Recruitment Privacy Notice

Everything we do with information about people has to comply with the Data Protection Act 2018.

The information on this page explains how Huntingdonshire District Council will use your personal information when you apply for work with us, during the recruitment process. This includes how we collect, process and share it. It also describes how long information is kept and the circumstances in which we might disclose it to a third party.

As part of every recruitment process, Huntingdonshire District Council collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. This will include:

• Your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number

• Details of your qualifications, skills, experience, employment history, other relevant experience and achievements

• Information about your current level of remuneration

• Whether or not you have a disability for which the organisation needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process

• The outcome of any interviews which formed part of the recruitment process

• Confirmation of your entitlement to work in the UK

• Equality monitoring information, including information about your gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability and religion or belief (at offer stage)

• Employment references (at offer stage)

• Pre-employment health screenings and the results (at offer stage)

• Pay details, national insurance number, tax coding and details of the bank or building society account (at offer stage)

• Photographs for building access passes (at offer stage).

We collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms, CVs, obtained from your passport or other identity documents (following offer), or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment.

We will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references, (at offer stage), information from employment background check providers and information from criminal records checks. Data will be stored on the council’s systems.

What does Huntingdonshire District Council use your personal data for?

Huntingdonshire District Council needs to process data during the recruitment process and to make offers of employment to each successful candidate. It also needs to process your data to enter into a contract with you and to keep records of the process. Data is used to:

• check eligibility to work in UK before employment starts in line with legal obligations

• process data to manage the recruitment process, evaluate suitability for employment and decisions on offers of employment

• respond to and defend legal claims

• processes health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability in line with legal obligations

• carry out equality monitoring by collecting information such as gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief

• seek information about criminal convictions and offences, where it is necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations.

We will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied. If your application is unsuccessful, we will only keep your personal data on file for 12 months for candidate access purposes.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment process and only be accessed and processed by authorised personnel for the performance of their duties.

Huntingdonshire District Council will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We will then share your data with:

• Former employers to obtain references for you

• Employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks (For example: Occupational Health)

• Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks

• HMRC - for payroll purposes.

We will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area. Any such processing will be carried out strictly in accordance with UK and EU privacy legislation and the appropriate contractual safeguards which the council has put in place.

How does Huntingdonshire District Council protect data?

Huntingdonshire District Council takes the security of your data seriously and has a range of robust policies, processes and technical measures in place to safeguard personal information.

Access to systems that hold employment related information is restricted to authorised personnel through the use of unique identifiers and passwords. Your information is stored on systems that are protected by secure network architectures and are backed up on a regular basis (to a second secure location) for disaster recovery and business continuity purposes; and to avoid the risk of inadvertent erasure or destruction.

How long does Huntingdonshire District Council keep data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, Huntingdonshire District Council will hold your data on file for 12 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. (In exceptional circumstances, we may need to retain your record for a further duration in order to comply with Home Office requirements).

At the end of that period, your data will be deleted or destroyed. If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file and retained during your employment with us.

The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in the employee privacy notice and retention schedule.

Third party processing

Huntingdonshire District Council has a number of contracts with third party suppliers and service providers, for example: Employment Agencies, who provide specialist services.

These third parties will process applicant information and send information to us in accordance with our instructions and make decisions regarding the information as part of the delivery of their services. They are also required to put in place appropriate security measures that ensure an adequate level of protection for personal information.

What rights do you have?

You have a number of rights relating to the data we hold about you. These include the right to:

• access (to obtain a copy of your personal data, on request)

• rectification (to request inaccurate or incomplete data be corrected)

• erasure (to request that your data is deleted)

• restrict processing (to request that we stop or do not use your data in a certain way)

• portability (in some cases, you can ask to receive a copy of your data in a commonly-used electronic format so that it can be given to someone else)

• object (generally to make a complaint about any aspect of our use of your data)

• ask the organisation to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the organisation's legitimate grounds for processing data

• have explained if there will be any automated decision-making, including profiling, based on your data and for the logic behind this to be explained to you.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights or are unhappy with any aspect of how your information has been collected and/or used, please contact the Data Protection Officer for Huntingdonshire District Council.

Whether we can agree to your request will depend on the specific circumstances and if we cannot then we will explain the reasons why.

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

Automated decision-making

Our recruitment processes are not based on automated decision-making.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to Huntingdonshire District Council during the recruitment process.

However, please be aware that if you decline, it will not be possible for your application to progress as we will be unable to process the data needed to do this.

Data Protection Officer contact details

Contact details for the Data Protection Officer for Huntingdonshire District Council is outlined below:

Email: infogov@3csharedservices.org