This recruitment privacy notice explains how we collect, use and store personal information about you in the context of applying for employment with us and our recruitment process. It explains the circumstances where we may also have to share personal information. The recruitment privacy notice will also tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
Personal information, or personal data, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. Anything we do with your personal information (from the point at which we collect it until we delete it from our systems) is called processing.
It's important that you read this recruitment privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you. This is so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your personal information. This privacy notice supplements the other notices and is not intended to override them.
Learn about our recruitment privacy notice
This recruitment privacy notice is provided in a layered format, so you can click through to the specific areas set out below.
We have appointed a data protection officer (for us, this is our Data Protection and Information Governance Officer [DPIGO]) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about the privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights in respect of your personal information, please contact the DPIGO using the details below.
Contact details
Data Protection and Information Governance Officer Atrium Court 50 Waterloo Street Glasgow G2 6HQ
This is the current version of our privacy notice. It was last updated on March 2019.
Letting us know about changes to your personal information
It is important that the personal information that we hold about you is accurate and current. Please let us know if your personal information changes during your relationship with us, by contacting us using the details above.
We may collect, use, store and share different kinds of personal information about you. We collect this information at various points during the application, selection and on-boarding processes depending on how your application progresses. To help you identify these, they have been grouped together as follows:
Types of information we collect
Group Data
Personal information includes
Identity Data
Name, signature, date of birth, gender, marital status, passport details, birth certificate, drivers licence, CV, nationality
Contact Data
Email address, phone number, address
Job Data
Employment history, references, training, skills and qualifications
Absence Data
Absence and leave information (dates, type of leave taken). Absence Data may also contain special category data.
Recruitment Data
Applicant responses to interview questions and interview assessments
Health Data
Special Category Data about medical or health conditions including reasonable adjustments and occupational health advice
Equality Data
Personal information relating to an individual’s ethnic origin, disability, religion or belief, gender reassignment or sexual orientation (which may comprise of Special Category Data)
Special Category Data
Race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data; information about criminal convictions and offences
There is also other information that we collect, use, store and share that is not personal information, including:
Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal information but is not considered personal information in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Equality Data to calculate the percentage of employees who fall within a certain category for ensuring we meet our equality requirements. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal information so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal information, which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
Anonymised Data is the process of turning personal information into a form which does not identify individuals and where identification is not likely to take place.
We collect personal information using different types of methods and sources. We have grouped these together as follows:
Ways we collect information
Direct interactions
Directly from you. For example, when you apply for a job we will collect personal information during recruitment activities.
Third party sources
We may receive personal information about you from various third party sources. These include Disclosure Scotland, referees and former employers.
Suppliers
Any supplier we have procured to deliver a service on our behalf. Such suppliers will be under contractual obligations to process your personal information in compliance with Data Protection Laws. For example, a recruitment agency.
We collect and use personal information about you in accordance with our working relationship with you and, where applicable, to provide you with benefits. In general terms, we collect, use, store and share personal information about you to:
Make decisions about hiring you
Maintain our records relating to the recruitment process
Assess and validate your qualifications and experience
Ensure that we comply with the law e.g. validating your right to work
Arrange necessary travel/work visas or immigration application
Be able to perform the contract we will enter with you
Perform any obligations and exercise any rights imposed or conferred on us, that we are legally obliged to (e.g. equal opportunities monitoring and reporting)
Understand your needs (e.g. health) and how they may be met during the recruitment process
Prevent fraud
Where we need to protect your interests
Further details can be found in the specific sections for how we process your personal information which follow:
Lawful grounds
Under data protection law, we must have legal grounds in order to process your personal information. These are known as lawful grounds. There are six lawful grounds, but we will generally only use four of these, as set out below:
Description of lawful grounds
Lawful ground
What it means
Consent
You have given your consent to the processing of personal information for the specified purpose
Contractual
Where you are in a contractual relationship, and we need to process personal information to allow us to perform the contract, or where you intend to enter into a contractual relationship with us
Legal obligation
Where we need to process personal information to comply with a legal obligation placed on us
Vital interests
This is where your personal data is processed in order to protect you. For example, where you have let us know that you have a medical condition and we have to share that information with others in the event of an emergency affecting your health
Applying to work for us
When you apply for a job with us, we will process information for the following purposes:
Job application data
Personal information processed
Identity data
Contact data
Job data
Absence data
Recruitment data
Health data
Equality data
Special category data
Source of personal information
Direct Interactions
Third party sources
The purpose for processing
Applicants:
Making decisions about employing you
Determining the terms upon which you will work for us
Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK
To maintain our recruitment records
To assess and validate your qualifications and experience
Overseas deployment
Complying with health and safety obligations
To prevent fraud
To accommodate any adjustments and evacuation requirements during the interview process
To be able to address any comments, complaints or concerns regarding the recruitment process or final appointment decision
To conduct data analytics required to provide management information e.g. equal opportunities reporting and monitoring
To enable your personal information to be available to you should you wish to apply for other roles with us, within the period set out below
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.
Lawful ground(s)
Contractual
Legal obligation
We do not need your consent if we use Special Category Data in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data (such as set out in the Safety and Well-being section of this privacy notice). If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.
How long we will keep your personal information
If you don’t start work with us following the recruitment process, we will retain your personal information for 1 year.
Safety and wellbeing
We have a duty to ensure the safety and well being of all who work with us, in general terms and in compliance with law. To meet that duty, we will process the following personal information for the following purposes:
Safety and wellbeing data
Personal information processed
Identity data
Contact data
Job data
Absence data
Health data
Special category data
Source of personal information
Direct Interactions
The purpose for processing
To gain occupational health advice on a health condition in order to accommodate any adjustments you may require during the interview process
To administer first aid
To report any incidents and or accidents
To put in place evacuation arrangements prior to attendance at interview
Lawful ground(s)
Legal obligation
Vital interests
*We do not need your consent if we use Special Category Data in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data (such as in the areas of occupational health). If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.
How long we will keep your personal information
If you don’t start work with us following the recruitment process, we will retain your personal information for 1 year.
Information about criminal conviction
We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so.
Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways
Facilitate the processing of security access cards to worksites where a Disclosure Scotland check is required
Recruitment or determining an individual’s continuing suitability in a position identified as having a fiduciary duty
Consequences of not providing personal information
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to offer you a role within SE, perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our visitors).
From time to time, we may share your personal information with other third parties, where we have a need to do so, in order to meet our obligations to you or where we are required to do so by law. These third parties, along with the purpose for which we will share your personal information with them, have been grouped together as follows:
Third parties we share information with and why
Category of organisation
Purpose for sharing personal information
Public sector partners
This will include Scottish Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Foreign and Commonwealth office, for the purpose of our collaborative public sector remit. Find out more about our public sector partners
Government Bodies
To meet:
Our legal requirements
Our obligations as a public sector body or
Requirements under government programmes
Such government bodies include Audit Scotland, Home Office, Police
Colleges, Universities or other Educational Institutions
Validating your educational qualifications
Other Data Controller
For a specific purpose (e.g. referee)
Suppliers
Any supplier we have procured to deliver a service on our behalf. Such suppliers will be under contractual obligations to process your personal information in compliance with Data Protection Laws.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.
In addition, our employees, agents, secondees and suppliers will only process personal information on our instructions and in accordance with this privacy statement. They are also subject to a duty of confidentiality.
Access to your information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
Correcting your information
You may ask us to correct any personal information that you believe is incorrect, incomplete or not up to date.
Deletion of your information
You have the right to ask us to delete personal information about you where:
You consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained
We are using that information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent – see Withdrawing consent to using your information below
You have validly objected to our use of your personal information – see Objecting to how we may use your information below
Our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations
Objecting to how we may use your information
Where we use your personal information to perform tasks carried out in the public interest then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue.
Restricting how we may use your information
In some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we use your personal information. This might apply where we are checking the accuracy of personal information that we hold or assessing the validity of any objection you have made to our use of your information.
The right might also apply where there is no longer a basis for using your personal information, but you don't want us to delete the data. Where this right to validly exercised, we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal claims or where there are other public interest grounds to do so.
Automated processing
If we use your personal information on an automated basis to make decisions which significantly affect you, you have the right to ask that the decision be reviewed by an individual to whom you may make representations and contest the decision.
Withdrawing consent to using your information
Where we use your personal information with your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time and we will stop using your personal information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given.
We wish to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle personal information, but you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) whose contact details are as follows:
Information Commissioner's Office Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF
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