired.
• Marketing objections and opt-outs: we keep a minimal record of your objection for as long as necessary to make sure we continue to respect it.

These periods may be extended where required by law, a regulator, an investigation or legal proceedings.

Section 13Marketing

We will not automatically add customers to a general marketing database simply because they requested a quotation or booked a collection.

If we introduce email, text or WhatsApp marketing in the future, we will do so only where permitted by law. We will provide an appropriate opportunity to opt out when details are collected and in every marketing message.

If we make marketing telephone calls, we screen numbers against the Telephone Preference Service and the Corporate Telephone Preference Service beforehand.

Anyone may object to direct marketing at any time, and we will stop.

Section 14Website cookies

Our website uses technologies required for essential functions and security.

Our cookie policy lists the cookies and similar technologies we use, what each one does and how long it lasts.

Cookies that are not strictly necessary — including analytics and advertising cookies — are only set where you have given consent, and you can change or withdraw that consent at any time through our cookie settings.

Section 15Security

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access.

Access to personal information is limited to the people who need it to respond to an enquiry, manage a booking, carry out the work or meet a legal obligation.

Customer messages and calls are handled through business accounts controlled by MM Rubbish Clearance, not through staff members’ personal accounts.

No internet, email or messaging service is completely secure. Customers should avoid sending unnecessary confidential information through ordinary email or WhatsApp.

Section 16Automated decision-making

We do not make decisions about customers using automated processing alone where those decisions have a legal effect or a similarly significant effect. Quotations are prepared by a person.

Section 17Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete;
• ask us to delete personal information;
• ask us to restrict how we use it;
• object to our use of it;
• ask us to transfer certain information to you or another organisation in a portable format; and
• withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

These rights are not absolute and exemptions apply in some circumstances. We may ask for information to confirm your identity before we act on a request.

You have an absolute right to object to the use of your personal information for direct marketing. If you object, we will stop.

You also have the right to object to any processing we carry out on the basis of our legitimate interests, including the use of vehicle cameras described in section 9. If you object, we will stop unless we can show compelling legitimate grounds that override your rights, or we need the information to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

There is no charge for making a request. We will respond within one month. If a request is complex, or you have made several, we may extend this by up to two further months, and we will tell you within the first month if we need to.

To exercise a right, email info@mm-rubbishclearance.co.uk or write to us at the address in section 2.

Section 18If you are unhappy with how we have used your information

Please contact us first using the details in section 2, telling us what you think has gone wrong, when it happened, any booking or invoice reference, and what you would like us to do.

We will acknowledge your complaint within five working days, investigate it without undue delay and explain the outcome.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, though we would appreciate the chance to put things right first.

Section 19Children

Our services are not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect children’s personal information for marketing.

Information about a child may occasionally be given to us as part of an enquiry, or appear incidentally in a photograph. Please avoid sending images or information about children that are not necessary for the work.

Section 20Other organisations’ services

Our website and messages may link to services run by other organisations, including WhatsApp, social media platforms, payment providers and review sites such as Trustpilot and Checkatrade. Those organisations decide how they use personal information, and we recommend reading their privacy information before using them.

Section 21Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our practices, suppliers or legal obligations change. The current version is always published on our website with a version number and date.

Where a change significantly affects how we use information we already hold, we will take reasonable steps to tell the people affected.