Candidate Privacy Notice

As part of any recruitment process, the organisation collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The organisation is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

What information does the organisation collect?

The organisation collects a range of information about you. This may include:

• Your name, address and contact details including email address and telephone number(s)
• Details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history
• Information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements
• Whether or not you have a disability for which the organisation needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process
• Information about your entitlement to work in the UK
• Equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief

The organisation collects this information in a variety of ways. Data might be contained in CV or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment.

The organisation will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers and information from background check providers. The organisation will seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you have been made and will inform you that it is doing so.

Data will be stored in a range of difference places, including on your application record, in HR management systems and on other IT systems, including email.

Why does the organisation process personal data?

The organisation has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. It needs to process your data in order to enter into a contract with you.

Processing data from job applicants allows the organisation to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job.  The organisation may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

The organisation processes health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability.  This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

Where the organisation processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

The organisation will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied. If we feel your details may be suited to other roles, we will ask your permission to retain your details on file for a defined period and you are free to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting the HR team.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR team, recruiting managers involved in the interviewing process and IT staff.

The organisation will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment.  The organisation will then share your data with former employers for reference requests and/or DBS checks.

How does the organisation protect data?

The organisation takes the security of your data seriously.  It has internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed and is not accessed except by our employees in the proper performance of their duties.

For how long does the organisation keep data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the organisation will hold your data on file for six months after the end of the relevant recruitment process.  At the end of that period, or once you withdraw your consent, your data is destroyed.

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personal file and retained during your employment. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.

Our detailed Data Retention and Destruction Policy is available here.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

• Access and obtain a copy of your data on request
• Require the organisation to change incorrect or incomplete data
• Require the organisation to delete or stop processing your data
• Object to the processing of your data where the organisation is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing, and
• Ask the organisation to stop processing data for a period, if the data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the organisation’s legitimate grounds for processing data.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights please contact the HR team in the first instance.

If you believe that the organisation has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

What happens if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to the organisation during the recruitment process, however if you do not provide information the organisation may not be able to process your application properly or not at all.

If your application is successful it will be a condition of any job offer that you provide evidence of your right to work in the UK and satisfactory references.

You are under no obligation to provide information or equal opportunities monitoring purposes and there are no consequences for your application if you choose not to provide such information.