This policy explains what personal information Ellen Cleaning collects when you use this website or book our cleaning services, why we collect it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it.
We have tried to write it in plain language rather than legal boilerplate. If anything here is unclear, email us at elenapetrisoaia@gmail.com and we will explain it properly.
1. Who is responsible for your data
The data controller — the person legally responsible for your information — is Ellen Cleaning, operating as Ellen Cleaning.
- Address
- Quarteira, Portugal
- Tax number (NIF)
- elenapetrisoaia@gmail.com
- Telephone
- +351 965 838 664
We are a small business and are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer. Privacy questions come straight to us and are answered by us.
2. What information we collect
We collect three kinds of information.
- Information you give us
- When you fill in a contact or quote form, we collect your name, email address, telephone number, the location and type of your property, the service you are interested in, your preferred date, and anything you write in the message box. If you become a customer, we also hold your service address, booking history and payment records.
- Information you start typing but do not send
- If you begin filling in a form and leave without submitting it, we may save what you had entered. This lets us follow up if the form failed or you were interrupted, which is often the reason a form is abandoned. This information is kept for 30 days and then deleted automatically. If you would rather we did not do this, email us and we will remove it immediately.
- Information collected automatically
- When you visit the site we record your IP address, browser type, the pages you view, how long you stay, and the website or search that referred you. We convert your IP address into an approximate location (country, region, city) using a local database. This is our own analytics, running on our own server — no advertising network is involved.
3. Why we use it, and our legal basis
Data protection law requires us to have a specific reason for each use of your data. Ours are:
- To answer your enquiry and prepare a quote
- Legal basis: steps taken at your request before entering a contract. Without this information we cannot quote or reply.
- To provide the cleaning services you book
- Legal basis: performance of our contract with you.
- To issue invoices and keep accounting records
- Legal basis: our legal obligations under Portuguese tax and accounting law.
- To keep the website working and free of spam
- Legal basis: our legitimate interest in a functioning, secure website. This covers our anti-spam checks and the records we keep of failed form submissions.
- To understand how the site is used
- Legal basis: our legitimate interest in improving the site. We use this to see which pages and services people look at, not to build profiles of individuals.
- To send you marketing, if you ask for it
- Legal basis: your consent. We do not add enquiry contacts to a mailing list. If we ever start a newsletter, it will be opt-in and you can leave at any time.
4. Cookies and similar technologies
We use a small number of first-party cookies. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and we do not allow third parties to track you here.
- lang — 1 year
- Remembers which language you chose so you are not switched back on every page.
- lc_sess — 30 days
- Lets us connect a form you started with the one you finally send, so you do not receive duplicate follow-ups.
- Analytics session ID — browser storage, cleared when you close the tab
- Not a cookie: it is held in your browser’s own storage. It groups your page views into a single visit so our visitor counts are not wildly inflated.
- PHP session — browser session
- Used only when a member of our team is logged into the administration area.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The site will still work, though your language choice will not be remembered.
5. Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal data, and we never will. We share it only where it is necessary to run the business:
- Our web hosting provider, which stores the website and its database on our behalf.
- Our email delivery provider, which sends the notification and reply emails.
- Telegram, which we use to receive instant alerts when a new enquiry arrives, and when a form is filled in but not sent. These alerts contain your name, your contact details and the other information you entered.
- Our accountant and the Portuguese Tax Authority, for invoices and statutory records.
- Our cleaning staff, who receive the address and access details needed to carry out the work — and nothing more.
- Public authorities, where we are legally required to disclose information.
Each of these providers processes your data on our instructions and is bound to keep it confidential.
6. Transfers outside the European Union
Our website and database are hosted within the European Union.
The Telegram messaging service we use for these alerts operates servers outside the EU. The information sent there is limited to what you put in the form — typically your name, contact details, location and the service you want. This applies both to forms you send and to forms you fill in but abandon. If you would prefer nothing to be sent through this route, contact us by telephone at +351 965 838 664 instead and no alert is generated.
7. How long we keep it
- Enquiries and quotes that do not become bookings
- 24 months, in case you come back to us.
- Partially completed forms
- 30 days, then deleted automatically.
- Customer and booking records
- For as long as you are a customer, and then for the period required by Portuguese accounting law — currently 10 years for invoices and related documents.
- Website analytics
- 26 months.
- Technical records of failed form submissions
- 30 days, or 90 days for successful ones, so we can prove nothing was lost.
When a retention period ends, the records are deleted. You can ask us to delete your data sooner — see your rights below.
8. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the following rights, free of charge:
- Access
- Ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Rectification
- Have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected.
- Erasure
- Ask us to delete your data, where we have no overriding obligation to keep it — invoices, for example, we must keep by law.
- Restriction
- Ask us to pause our use of your data while a concern is resolved.
- Portability
- Receive the data you gave us in a machine-readable format, or have it sent to another provider.
- Objection
- Object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interest, including our analytics.
- Withdraw consent
- Where we rely on your consent, withdraw it at any time. This does not affect anything done before you withdrew it.
To exercise any of these, email elenapetrisoaia@gmail.com. We will respond within one month. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, so that we do not disclose your information to someone else.
9. How to complain
If you think we have handled your data badly, please tell us first — most problems are quicker to fix directly. Email elenapetrisoaia@gmail.com and we will look into it.
You also have the right to complain to the Portuguese data protection authority, whose decision does not depend on contacting us first:
- Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (CNPD)
- Av. D. Carlos I, 134, 1.º — 1200-651 Lisboa · Telephone: +351 213 928 400 · geral@cnpd.pt · www.cnpd.pt
10. How we protect your data
- The website is served over an encrypted HTTPS connection.
- The administration area is password-protected and accessible only to authorised staff.
- Access to customer records is limited to those who need it to do their job.
- Form submissions are recorded in a way that ensures an enquiry cannot be silently lost, which also means we can tell you exactly what we received and when.
No system is completely secure. If a breach ever occurs that puts your rights at risk, we will notify you and the CNPD as the law requires.
11. Children
Our services are aimed at adults arranging cleaning for their home or business. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16. If you believe a child has given us their information, contact us and we will delete it.
12. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as our business or the law changes. The date at the top of this page always shows when it was last revised. If we make a change that significantly affects how we use your data, we will tell affected customers directly.
13. Contact us
For any question about this policy or your personal data:
- Ellen Cleaning
- Ellen Cleaning · NIF
- Address
- Quarteira, Portugal
- elenapetrisoaia@gmail.com
- Telephone
- +351 965 838 664