Privacy Notice Statement
Employer: Online Direct Limited
As part of any recruitment process, the Employer collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The Employer is a ‘data controller’ and it obliged to provide job applicants with certain information under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The Employer is responsible for deciding how it holds and uses the personal data it collects and processes relating to job applicants. The purpose of this notice is to make you aware of how and why your personal data will be used in connection with your application for work with the Employer and how long it will usually be retained for. The Employer is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses your personal data and to meeting its data protection obligations.
Data protection principles
The Employer will comply with data protection law and principles, which means that your data will be:
- Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
- Collected only for valid purposes that the Employer has clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Relevant to the purposes the Employer has told you about and limited only to those purposes.
- Accurate and kept up to date.
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes the Employer has told you about.
- Kept securely.
What information does the Employer collect?
The Employer collects a range of information about you when you apply for a vacancy. This includes any information you or an employment agency provide us with such as:
- your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number;
- 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 Employer needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process; and
- information about your entitlement to work in the UK.
The Employer may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms, CVs or resumes, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment.
The Employer will seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made and will inform you that it is doing so.
Data will be stored in a range of different places, including on your application record, in HR management systems and on other IT systems (including email).
Why does the Employer process personal data?
The Employer needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. It may also need to process your data to enter into a contract with you. The Employer will use the personal data that it collects about you to:
- Assess your skills, qualifications and suitability for the role.
- Carry out background and reference checks, where applicable.
- Communicate with you about the recruitment process.
- Keep records relating to our hiring processes.
- Comply with legal or regulatory requirements.
The Employer has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from job applicants allows the Employer to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. The Employer may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.
The Employer may process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring. It may also collect information about whether or not applicants are disabled in order to make reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability. The Employer processes such information to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.
Who has access to data?
Your information may be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, managers in the business area with a vacancy and IT staff, if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles.
The Employer will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. The Employer will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you.
The Employer will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.
How does the Employer protect data?
The Employer 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.
The Employer has put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where it is legally required to do so.
For how long does the Employer keep data?
If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the Employer may hold your data on file for a maximum of 12 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. The Employer retains your personal information for that period so that it can show, in the event of a legal claim, that it has not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that it has conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. During this period, the Employer may also use your personal data to notify you of other employment opportunities within the organisation for which you may be suited. After this period, the Employer will securely destroy your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. The Employer will ask for your explicit consent if it keeps your personal data on file for longer than 12 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process for the purpose of notifying you of other employment opportunities within the organisation.
You are free to withdraw your consent at any time. At the end of that period or once you withdraw your consent, your data is deleted or destroyed.
If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.
Your rights
As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:
- access and obtain a copy of your data on request (commonly known as a ‘data subject access request’);
- require the Employer to change incorrect or incomplete data;
- require the Employer to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
- object to the processing of your data where the Employer is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing;
- request the restriction of processing of your personal information, for example if you want the Employer to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing; and
- request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Privacy Team on dataprivacyteam@onlinedirect.co.uk
If you believe that the Employer has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.