Storage South Kensington Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how Storage South Kensington collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data relating to customers and prospective customers in the South Kensington area. It also describes your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and related data protection laws. This policy applies to all Storage South Kensington customers and users of our storage services in the area.
Who We Are and Scope of This Policy
Storage South Kensington provides storage services to individuals and businesses in the South Kensington area. For the purposes of data protection laws, we act as the data controller in relation to the personal data we collect and use about you when you enquire about, sign up for, or use our storage services. This Privacy Policy applies to all customers and prospective customers located in or using our services in the South Kensington area.
Personal Data We Collect
We may collect and process the following categories of personal data about you:
Identity data: name, title, date of birth, and identification numbers or documents where required for security, verification, or contractual purposes.
Contact data: billing addresses, storage unit addresses, and other contact information you provide to us for communications and billing.
Account and service data: information relating to your storage unit, contract details, move-in and move-out dates, payment status, booking history, access logs, and related service records.
Financial and transaction data: payment history, amounts paid, invoices, and basic payment details. We do not store full card details when payments are processed via secure payment processors.
Communications data: records of enquiries, complaints, feedback, and correspondence with us by any communication method.
Technical and usage data: limited technical information about your use of our website or online portals, such as access dates and basic device or browser details, to maintain security and improve our services.
Security and CCTV data: where applicable, footage or images captured by CCTV in and around our premises for security and safety purposes.
How We Collect Your Data
We collect personal data directly from you when you contact us, request a quote, sign a storage agreement, make payments, access your storage unit, or communicate with us. We may also receive data from third parties, such as payment providers processing transactions on our behalf, or business partners who refer you to us. In limited cases, we may receive information from public sources or official bodies, such as confirmation of identity details where legally required.
Lawful Basis for Processing
We rely on one or more of the following lawful bases under data protection law when processing your personal data:
Contract performance: to take steps at your request before entering into a contract and to perform our contract with you, including setting up and managing your storage service, processing payments, and providing customer support.
Legal obligations: to comply with legal and regulatory duties, such as maintaining accounting and tax records, responding to lawful requests from authorities, preventing fraud, and complying with security or safety requirements.
Legitimate interests: to pursue our legitimate business interests, provided these are not overridden by your rights and interests. This may include managing and improving our services, ensuring site and system security, monitoring access to our premises, and handling customer queries and complaints.
Consent: where required by law, we may rely on your consent for specific processing activities, such as certain types of marketing communications. Where processing is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
How We Use Your Personal Data
We use your personal data for the following purposes:
To respond to your enquiries, provide quotes, and help you choose appropriate storage services.
To set up and administer your customer account and storage agreement in the South Kensington area.
To process payments, issue invoices, and handle refunds or changes to your contract.
To manage access to our storage facilities, including safety checks and security monitoring.
To provide customer support, handle complaints, and communicate important information about your storage service, such as changes to terms or access arrangements.
To operate and monitor CCTV and access systems in and around our storage premises for security, safety, and crime prevention.
To maintain business records, conduct internal reporting, and comply with accounting, tax, and regulatory requirements.
To protect our rights, property, and safety and that of our customers, staff, and the wider public, including debt recovery or investigating misuse of our services.
Data Retention
We keep your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and to meet our legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
Customer account and contract data are typically retained for a period after your contract ends, to deal with any queries, disputes, or legal claims. Financial and transaction records are retained for the period required by tax and accounting laws. CCTV and access logs are retained for a shorter, proportionate period necessary for security and investigation purposes, unless a longer retention is required in connection with a specific incident or legal claim.
When personal data is no longer needed, we will securely delete or anonymise it.
Data Processors and Third Parties
We use carefully selected third party service providers to help deliver our services and operate our business. These providers may act as data processors and will process personal data on our behalf and under our instructions. Examples include payment processing services, IT and hosting providers, maintenance and security system providers, and professional advisers such as accountants.
Where we share personal data with processors, we ensure that appropriate contractual and security measures are in place, including obligations to handle data in accordance with data protection law and to use it only for the purposes we specify.
We may also share personal data with other third parties where required by law, to enforce our contractual or legal rights, or in connection with a business transaction, such as a transfer of part of our business, provided that appropriate safeguards are in place.
We do not sell your personal data.
International Data Transfers
If we transfer your personal data outside the United Kingdom or European Economic Area, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. These may include the use of standard contractual clauses, reliance on adequacy regulations, or other lawful transfer mechanisms, together with technical and organisational safeguards to protect your data.
Security of Your Personal Data
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorised access, loss, alteration, or disclosure. These measures include access controls, secure storage, staff training, and regular review of our security procedures. While we strive to protect your personal data, no system can be completely secure, and you are also responsible for keeping your account information and any login details confidential.
Your Data Protection Rights
Under data protection law, you have a range of rights in relation to your personal data, subject to certain conditions and exemptions. These include:
Right of access: you can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you and information about how we process it.
Right to rectification: you can ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
Right to erasure: in certain circumstances, you can request that we delete your personal data.
Right to restriction: you can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in specific situations.
Right to data portability: for data you have provided to us, where we process it based on consent or contract and by automated means, you can request a copy in a commonly used format or ask us to transfer it to another organisation where technically feasible.
Right to object: you can object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including profiling, and to processing for direct marketing purposes.
Right to withdraw consent: where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant data protection supervisory authority if you believe your rights have been infringed.
Children
Our services are not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect personal data from individuals under the age required to enter into a contract for storage services. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from a child without appropriate consent, we will take steps to delete that information.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or services. Any revised policy will apply to all Storage South Kensington customers in the South Kensington area from the date it is made available. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we handle your personal data.
