Privacy policy
What Alex collects when you get in touch, why, and the rights you have over it.
Last updated: 21 October 2026
Who we are
This policy explains how we collect and use personal data. "We", "us" and "our" mean Alex, a sole trader trading as Alex Flooring Specialist. Our postal address is on your written quote, and we'll send it to you if you ask. "You" means anyone whose data we handle: people who visit this website, ask us for a quote or have work done by us.
We are the controller of your personal data under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018). That means we decide how and why it's used, and we're responsible for looking after it.
You can email us at alexfloorings@gmail.com or call us on 07854 803082. All our contact details are at the end of this page.
The short version
- We use your details to reply to your enquiry, quote for and carry out the work, and keep the records the law requires.
- We don't sell your data, and we don't use it for advertising.
- The website doesn't store what you send through the quote form. It emails your enquiry straight to Alex.
- We don't use advertising or analytics cookies. The only optional cookies come from Checkatrade's live score box, which loads only if you click "Accept".
- We count visits without cookies, keeping the data to a minimum, and you can switch the counting off with one button.
- You can ask to see, correct or delete your data, and you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
What we collect and where from
When you send the quote form
You must give us:
- your name;
- a UK phone number;
- the postcode where the work is.
You can also choose to give us:
- your email address;
- the type of flooring you're interested in;
- the approximate room size in m²;
- what the floor is now;
- anything you type in the details box;
- up to four photos.
Your photos are made smaller in your browser before they're sent. This also strips out hidden details stored in the photo file, such as where it was taken. They reach Alex renamed photo-1, photo-2 and so on, never with your own file names.
The form also sends some things you don't see: the page you sent it from, and any advert or campaign labels in the link you arrived on (see Visit and enquiry counts; these aren't sent if you've asked us not to count your visits, or your browser has Global Privacy Control turned on). It also sends two anti-spam checks: a hidden box that real visitors leave empty, and the time the form was opened.
Please don't put anything sensitive, such as bank details or health information, in the details box or your photos unless it matters for the job.
If the quote form can't be sent
If sending the form fails, a button appears: "Send these details on WhatsApp instead". If you press it, your details are put into a WhatsApp link: your name, phone number and postcode, plus your email address, flooring type, room size, current floor and notes if you gave them. Photos aren't included. Your browser may send that link, with your details in it, to WhatsApp straight away, and it may stay in your browser history. Nothing reaches Alex until you press send. WhatsApp handles the message as described below.
When you call, text, WhatsApp or email us
We collect what you choose to tell us. That's usually your name, phone number, email address, the address of the property, details of the job, and any photos or videos you send.
WhatsApp is run by WhatsApp (part of Meta), which handles your messages to us under its own terms and privacy policy. Messages are end-to-end encrypted, so WhatsApp can't read them, but it does handle details such as your phone number and when messages are sent.
When we quote for or carry out a job
- The address of the property and who to contact there.
- Measurements, notes, and photos or short videos of the rooms and floors. We may take photos or short videos before, during and after the work as a record, for example of the subfloor before it's covered.
- Your quote, any changes we agree, invoices and payment records. We don't keep full card numbers.
- Messages between us, and any feedback or complaint.
From Checkatrade
If you contact us or book through Checkatrade, Checkatrade passes us the details you gave it, such as your name, contact details, postcode and a description of the job. If you pay through Checkatrade Pay, we receive confirmation of the payment. If you leave a review on Checkatrade, Checkatrade publishes it, and we can see it and reply. Checkatrade is responsible for the data it collects: see Checkatrade's privacy policy (opens in a new tab).
When you visit this website
No website can send you its pages without receiving some technical information from your browser. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, processes your IP address, your browser and device type, the pages you ask for and the time, to deliver the site and protect it from attacks and abuse. We don't use this information to identify you.
To stop the quote form being flooded with spam, the website's server checks how many enquiries have come from your IP address in the last 10 minutes. It holds that count only in temporary memory and never writes it to a log.
The site also keeps minimal counts of visits and enquiries (see Visit and enquiry counts), remembers your cookie choice in your browser and, only if you agree, loads Checkatrade's live score box (see Cookies and your choices).
Health information
We don't ask for it. If you choose to tell us about a health matter because it affects the job (for example, someone at home has a breathing condition and dust needs keeping to a minimum), we'll use it only to plan and carry out the work safely, with your agreement, and keep it with the job record.
Visit and enquiry counts
To see which pages help people get in touch, the site counts four things:
- a page being viewed;
- a tap on one of our call links;
- a tap on one of our WhatsApp links;
- a quote enquiry that has been sent and delivered to Alex.
Each count records only:
- which of those four things happened;
- the page it happened on (the address only, for example "/contact");
- if you arrived from a link that names an advert or campaign, that name (the utm_source and utm_campaign labels in the link).
The counts never include your name, phone number, email address, postcode, anything you type into the quote form, or your IP address, and they use no cookies. If you move between pages, the advert or campaign name is carried along in the open page only, and is forgotten when you close or reload it.
The counts are written to our hosting provider's (Cloudflare's) logs and kept for up to 7 days. They sit beside Cloudflare's normal record of every request to the site, which includes your IP address (see What we collect and where from), so we call them minimal rather than anonymous. We don't use the two together to identify you. Page views and taps by search-engine robots and speed-testing tools are not counted.
Switching the counting off
The law lets a website count visits like this, only to improve the site, without asking first, as long as you have a simple way to object, free of charge. That way is the button below. It's also in the cookie banner, which you can reopen at any time with the "Cookie settings" button at the bottom of every page.
If you press "Don't count my visits", your browser remembers your choice by saving afs-no-count in its local storage (not a cookie). It stays until you press "Count them again"; if your browser blocks storage, it holds for that visit only. While it's set, the site sends no counts at all, and a quote enquiry you send still reaches Alex but isn't counted. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (opens in a new tab) signal, we treat it the same way.
How we use it and our lawful basis
Data protection law lets us use personal data only when we have a lawful basis for it. This table shows what we use your data for, and the basis for each use.
| What we use it for | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Replying to your enquiry, visiting to measure up and giving you a quote | Taking steps you've asked for before entering a contract (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)) |
| Emailing you a confirmation that your quote form arrived, if you gave an email address | Taking steps you've asked for before entering a contract (Article 6(1)(b)) |
| Carrying out the work, arranging materials, taking payment, aftercare and putting right any problem | Performing our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b)) |
| Keeping invoices and financial records, and sharing them with our accountant and HMRC | Legal obligation under tax and accounting law (Article 6(1)(c)) |
| Keeping job records, including photos taken during the work, to answer questions, handle complaints and deal with legal claims | Legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)): being able to show what work we did, and to make or defend legal claims |
| Keeping the website and quote form secure and free of spam | Legitimate interests: protecting the site, our visitors and us from attacks and abuse |
| Counting visits, taps and enquiries, keeping the data to a minimum | Legitimate interests: knowing which pages and adverts bring enquiries. You can switch the counting off at any time (see Visit and enquiry counts). |
| Loading Checkatrade's live score box | Consent, which you give by clicking "Accept" (Article 6(1)(a) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations). You can withdraw it at any time. |
| Showing photos or short videos of your floor on our website or social media | Consent (Article 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw it at any time. |
| Using health information you choose to share | Your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a)) |
| Answering lawful requests from the police, courts, HMRC or other authorities | Legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)) |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we've weighed them against your rights, and you can object (see Your rights).
You don't have to give us any personal data. But without your name, a phone number and the postcode where the work is, we can't reply to your enquiry or quote for the work.
We only put photos or short videos of your floor, finished or being fitted, on our website or social media if you agree. Alex may appear in them, but no one else will, and they won't show anything that identifies your home or where you live.
We don't sell your data, we don't use it for advertising, and we won't send you marketing messages unless you've asked for them.
Who we share it with
We share personal data only with the organisations below, and only what each one needs. Service providers that act for us may use it only to provide their service to us.
| Who | What for |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Hosts this website: delivers its pages, protects it from attacks, passes the quote form on to our email service, and holds the minimal visit counts and short-lived technical logs. |
| Resend, Inc. | Delivers the quote-form email to Alex, with any photos attached, and the confirmation email to you. |
| Google (Gmail) | Provides the email account where enquiries arrive and where we email customers. |
| WhatsApp (Meta) | Carries WhatsApp messages if you message us there, including a quote-form message you choose to send on WhatsApp when the form can't be sent. WhatsApp handles it under its own terms and privacy policy. |
| Checkatrade | Involved if you contact us, book, pay or leave a review through Checkatrade, or load its score box. Checkatrade is a separate controller and decides how it uses the data it collects, except for the moment its score box loads on our page, when we share responsibility (see Cookies and your choices). |
| Our card payment provider | Processes card payments, under its own terms. |
| Our accountant | Prepares our accounts and tax returns, using invoices and payment records. |
| Materials suppliers and delivery companies | Only if materials are delivered straight to you: your name, the delivery address and a contact number. |
| Another fitter working with us on your job | The address, access arrangements and job details they need. |
| Our insurer and professional advisers | Only if needed to deal with an insurance claim, complaint or legal dispute. |
| HMRC, the police, courts and other authorities | Only where the law requires or allows it, for example for tax checks or to prevent fraud. |
Transfers outside the UK
Cloudflare, Resend, Google and WhatsApp (Meta) are, or belong to, US companies, and may handle your data in the USA or other countries outside the UK. Cloudflare also runs servers in the UK and Europe.
Whenever personal data leaves the UK, UK law requires it to stay protected. For our US providers (Cloudflare, Resend, Google and WhatsApp/Meta), the safeguard is the UK–US data bridge where the provider is certified under it, otherwise the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum. Where data goes to a country the UK recognises as protecting personal data to UK standards, no extra safeguard is needed.
Ask us if you'd like to know which safeguard applies to a particular provider.
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| An enquiry that doesn't lead to a job (the form email, messages and any photos) | Deleted within 12 months of our last contact with you. |
| Records of a job we do for you (quote, invoices, payments, messages, notes and job photos) | 6 years after the end of the tax year in which the job finished (tax years end on 5 April). This meets tax law and covers the time limit for most legal claims. Then deleted. |
| Photos or short videos of your floor that you've let us publish | Until you withdraw your consent. We'll then take them off our website and our own social media within 14 days. |
| Minimal visit and enquiry counts | Up to 7 days. |
| Quote-form emails held by Resend, our email delivery service, including any attached photos | Up to 30 days, then deleted by Resend. The copy in Alex's inbox is kept as described above. |
| Technical logs in our Cloudflare account | Up to 7 days. Cloudflare may keep some security data for longer under its own policies. |
| Your cookie choice, saved in your browser | Until you clear it. The banner asks again after a year. |
| Your choice not to be counted, saved in your browser | Until you press "Count them again" or clear it. |
| Checkatrade's cookies | Set and controlled by Checkatrade: see Cookies and your choices. |
If a complaint or legal claim is still open when a period ends, we keep the records we need until it's settled.
Keeping your data safe
- The website uses an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, so the quote form travels securely.
- The website doesn't store your enquiry. It passes it straight on by email.
- Only people who need your data for the job can see it.
- We use established providers and their security features.
No system is completely secure, and ordinary email and text messages can be intercepted. Please don't send bank or card details by email, text or WhatsApp. If a data breach is likely to put you at high risk, we'll tell you without undue delay.
Your rights
You have these rights over your personal data:
- Access: ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Correction: ask us to correct data that's wrong or incomplete.
- Deletion: ask us to delete your data. We may need to keep some records, such as invoices, where the law requires it.
- Restriction: ask us to stop using your data, apart from storing it, while a concern is sorted out.
- Objection: object to us using your data where we rely on legitimate interests. We'll stop unless we have compelling grounds to carry on, or need the data for a legal claim.
- Portability: ask for the data you gave us in a common electronic format, where we use it with your consent or under a contract and by automated means.
- Withdrawing consent: where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. For Checkatrade's score box, use the "Cookie settings" button at the bottom of any page. For photos or videos of your floor, just tell us. Withdrawing consent doesn't affect anything we did before.
To use any of these rights, contact us (details below). It's free. We'll reply within one month. If your request is complex, we may need up to two more months, and we'll tell you why. We may ask for proof of your identity first.
Complaints
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first. You can complain to us by email, phone or WhatsApp. We'll acknowledge it within 30 days, look into it without undue delay, keep you updated and tell you the outcome.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator. You can make a complaint on the ICO website (opens in a new tab) or call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113.
Automated decisions
We don't make decisions about you by automated means alone, and we don't use your data for profiling.
Cookies and your choices
Cookies are small files a website saves in your browser. Browser storage works in a similar way. The law says a website must ask your permission before using them, unless they're strictly necessary for something you've asked for.
What this website uses
This website sets no cookies of its own. We don't use analytics or advertising cookies, tracking pixels or Google Analytics. Our fonts are served from this website. The only outside script the site can load is Checkatrade's live score box, and only if you agree.
The site keeps only these things on your device:
- Your cookie answer (
afs-consent, in your browser's local storage, for a year): whether you chose "Accept" or "Reject", and when, so the banner doesn't ask on every page. It's never sent to us. If your browser blocks this storage, your answer applies for that visit only, and the banner asks again next time. - Your choice not to be counted (
afs-no-count, in local storage), only if you press "Don't count my visits" (see Visit and enquiry counts). - Cloudflare's network error reporting instruction: our hosting provider tells your browser, for up to 7 days, where to report it if a connection to the site fails. This is strictly necessary to keep the site working.
None of these is a cookie, and none needs your consent: each is strictly necessary to remember a choice you made or to keep the site working.
Our cookie banner
When you first visit, a banner at the bottom of the screen asks whether you're happy for Checkatrade's live score box to load. Its "Accept" and "Reject" buttons look the same and are equally easy to choose. The banner asks again a year after you answer. It also tells you about our visit counts and lets you switch them off.
Checkatrade's live score box
On the home page and the Reviews page, the score box shows Alex's live Checkatrade score. Until you click "Accept", nothing is requested from Checkatrade. If you click "Reject", or haven't answered yet, you see the score copied from Alex's Checkatrade profile instead.
Once you click "Accept", your browser loads Checkatrade's script from www.checkatrade.com and then fetches Alex's score from api.checkatrade.com. This sends your IP address and details about your browser to Checkatrade, and Checkatrade sets the cookies in the table below on checkatrade.com.
For the moment Checkatrade's script loads on our page, we and Checkatrade are jointly responsible for that collection of your data. From then on, Checkatrade alone is responsible for how it uses the data, under Checkatrade's own privacy policy (opens in a new tab).
| Name | Set by | What it's for | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
afs-consent (browser storage, not a cookie) | This website | Remembers whether you clicked "Accept" or "Reject", and when. It's strictly necessary to remember your choice, so it doesn't need consent. | Until you clear it. The banner asks again after a year. |
afs-no-count (browser storage, not a cookie) | This website, only if you press "Don't count my visits" | Remembers that you asked us not to count your visits. It's strictly necessary to respect that choice, so it doesn't need consent. | Until you press "Count them again" or clear it. |
| Network error reporting (not a cookie) | Cloudflare, our hosting provider | Tells your browser where to report it if a connection to the site fails. Strictly necessary to keep the site working. | Up to 7 days |
cat-device-id | Checkatrade, on checkatrade.com, only if you click "Accept" | Set when Checkatrade's score box loads. Checkatrade decides how it's used. | About 1 year |
__cf_bm | Cloudflare, for Checkatrade, on checkatrade.com, only if you click "Accept" | Bot protection for Checkatrade's service. | 30 minutes |
Changing your mind
Use the "Cookie settings" button at the bottom of every page to change your answer at any time. It reopens the banner and shows your answer at the moment. If you choose "Reject", the score box is removed straight away and nothing more is requested from Checkatrade.
We can't delete cookies Checkatrade has already set in your browser, because they belong to checkatrade.com. They stay until they expire, or until you delete them yourself: open your browser's settings, find the privacy or cookies section, and delete the cookies and site data for checkatrade.com. You can also use your browser's settings to block cookies altogether.
Security checks
In rare cases, for example during an attack on the site, our hosting provider Cloudflare may check that a visitor is a person and not a bot, and set a short-lived security cookie to remember that the check was passed. That's strictly necessary to keep the site safe, so it doesn't need consent.
Children
This website and our services are for adults arranging work on a property. We don't knowingly collect personal data from children. If you think a child has sent us their details, contact us and we'll delete them.
Changes to this policy
We'll update this policy if the way we use personal data changes, for example if we start using a new provider or add a feature to the site. The date at the top of this page shows when it last changed. If a change significantly affects how we use data we already hold about you, we'll let you know.
Contact us
Questions about this policy, or want to use one of your rights? Contact Alex:
- Email: alexfloorings@gmail.com
- Phone or text: 07854 803082
- WhatsApp: message Alex (opens in a new tab)