Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Emergency Repairs ("we", "us", "our") is the data controller responsible for your personal data. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect information about you when you use our website or engage our services.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

2. What Information We Collect

We may collect and process the following personal data about you:

• Identity data: your name
• Contact data: phone number and email address
• Service data: details of the repair or issue you describe when contacting us
• Technical data: IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types, operating system, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website
• Usage data: information about how you use our website (e.g. pages visited, time on site)
• Communications data: any messages or correspondence you send us via the contact form, email, phone, or WhatsApp

We do not collect any special category data (e.g. health information, ethnicity) and we do not knowingly collect data from children under the age of 16.

3. How We Collect Your Information

We collect personal data through the following means:

• Contact form: when you submit an enquiry on our website, we receive your name, phone number, email address, urgency level, and description of the issue
• Direct communications: when you contact us by phone, email, or WhatsApp
• Automated technologies: as you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical and usage data via cookies and similar technologies

4. How We Use Your Information

We use your personal data only for the purposes described below, and only where we have a lawful basis for doing so:

• To respond to your enquiry — to contact you about your repair request and arrange a visit (lawful basis: contract performance / legitimate interests)
• To provide our services — to carry out the repair work you have requested and manage the customer relationship (lawful basis: contract performance)
• To send you a quote or invoice — to fulfil our contractual obligations (lawful basis: contract performance)
• To improve our website — to understand how visitors use our site and make improvements (lawful basis: legitimate interests)
• To comply with legal obligations — such as financial record-keeping (lawful basis: legal obligation)

We will never sell your personal data to third parties, and we will not use it for automated decision-making or profiling.

5. Who We Share Your Data With

We may share your personal data with the following parties, strictly as necessary:

• Web3Forms — our contact form provider, used solely to route your enquiry to our inbox. They process your submission data on our behalf and do not store it for their own purposes. You can review their privacy policy at web3forms.com/privacy.
• WhatsApp (Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd) — if you contact us via the WhatsApp button on our site, your communication is subject to WhatsApp's own privacy policy
• Professional advisers — including accountants, solicitors, or insurers where necessary
• Regulatory or law enforcement authorities — where we are required to do so by law

All third parties we work with are required to respect the security of your personal data and process it lawfully.

6. Cookies

Our website may use cookies and similar tracking technologies to distinguish you from other users and to improve your experience. A cookie is a small file placed on your device.

We currently use only essential or analytics cookies. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies for third-party marketing.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of our website.

7. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes it was collected for, including to satisfy legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

• Enquiry and contact form data: retained for up to 2 years from the date of your last contact
• Customer job records and invoices: retained for 7 years in line with HMRC requirements for financial records
• Website analytics data: retained in aggregated form only, with no personally identifiable information kept beyond 26 months

Once data is no longer required, we will securely delete or anonymise it.

8. Data Security

We take the security of your personal data seriously and have put in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to prevent your data from being accidentally lost, used, accessed, altered, or disclosed in an unauthorised way.

We limit access to your personal data to those employees, contractors, and third parties who have a business need to know. All contact form submissions are transmitted over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection.

In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and, where required, affected individuals, in accordance with our legal obligations.

9. Your Rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• Right of access — to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Right to rectification — to request that we correct any inaccurate or incomplete data
• Right to erasure — to request that we delete your personal data where there is no good reason for us to continue processing it
• Right to restrict processing — to ask us to suspend the processing of your data in certain circumstances
• Right to data portability — to request the transfer of your data to you or a third party in a structured, commonly used format
• Right to object — to object to the processing of your personal data where we are relying on legitimate interests
• Rights relating to automated decision-making — we do not carry out any automated decision-making or profiling using your data

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at contact@emergency-repairs.co.uk. We will respond to all legitimate requests within one month. We will not charge a fee for this unless your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive.

10. Right to Complain

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us first.

ICO website: ico.org.uk • Helpline: 0303 123 1113

11. Third-Party Links

Our website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications (such as WhatsApp). Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy policies. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal, operational, or regulatory reasons. The date at the top of this page will always reflect when the policy was last revised. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

If we make material changes that significantly affect how we handle your data, we will take reasonable steps to bring this to your attention.

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we handle your personal data, please contact us: