Privacy notice

This notice explains how The Storage Zone Limited (company number SC372936, registered office 7 Woodlands Gardens, Burnbank, Hamilton, ML3 7JE) collects and uses personal information about people who visit this website, enquire about or book storage with us, store goods with us, or pay for storage. We are the “controller” of that information, which means we decide why and how it is used. In this notice “we”, “us” and “our” mean The Storage Zone Limited.

To ask us anything about this notice, or to use your rights, email mail@storagezone.co.uk or write to us at our registered office.

We run our website, bookings, billing and customer records on a software service called StoreBay (storebay.co.uk). StoreBay handles your information on our behalf and only on our instructions. It is our “processor”.

• When you enquire, join a waiting list or ask us to call you: your name, email address and telephone number, the unit or yard you are interested in, whether the storage is for business or personal use, and what you tell us in messages and calls.
• When you book and store with us: your name, address, email address and telephone number. For a business, we also keep its name, company number and VAT number, and the names and contact details of the people we deal with. We keep your unit, yard and dates; your agreement and the records of signing it, including the date and time and the IP address and browser details of the device you signed on; and the choices and declarations you make when you book.
• When you sign in to your online account: your email address or mobile number, the one-time sign-in links or codes we send you, and a record of when you sign in.
• Payments: your invoices, payments, refunds and any deposit. For Direct Debit we keep a reference to your mandate; for a card, the card type and last four digits, and a token and reference from our payment provider. We do not keep your full card number or bank details: you give them to our payment providers, and if you pay by card over the phone we pass your details straight on to them.
• Identity: if we ask to see photo ID, for example when you move in, we record which document we checked, the last four characters of its number, its expiry date and whether the name, photo and address matched. We do not keep a copy of the document in our booking system.
• When you use our yards: CCTV images and, if a yard uses a keypad, gate or card, a record of when your code or card is used.
• When we are in touch: emails, text messages, letters, notes of calls, complaints and requests.
• When you use our website: technical information such as your IP address, browser and device, the pages you ask for and when, and error and security reports. We do not use analytics or advertising cookies; see our cookie policy.
• From others: our payment providers tell us whether a payment succeeded, failed or was reversed, and councils and Assessors may contact us about business rates.

You do not have to give us your information, but we need your contact, payment and agreement details to provide storage, so without them we cannot make or run an agreement with you. We do not ask for sensitive information such as your health or beliefs, and we ask you not to include it in messages to us.

• To answer your enquiry and take steps you ask for before you book. The lawful basis is that it is needed to take steps at your request before a contract is made.
• To set up and run your agreement: to take your booking, make and sign your agreement, provide storage, manage your account, send invoices, reminders and notices, and handle payments, refunds and any deposit. The lawful basis is that it is needed for our contract with you.
• To collect what you owe, including chasing late payments, suspending access to a unit and, as a last resort, selling goods as our terms allow. The lawful bases are our contract with you and our legitimate interest in recovering what we are owed.
• To keep our yards, goods and people safe and secure, using CCTV, access records and checks on who you are, to prevent and detect crime, fraud and misuse, and to help the police and other authorities with that when they ask and the law allows. The lawful basis is our legitimate interest in keeping our yards safe and secure and in preventing crime and fraud.
• To meet our legal obligations, such as tax and accounting records, the information consumer law requires us to give you, and orders from courts and other authorities. The lawful basis is that we are legally obliged to.
• To tell the council about your use of a unit for business rates, where that applies (see below). The lawful basis is legitimate interests. If you give us authority to apply for relief for you, we also rely on your consent.
• To deal with complaints, claims and requests about your information, and to protect our legal rights. The lawful bases are legitimate interests and, where the law requires it, legal obligation.
• To send you messages. The lawful basis depends on the message: our contract with you for the messages we need to send to run your agreement, and your consent for marketing or, if you are an existing customer or have enquired, our legitimate interest in telling you about similar services. See “Messages and marketing”.
• To run this website and keep it secure and working. The lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running a safe, reliable website.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether they are outweighed by your rights, and you can ask us about that or object (see “Your rights”).

We share your information only where we need to, and with:

• StoreBay, the software service we use to run our bookings, billing and customer records (our processor).
• Our payment providers: GoCardless, for Direct Debit, and Global Payments, for card payments.
• Providers that send our messages: Resend, for email, and, where we send text messages, Bird.
• Our hosting provider, DigitalOcean, which hosts StoreBay’s servers in a London data centre.
• Google, where a page has a map from Google Maps. When the map loads, Google receives your IP address, details of your browser and the area of the map. The map loads by itself as you reach it on the page.
• Our professional advisers, such as accountants, solicitors and insurers, when we need their help. If an amount stays unpaid, we may also pass details to debt recovery agents or solicitors.
• Councils and Assessors, for business rates (see below).
• The police, courts, HMRC and other authorities, where the law requires it or allows it, for example to prevent or detect crime.
• Anyone who buys or takes over our business, who would be bound to use your information as this notice says.

We do not sell your information, and we do not share it with anyone else for their own marketing.

Some units, such as containers on open yards, may be entered separately in the valuation roll, the list of properties used to work out business rates, which is kept by the local Assessor (the official who values property for rating). Where yours is, we tell the Assessor and the local council when you start and stop using the unit. We do this so that their records are accurate, and so that you can claim any business-rates relief you may be entitled to. The council or the Assessor may then contact you directly.

We share only what they need: your name (and your business name), the unit reference, the address of the yard, the dates your use starts and ends, and the fact that you store goods under a licence. If a council’s billing team asks for it, we may also give them your correspondence address. We never give an Assessor your home address. We tell them nothing about whether any rates are payable by you; that is for them to decide.

The lawful basis is legitimate interests: ours, the council’s and the Assessor’s interest in keeping public rating records accurate, which also helps you to get any relief available. You can object to this (see “Your rights”). If you give us authority to apply for relief on your behalf, we use your information and the declaration you sign to make the application. We rely on your consent for that, we do not charge for it, and you can apply to the council yourself instead.

Our yards use CCTV to protect people, goods and property, to prevent and detect crime and antisocial behaviour, and to help us deal with incidents, insurance claims and disputes. Where CCTV is in use, signs say so. The lawful basis is our legitimate interest in keeping our yards safe and secure.

Only authorised people can view recordings. We share them with the police and other authorities, and with insurers and advisers, where that is needed for the purposes above. We keep recordings only for as long as we need them for those purposes, and then they are overwritten or deleted; we keep a recording for longer only if it is needed for an investigation or a claim, or the police ask us to. You can ask to see CCTV images of yourself, and we may need to hide other people in them.

Our records are held on StoreBay’s servers in a data centre in London. A few of our providers handle limited information outside the UK; for example, our email provider is in the United States, and so is Google when a map loads. Where information goes outside the UK we make sure it is protected, for example under the UK’s adequacy regulations (including the UK–US data bridge) or the Information Commission’s approved contract terms. You can ask us for a copy of the safeguards we rely on.

• Open enquiries and waiting-list entries: for as long as they are open, which is until you book, tell us you no longer want it, or we close it. We aim to close any enquiry or waiting-list entry that we have had no contact about for 12 months.
• Closed enquiries: once an enquiry is closed, because you booked or because it did not go ahead, we remove the personal details 24 months after we last had contact with you. We may keep an anonymous record that the enquiry happened, for our statistics.
• Agreements and signed documents, including the records of signing: six years after your agreement ends.
• Invoices, payments, refunds and deposits: six years, because we must keep tax records.
• Your account and contact details: while you store with us, and then for six years with your agreement records, unless a shorter period applies.
• Opt-outs from marketing: until you tell us otherwise, so that we keep honouring your choice.
• Complaints and requests about your information: for as long as we need them to deal with them, and for a reasonable time afterwards in case of follow-up or a claim.
• CCTV and access records: for no longer than we need them for the purposes above.
• Website server logs and security records: for a short time, and then they are deleted.

When the time is up we delete the information or make it anonymous. We may keep information for longer if we need it to bring or defend a legal claim, or to meet a legal obligation.

We send you the messages we need to send in order to run your agreement, such as booking confirmations, invoices, payment reminders, Direct Debit notices, changes to your agreement, and notices about unpaid amounts or the sale of goods. You cannot opt out of notices that the law requires us to send, or that we need to send to run your agreement.

We send marketing emails or text messages only if you have agreed, or, if you are an existing customer or have enquired, about similar services with a clear way to opt out. Every marketing message tells you how to stop them, and you can also tell us at any time.

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete
• ask us to erase your information, in some cases
• ask us to restrict how we use your information, in some cases
• ask for the information you gave us in a form you can move to someone else, where we use it under a contract or with your consent
• object to our using your information for our legitimate interests, including the council notices, and object at any time to direct marketing
• withdraw your consent, where we rely on it, at any time

To use any of these rights, contact us as set out at the top of this notice. We may ask you to prove who you are and to give us enough detail to find your information. We reply within one month. If your request is complex, we may take up to two more months and will tell you why, and the time we have may pause while we confirm your identity or ask you to clarify your request. We do not normally charge a fee.

Some rights have limits. For example, we cannot erase information we must keep by law, such as tax records, or that we need to bring or defend a legal claim, such as an agreement or its records of signing.

We protect your information with technical and organisational measures that suit the risk. Access is limited to people who need it, information is encrypted when it moves over the internet, and full card numbers and security codes are not stored in our systems because they are handled by our payment providers. No system is completely secure. If a breach puts your rights at risk, we will tell the Information Commission as the law requires, and we will tell you if the risk to you is high.

Our services are for adults. We do not knowingly collect information about children. If you think a child has given us information, please contact us so that we can delete it.

If you are concerned about how we use your information, please tell us first so that we can put it right: email mail@storagezone.co.uk or write to our registered office. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days (the law allows us up to 30 days), look into it, and tell you the outcome without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commission (the ICO; ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint), the UK’s data protection regulator, at any time, although it will usually expect you to have raised the matter with us first.

We may update this notice, for example if the law changes or we start to use your information in a new way. The date and version at the top show which notice you are reading, and where a change matters to you we will tell you.