Privacy notice

Who we are

Express Contractors is an electrical, plumbing and gas business in Birmingham, West Midlands, UK. We decide how your details are used, so we are responsible for keeping them safe.Express Contractors is run as a sole trader business.

You can reach us by email at info@express-contractors.co.uk or by phone on 0121 517 0785.

What we collect and why

When you use our contact form, you give us your name and phone number. You can also add your email, postcode, the service you need and some details about the job.

The form sends these details to our email inbox. The website does not keep a copy. The email also shows your IP address and the time you sent it. An IP address is the number your internet connection uses online.

We use your details to reply to you, give you a price and carry out the work.

The law asks us to give a reason, called a "lawful basis", for using your details. Ours are simple. When you ask for a quote, we use your details to take the steps you asked for before a job. Once you book, we use them to do the job we agreed. We keep job records and invoices because tax law says we must.

We also use some details because we have a fair business reason to. The law calls this "legitimate interests". We use it to block spam and to count visits to the website.

Spam protection

Our form has two simple checks that catch most automated spam. If a message looks like spam, we note the IP address and the time in a log. Entries older than 30 days are cleared out automatically. We also limit how many messages one connection can send in a short time. To do this, we keep a small file of recent send times, linked to the IP address. Files older than an hour are cleared out automatically.

Cookies and visit counts

Cookies are small files a website saves on your device. Our website does not set any. That's why you don't see a cookie banner here.

We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count how many people visit each page. It works without cookies and saves nothing on your device. It doesn't follow you from one website to another. Cloudflare sees basic connection details, like your IP address and browser type. It doesn't use them to identify you or track you. Cloudflare is a US company, so some visit data may be handled outside the UK. When that happens, it is covered by legal safeguards approved for UK data. You can read Cloudflare's privacy policy.

Who sees your details

• We do, so we can reply and do the job.
• Our email provider and our hosting company store the messages for us.
• Cloudflare counts page visits for us.

We never sell your details or pass them on for marketing. We don't send marketing emails or renewal reminders either.

How long we keep your details

If your enquiry doesn't turn into a job, we delete it within 1 year. If we do work for you, we keep the job record and invoice for as long as tax rules require. For a sole trader, that's usually about 6 years. After that, we delete them.

Spam log entries older than 30 days are cleared out automatically. The files we use to limit messages are cleared out after an hour.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the details we hold about you
• ask us to correct anything that's wrong
• ask us to delete your details
• ask us to limit how we use your details for a while
• object to how we use your details
• ask for your details in a format you can pass to someone else

To ask, email info@express-contractors.co.uk or call 0121 517 0785. We'll reply within one month, as the law requires. Sometimes we must keep a record, for example for tax. If so, we'll tell you why.

Making a complaint

If you're unhappy, please talk to us first and we'll try to put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO is the UK body that looks after data rights. Use the ICO complaints page.