Privacy notice
What personal information Ben's Bin Cleaning collects, why, who it’s shared with, how long it’s kept, and your rights.
Last updated 30 September 2026
Who we are
Ben's Bin Cleaning is a trading name of Ben Thomas. Ben Thomas is a sole trader based in Loughton, Essex. He is the data controller for the personal information collected through this website and when you book or get in touch. That means he decides how it’s used and is responsible for looking after it.
To ask anything about your information, contact Ben Thomas on WhatsApp or by phone on 07940 118192.
What we collect
When you book
The booking form on this website doesn’t send your booking to us. Its last step opens WhatsApp on your own phone or computer, with a message to Ben already filled in. Nothing reaches Ben until you tap Send in WhatsApp. The message includes:
- Your name.
- Your address and postcode, and where your bins are kept if you tell us.
- The type of clean, which bins, the price shown and your bin collection day.
- Sometimes a short reference showing how you found the website, for example a leaflet.
When your message arrives, WhatsApp also shows Ben your mobile number and your WhatsApp profile name. If you phone or text Ben instead, he’ll see your phone number.
Your cleans
To arrange and do your cleans, Ben keeps your details with the dates of your cleans, whether each clean was done, skipped, moved or missed (and why), and the notes he needs to do the job, such as a side gate. He also keeps the price he confirmed and whether you asked for a clean to go ahead inside your 14-day cancellation period. He keeps this in WhatsApp and in his own business records.
Payments
This website doesn’t take payments. Ben arranges payment with you directly and keeps a record of what you’ve paid and when, for his accounts.
Messages and forms
Our contact form, commercial quote form and “tell me when you cover my postcode” form work the same way as booking. They write your message out and open WhatsApp, and you decide whether to send it. We keep what you send: usually your name, postcode and message, plus business details for a quote, along with the phone number WhatsApp shows us.
Technical information
When you type your postcode, this website’s server checks it against the areas Ben covers and looks it up on postcodes.io to find the town. Only the postcode is sent. The results are saved for a while to keep the site quick, but they don’t record who looked the postcode up.
This website doesn’t keep a database of visitors. Like any website host, Vercel keeps technical logs of visits, such as IP addresses, to run the site and keep it secure.
We don’t ask for sensitive information such as health details.
How we use it, and our lawful basis
| What we use it for | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Taking your booking, arranging and doing your cleans, and keeping in touch with you about them by WhatsApp or phone | Contract, or steps you’ve asked us to take before a contract |
| Planning the order of each day’s round | Legitimate interests (running the round efficiently) |
| Checking your postcode is on the round | Legitimate interests (keeping the website working and safe) |
| Replying to messages and preparing commercial quotes | Legitimate interests, or steps you’ve asked us to take before a contract |
| Telling you when we cover your street, if you ask us to | Consent, which you can withdraw at any time |
| Knowing which leaflets bring people to the website | Legitimate interests (knowing which leaflets work) |
| Keeping records of cleans and payments for tax | Legal obligation |
| Dealing with complaints or legal claims | Legitimate interests |
We never sell your information and we don’t use it for advertising. We don’t send marketing messages.
Who we share it with
We use these providers to run the website and the service. They only process your information on our instructions and to provide their service to us.
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Hosting this website, including the server that checks your postcode | United States, with servers in the UK and EU |
| postcodes.io (run by Ideal Postcodes) | Looking up postcodes to find the town. It receives the postcode only | UK-based service |
| BozApps (Semir Kahrimanovic) | Builds, hosts and supports this website | United Kingdom |
Bookings and messages reach Ben through WhatsApp, a separate service run by WhatsApp LLC, part of Meta. You send them from your own WhatsApp account, and WhatsApp’s own privacy policy applies to how WhatsApp handles your messages: whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy-uk. If you’d rather not use WhatsApp, you can phone or text Ben on 07940 118192 instead.
BozApps acts as Ben’s data processor. It can only use your information to build, host and support this website for Ben. We may also share information where the law requires it, for example with HM Revenue and Customs.
International transfers
Some of our providers, including Vercel, are based in, or may access information from, countries outside the UK, including the United States. When that happens, the transfer is protected by appropriate safeguards recognised under UK law, such as the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to standard contractual clauses. WhatsApp’s privacy policy explains how WhatsApp moves information between countries.
How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Customer details and cleans | While you’re an active customer |
| Contact details after you cancel or your last clean | 12 months, then deleted |
| Records of cleans and payments | 6 years, for tax, then deleted |
| Messages and quote requests | 12 months after we last reply, unless they become part of a booking |
| Requests to hear when we cover your street | Until we’ve let you know, or until you ask us to remove you |
If you’d like your details deleted sooner, message or phone Ben. He’ll delete them, apart from the records he must keep for tax.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- Be informed about how your information is used. That’s what this notice is for.
- Access your information and get a copy of it.
- Rectification: have anything wrong or incomplete corrected.
- Erasure: ask us to delete your information.
- Restrict processing: ask us to limit how we use it, for example while we check it’s accurate.
- Data portability: get the information you gave us in a common format, or have it sent to someone else.
- Object to how we use it when we rely on legitimate interests.
- Rights about automated decisions: not to be subject to decisions made only by a computer that have legal or similarly significant effects. We don’t make decisions like that.
Some of these rights depend on the lawful basis we use, and some have legal exceptions. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.
How to use your rights
Message Ben on WhatsApp or phone him on 07940 118192. It’s free, and we’ll reply within one month. We may need to check it’s really you before we share or change anything.
Complaints
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.
Cookies
This website doesn’t put any cookies on your device. We don’t use analytics or advertising cookies or tracking tools, so there’s no cookie banner. If that ever changes, we’ll ask for your permission first.
Keeping it safe
The site only works over a secure connection. Apart from your postcode, the details you type into our forms stay on your device until you send them to Ben in WhatsApp. This website doesn’t take payments. Access to customer records is limited to Ben, and to BozApps, who look after the website.
Changes to this notice
If we change how we use your information, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. If the change is important, we’ll tell current customers by WhatsApp before it takes effect.