Privacy Policy
Last Updated: October 13, 2026
Barr Cleaners ("we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and safeguard your information when you visit our storefront, use our website (www.barrcleaners.com), schedule pickup and delivery, subscribe to a student laundry plan, save a card on file, or contact us by phone, text, chat, or email. Please also read our Terms of Service.
1. Information We Collect
Information you give us
- Contact Information: Name, email address, phone number, and physical address.
- Pickup & Delivery Details: Pickup and delivery addresses (including dorm, building, or office details), preferred dates and times, and any access instructions you give us.
- Employer / Organization: If you register for office pickup and delivery, the company or organization you work for, which we use to sort and deliver your orders.
- Service Details: Information regarding your garments, cleaning preferences, alteration measurements, special instructions, order history, and, for student plans, the weight of each pickup.
- Payment Information: Card payments are collected and stored by our payment processor, Square. We keep only the card brand, last four digits, expiration date, and a reference that lets us charge a saved card through Square. See Payments & Saved Cards.
- Messages, Calls & Chats: What you tell us when you text us, call us, use our website chat, or email us.
- Photos: Photos you upload of garment tags or care labels when you use our tag analysis tool, and photos our staff may take of your items and order tickets to record their condition and details.
- Survey Responses: Your answers and comments when you complete one of our surveys.
- Mobile Information: Phone numbers provided for the purpose of receiving order-ready notifications.
Information collected automatically
- Usage Information: Pages visited, links clicked, device and browser type, approximate location (city level), and referring site, collected through cookies and Google Analytics. See Cookies & Analytics.
- Security Information: When you submit a payment or card-on-file form, we record your IP address, browser type, and the time you gave your consent, to verify your authorization and prevent fraud.
Information from other sources
- Business Information: Publicly available business contact information used for our commercial outreach. See Business Outreach.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect to:
- Provide, maintain, and improve our laundry, dry cleaning, alteration, and pickup and delivery services.
- Schedule and complete pickups and deliveries and sort orders to the right person and location.
- Process your transactions and send related information, including confirmations and receipts.
- Charge saved cards as you authorized: student plan payments each month, and office card-on-file charges after each completed service.
- Send transactional SMS notifications regarding the status of your orders (e.g., "Your order is ready for collection").
- Answer your questions by phone, text, chat, and email, including through our AI assistants.
- Send newsletters and offers you signed up for, and contact businesses about our commercial services.
- Run surveys and issue and validate discount codes.
- Understand how our website is used so we can improve it.
- Detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and automated attacks, and protect our customers and business.
- Comply with legal, tax, and accounting obligations and resolve disputes.
3. SMS Messaging & Opt-In
By providing your mobile phone number and verbally consenting to receive notifications, you agree to receive automated text messages from Barr Cleaners.
- Frequency: Message frequency varies based on your order activity (typically 1 message per order).
- Fees: Message and data rates may apply.
- Opt-Out: You can cancel the SMS service at any time. Just text "STOP" to our number. After you send the SMS message "STOP" to us, we will send you an SMS message to confirm that you have been unsubscribed.
- Help: If you are experiencing issues with the messaging program you can reply with the keyword HELP for more assistance, or you can get help directly at contact@barrcleaners.com or (202) 785-1155.
4. Payments & Saved Cards
All card payments are processed by Square, a PCI-DSS Level 1 certified payment processor. You enter your card directly into Square's secure form; your full card number and security code (CVV) go straight to Square and never reach our servers. Barr Cleaners never sees or stores your full card number, and no one, including Square, keeps your security code after the card is verified.
Online orders
When you pay for an online order (for example, through our Laundry Builder or student pay-per-use ordering), your card is charged at checkout for that order. These cards are not saved for future charges.
Student laundry plans
When you subscribe to a student plan, Square saves your card so we can charge your plan price at sign-up and then automatically each month on the same date you signed up, plus any overage for pounds used beyond your monthly allowance, until you cancel. You can pause your plan from the management link we email you; to cancel, contact us. Plan billing rules are described in our Terms of Service.
Office card on file
When you register at barrcleaners.com/billing, Square saves your card without charging it. Your bank may briefly show a $0–$1 verification hold that drops off on its own. We charge your saved card only after a service you requested is completed, and we email you an itemized receipt for each charge.
Removing a saved card
You can withdraw your authorization and have a saved card removed at any time by calling (202) 785-1155 or emailing contact@barrcleaners.com. Removing a card does not cancel amounts already owed for completed services. Square's handling of your payment information is described in Square's Privacy Notice.
5. AI Assistants & Photo Analysis
Some of our customer conversations are handled by AI assistants powered by Claude, an AI model provided by Anthropic, which processes the information on our behalf to generate replies:
- Website chat: Messages you type into our website chat are answered by an AI assistant and saved.
- Text messages: Texts you send to our number may be answered by an AI assistant and are saved.
- Phone calls: When you call, our AI assistant tells you it is an AI. What you say is converted to text by our telephone provider, Twilio, so the assistant can respond. We do not keep audio recordings of these calls; we save the text transcript.
- Tag & care label photos: Photos you upload to our tag analysis tool are sent to Anthropic to read the label and suggest care instructions. We use the photo only to provide that result.
- Staff tools: Our staff may use the same AI service to read photos of paper order tickets (which can include your name and phone number) into our order system, and to summarize survey comments.
We save these conversations so we can follow up on your request, look up your order, and improve our service. Please do not share card numbers, passwords, or other sensitive information in a chat, text, or call. AI answers are informational and may occasionally be inaccurate; prices and order details are confirmed on your receipt. You can always ask to speak with a staff member.
6. Bot & Fraud Protection
To protect our customers and our payment account, our card-on-file form uses Cloudflare Turnstile, a security check that distinguishes real visitors from automated bots. Turnstile may process information about your browser and device to do this, and in most cases it runs invisibly. Cloudflare's practices are described in Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.
We also keep a record of form submissions (IP address, email address, and whether the submission succeeded) to limit repeated attempts and detect fraud. This information is used only for security purposes.
8. Emails, Newsletter & Marketing
- Service emails: We send emails about your orders, payments, subscriptions, and registrations, such as confirmations and receipts. These are part of providing our service.
- Newsletter: If you sign up for our newsletter, we send you news, tips, and offers.
- Marketing emails: Our marketing emails may track whether they were opened, which links were clicked, and replies, so we can measure what is useful and follow up on responses.
Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can also ask us to stop at contact@barrcleaners.com. Unsubscribing from marketing does not stop service emails about orders or payments.
9. Business Outreach
To offer our commercial services to local businesses, we collect publicly available business information, such as business name, address, phone number, website, and business email addresses, from public sources and business directories, including Google, Yelp, and Hunter.io. We use this information only to contact businesses about our services.
If you receive one of these emails and do not want to hear from us, use the unsubscribe link or reply to let us know, and we will stop contacting you.
10. Surveys & Discount Codes
When you complete a survey, we collect your answers and any contact details you provide. We use them to improve our service and, where offered, to issue you a discount code. Discount codes are tied to your survey response so they can be validated and redeemed once.
12. Data Retention
We keep personal information for as long as we need it to provide our services, maintain your account or plan, and meet legal, tax, and accounting requirements, and to resolve disputes. Order and payment records are kept as required for tax and accounting purposes. Saved cards remain stored with Square until you ask us to remove them or your plan or registration ends. Security records of form submissions are used only for fraud prevention. When information is no longer needed, we delete it or de-identify it.
13. Your Choices & Rights
- Access, correction & deletion: You can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. We will respond within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity, and we may keep information we are required to retain by law or need for an open order, balance, or dispute.
- Text messages: Reply STOP to opt out of text messages at any time.
- Emails: Use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email.
- Saved cards: Ask us to remove a saved card at any time.
- Cookies: Manage cookies in your browser or opt out of Google Analytics as described above.
To make a request, contact us at contact@barrcleaners.com or (202) 785-1155.
14. Data Security
We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information. Your personal data is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems. Payment card details are handled entirely by Square; we never see or store full card numbers or security codes. Your information is stored and processed in the United States. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect your information and will notify you if required by law.
15. Children's Privacy
Our website and services are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
16. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the "Last Updated" date above, and if the changes are significant we will let you know by email or a notice on our website.
17. Contact Us
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below:
