Privacy Policy

Skylights On Sea is the data controller for the information described here. We install and replace skylights and rooflights across south Essex and we work as a service-area business, so we visit you rather than the other way round. The practical effect on your data is that almost everything we hold about you is tied to a specific property and a specific job.

Questions about anything on this page go to info@skylightsonsea.co.uk, or you can raise them through our contact page. If you would rather talk it through, the number is 01702 898232.

This policy covers the website, the enquiry form embedded on it, and the messages you send us directly. It does not cover other companies’ websites we link to. Once you leave our pages, whatever you find is governed by that site’s own policy, and you should read it on its own terms.

We ask for as little as will let us do the job properly. In practice that falls into four groups.

• Contact details. Your name, phone number, email address and the address of the property. The property address is not optional for us, because the roof pitch, the orientation and the local authority all follow from it.
• What you tell us about the work. The type of rooflight you are considering, rough sizes, the room below, whether it is an extension or a loft, and anything you mention about overheating, glare or condensation. You are welcome to attach photographs of the ceiling or of the roof from the garden, and if you send them, we hold them.
• Records of our dealings. Notes from the survey, the quotation we issued, dates, and the messages between us. If the job goes ahead, this also includes the glazing specification and the Building Regulations paperwork.
• Technical data from the website. Standard server and analytics information such as approximate location, browser type, the pages you looked at and how you arrived. It is not tied to your name.

We do not ask for special category data, and there is no reason for you to send us any. We do not take card details through this website. We do not knowingly collect information about children.

UK GDPR requires a specific lawful basis for every use of your data. We rely on four of them, and it is worth knowing which applies where, because your rights differ depending on the answer.

• Legitimate interests for responding to an enquiry, preparing a quotation, keeping notes so that the person who calls you back already knows the history, and keeping a record of work carried out. Our interest is running a building business competently. We have weighed it against your interests and taken the view that anyone who asks for a quote reasonably expects a reply and a file.
• Performance of a contract once you accept a quotation. From that point we need your details to order the units, schedule the fitting and honour the ten-year workmanship guarantee.
• Legal obligation for the parts we have no discretion over. New and enlarged rooflights are notifiable under Building Regulations, so we make that notification to Southend-on-Sea City Council or the relevant local authority on your behalf, which means passing on the property address and the details of the work. Financial records go to HMRC’s timetable.
• Consent for anything optional, which in our case means marketing messages and non-essential cookies. Consent is a separate decision from asking us for a quote, you are never required to give it, and you can take it back at any time without it affecting anything else.

Your information is not sold, rented or passed to anyone for their own marketing. It is shared only with the parties below, and only for the purpose stated.

• Mortaro Group. The enquiry form on this site is a third-party embed provided by Mortaro Group, who supply the customer relationship management system we use to receive and track enquiries. What you type into that form goes to their system and we read it there. They process it on our instructions under a written agreement and do not use it for their own purposes.
• WhatsApp. If you message us on WhatsApp, the content of the conversation is end to end encrypted, but WhatsApp and its parent company hold the account and metadata associated with it under their own privacy terms. We copy anything relevant to your job into the enquiry record and treat the thread itself as a temporary channel.
• Our email and website providers. Ordinary hosting and mailbox services, which store messages and site data on our behalf.
• The local authority Building Control department. Where the work is notifiable, as described above.
• Suppliers and manufacturers. Only where a delivery has to reach your address, and only the details needed to get it there.
• Our accountant, and anyone we are legally obliged to disclose to.

Where a provider stores data outside the UK, that transfer must be covered by an adequacy decision or by standard contractual clauses. We check this when we choose a supplier and we prefer UK or EU hosting where there is a sensible option.

Keeping data forever because storage is cheap is not a policy, it is a failure to have one. Our retention periods are these.

• Enquiries that do not become jobs: twelve months from the last contact, then deleted.
• Quotations issued but not accepted: twenty-four months, because a roof someone was pricing last summer is usually still the same roof.
• Completed installations: ten years, matching the workmanship guarantee, so that we can identify the exact unit and glazing specification if you ever need us to.
• Accounting and tax records: six years from the end of the accounting period they relate to, as required of businesses in the UK.
• Marketing consent records: held until you withdraw consent, plus a short period so we can evidence that the withdrawal was actioned.
• Website analytics: retained in aggregate and not linked back to an individual.

The site sets the cookies it needs to function and to remember your cookie choice. Anything beyond that, including analytics and any third-party scripts loaded with the enquiry form, is set only if you agree, and you can change your mind through your browser settings or by clearing the cookies for this domain.

Because the form is an embed, loading it means your browser makes a connection to the provider’s servers, which will see your IP address as part of any ordinary web request. If you would rather not use it, email or ring us instead. You can also ask for a quote with nothing more than a phone number and a postcode, and we will fill in the rest at the survey.

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to do all of the following, and you do not have to give a reason for most of them.

• See what we hold. A subject access request. We supply a copy, free of charge in ordinary cases.
• Correct it. If a measurement, an address or a spelling is wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
• Have it erased. This applies where we no longer need it. It does not override the records we are legally required to keep, such as Building Control and tax paperwork.
• Restrict what we do with it, while a dispute about accuracy or lawful basis is being sorted out.
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests. We then have to stop unless we can show compelling grounds that override your objection.
• Object to direct marketing. This one is absolute. Ask and it stops.
• Receive your data in a portable format, where it was provided by you and is processed by automated means.
• Withdraw consent at any time, which does not make anything we did beforehand unlawful.

Send any of these to info@skylightsonsea.co.uk. We respond within one calendar month. If a request is genuinely complicated we may extend that by up to two further months, and we will tell you inside the first month if that happens. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, which is a protection for you rather than an obstacle.

We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone, and we do not profile you. Every quotation is written by a person who has looked at the roof.

If you think we have mishandled your information, tell us first at info@skylightsonsea.co.uk. Set out what happened and what you want done. It is usually quicker than any other route and we would rather put it right than argue about it.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s independent regulator for data protection. You can reach the ICO at ico.org.uk, on 0303 123 1113, or by post at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Complaining to the ICO does not stop you pursuing any other legal remedy.

We review this policy when our systems change and at least once a year. If we make a material change to how we use enquiry data, we will say so on this page. You can find out more about how we work on our about page, or look through the installation services we offer across south Essex.