Potter Clarkson is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. You have been directed to this privacy notice because you are applying for work with us (whether as an employee or contractor). It makes you aware of how and why your personal data will be used, namely for the purposes of the recruitment exercise, and how long it will usually be retained for. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (GDPR).
This privacy notice is provided in a layered format:
- DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES
- THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU
- HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?
- HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
- IF YOU FAIL TO PROVIDE PERSONAL INFORMATION
- HOW WE USE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION
- INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS
- AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING
- DATA SHARING
- DATA SECURITY
- DATA RETENTION
- RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION
- DATA PROTECTION OFFICER
1. DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES
We 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 we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
- Accurate and kept up to date.
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
- Kept securely.
2. THE KIND OF INFORMATION WE HOLD ABOUT YOU
In connection with your application for a role or work with us, we will collect, store, and use such of the following categories of personal information about you as is relevant to your application:
- The information that you or a recruitment agency provide to us in your curriculum vitae and covering letter (CV data).
- The information that you provide on our application form, including name, title, address, telephone number, personal email address, employment history and qualifications (Identification, experience and qualifications data).
- Any information that you provide to us during an interview.
- Information resulting from any psychometric or other tests that you undertake in connection with your application.
We may also collect, store and use the following "special category" of more sensitive personal information, namely:
3. HOW IS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED?
We collect personal information about candidates from the following sources:
- You, the candidate.
- any recruitment agency by which you were introduced to us, from which we collect the following categories of data, namely CV data and Identification, experience and qualifications data.
- Your named referees, from whom we collect the following category of data, namely information confirming CV data and Identification, experience and qualifications data obtained from you or a recruitment agency.
4. HOW WE WILL USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
We will use the personal information we collect about you to:
- Assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the role or work for which you have applied.
- Carry out reference checks, where applicable.
- Communicate with you about the recruitment process.
- Keep records related to our hiring processes.
- Comply with legal or regulatory requirements.
It is in our legitimate interests to decide whether to appoint you since it would be beneficial to our business to appoint someone to the relevant role or work.
We also need to process your personal information to decide whether to enter into an employment or services contract with you.
5. IF YOU FAIL TO PROVIDE PERSONAL INFORMATION
If you fail to provide information when requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully. For example, if we require references for this role and you fail to provide us with relevant details, we will not be able to take your application further.
6. HOW WE USE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION
We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:
We will use information about your disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment process, for example whether adjustments need to be made during a test or interview.
7. INFORMATION ABOUT CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS
We do not envisage that we will process information about criminal convictions.
8. AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING
You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making except that your application will be automatically rejected if (except in the case of fee earning roles) you inform us that you are not eligible to work in the UK.
9. DATA SHARING
Why might you share my personal information with third parties? We will only share your personal information with, where applicable, the third party that undertakes psychometric testing on our behalf. All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
10. DATA SECURITY
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, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need-toknow. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have 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 we are legally required to do so.
11. DATA RETENTION
How long will you use my information for? If your application is successful, we will retain your personal information in accordance with our privacy notice for employees and contractors.
If we reject your application, we will retain your personal information for a period of twelve months after you applied for the role. We retain your personal information for that period so that we can show, in the event of a legal claim, that we have not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that we have conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. At the end of this period, we will securely destroy your personal information. Our automated system is programmed to do this routinely.
If you have made your application on the basis that an employment or engagement opportunity may arise in future, we may also retain your personal information on file for a period of up to 12 months. At the end of this period, we will securely destroy your personal information.
12. RIGHTS OF ACCESS, CORRECTION, ERASURE, AND RESTRICTION
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
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Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
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Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
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Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
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Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.
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Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
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Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact our data protection officer (DPO) in writing.
13. DATA PROTECTION OFFICER
We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or concerns about how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO, who is Andrew Argyle at dpo@potterclarkson.com. If we are unable to resolve your concerns, you may make a complaint to the relevant supervisory authority for data protection issues which, in the UK, is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
