Privacy Notice for Job Applicants

1. Introduction

1.1 This Privacy Notice sets out information on how and why Paul Mason Consulting Limited of 30-32 Blacklands Way, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 1DY and our subsidiary office on the 5th and 6th Floors, Corner Heights B/s, DPS School, Old Padra – Vadsar Ring Road, Vadodora – 390012, Gujurat, India ("we") process personal information about the people who apply to work for us ("you") and your rights in relation to that information. Under data protection laws we are usually the "data controller" of personal information held about those who apply to work for us and our customers (although there may also be other organisations, such as our customers, who may be "data processors" of your personal information). 

1.2 This Privacy Notice applies to everyone who applies to work for us regardless of whether you are looking to be engaged as an employee,  a worker, a contractor or agency staff, and whether you are permanent or temporary staff, or full or part time. However, we are likely to process different and much more detailed information about prospective employees and workers than we will do about prospective contractors or temporary agency staff due to the different nature of our relationship with them in law.  

1.3 This notice is designed to inform you about certain information. It does not indicate any intention to create legal relations or form part of any contract. 

1.4 We recruit directly to roles in PMC Retail. We also recruit on behalf of our customers for roles within those customers.

2. Data Protection principles

2.1 There are six key principles under data protection laws which govern how we must deal with your personal information.  We must:

  • Hold and use it lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way 
  • Only use it for specific and lawful purposes that have been explained to you
  • Make sure that it is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for those purposes 
  • Make sure that it is accurate and up to date 
  • Make sure that we only keep it for as long as is necessary for those purposes 
  • Make sure that it is kept securely

3. What Information do we collect about you?

3.1 The personal information about you which we do or may collect, hold and use ("process") is provided by you and is likely to include the information set out below. This list is not exhaustive but is intended to give you a clear idea of your personal information about you which we may process: 

3.1.1 your name, title, address, personal telephone number and personal email add>3.1.2 your gender;  

3.1.3 your login and password details related to our online application process; 

3.1.4 your current work contact details including telephone numbers, and email addresses;  

3.1.5 your social networking profiles and/or internet profiles whether professional or personal but only to the extent that they may be relevant for recruiting you to the job(s) in question;  

3.1.6 contact details of your current and/or former employers; 

3.1.7 education records, training records and records of qualifications and achievements and any professional memberships;  

3.1.8 job title and job duties with your current and/or former employers, including any other work you intend to continue with if you accepted work with us;  

3.1.9 details of your salary and reward package and notice period with current and/or former employers; 

3.1.10 reason for leaving previous employment(s); 

3.1.11 whether you have previously applied for a position or worked for us or any of our group organisations before, or whether you are related to anyone who works for us; 

3.1.12 contact details, occupation and position of your referees. Usually we will only request this information if you reach an interview or the work offer stage of the process; 

3.1.13 information gathered from reference requests – this could include information about the capacity in which the referee knows you; how long they have knownyou; length of service; absence (including sickness absence); any disciplinary investigations and proceedings, whether or not any disciplinary action was taken; details of any grievance investigations or complaints raised by you, or by a third party about you, whether or not any action was taken; your performance, attitude and personality; 

3.1.14 your nationality and copies of your passport, identity card, proof of name change if applicable and/or any certificates or documents proving your right to work in the UK, in compliance with right to work checks; 

3.1.15 information on any unspent criminal convictions (or spent convictions only where we are entitled by law to ask for them). We will only collect information about criminal convictions or alleged commission of offences if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so;]  

3.1.16 payroll, tax and national insurance information; 

3.1.17 further information you provide such as hobbies, interests outside work and achievements; 

3.1.18 information on any disability and/or reasonable adjustments that would be required to enable you to attend an interview; 

3.1.19 monitoring on diversity (including, for example, age, race/ethnicity, religion, whether you have a disability, gender identity and marital status); 

3.1.20 details of your driving licence where this is necessary for the work in question; 

3.1.21 specific checks required by our customers  

3.1.22 digital data on your activity on business-related social networking sites and information about you from media articles in the public domain. 

3.2 The information marked in bold is or could include "special categories" of personal information. Under data protection laws, "special categories" of personal information (previously known as sensitive personal data) includes information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic information, biometric information for uniquely identifying a person, information concerning health and information concerning a person's sex life or sexual orientation. Information concerning criminal convictions or the alleged commission of criminal offences as well as details of related legal proceedings is placed in a similar category. This information is particularly sensitive and we will therefore only process this information where absolutely necessary: we will ensure it is only seen by those who have to see it and will keep it secure. 

3.3 Please note that the provision of information for us to monitor diversity is voluntary. It will be anonymised as far as possible, or where that is not possible, it may be pseudonymised (where we put in place safeguards making it hard to identify to whom the information relates) and you have the right to tell us that you no longer wish us to process certain types of information about you for the purpose of monitoring diversity. 

4. How long will we process your personal information?

4.1 If you are successful in your application to work for us, we will process this information for the duration of our work relationship. When your work relationship with us begins, we will issue you with a Privacy Notice detailing how we will process your data during our work relationship with you and after it ends. 

4.2 If you are unsuccessful in your application to work for us or you choose not to accept the offer of a work contract with us (if applicable): 

4.2.1 We will hold limited specified information necessary for legal reasons for a period of 12 months or such other period as may be required under our legal obligations; or 

4.2.2 If you indicate your consent, we will retain all of your personal information gathered during the recruitment process for a period of 12 months in order to contact you about other work we feel may be of interest to you or other positions we are recruiting for in the future.

5. Who is collecting it and who will it be shared with?

5.1 Mostly, we will be collecting the information about you and we do not employ a third party to collect data generally.  

5.2 The personal information we expect to collect about you may be: 

5.2.1 provided directly to us by you such as: 

(a) information received from you through the recruitment or procurement process (e.g. curriculum vitae, application forms and covering letters); and 

(b) information you provide to us after that (e.g. during an interview); 

5.2.2 information already made public by you in some other way (e.g. in the public domain via social media); and

5.2.3 information provided by a third party (e.g. by an employer giving us a reference about you or by a member of our staff, customer, supplier or referrer who already knows you). 

5.3 We use other companies for certain functions and in limited circumstances.  Information about you may be collected from and provided to and used by the following: 

5.3.1 Our customers for determining whether to engage you or not; 

5.3.2 Recruitment agencies, which provide details of your CV and other information which you have given to them.  

5.3.3 Associated Companies in our group of companies including our company in India (see below); 

5.3.4 HMRC, regulatory authorities and Government Departments to comply with our legal obligations; 

5.3.5 Other third parties where we have a legitimate reason to share it (such as contractors, benefits providers or external professional advisors) and have put the necessary safeguards in place to protect your information. Where possible the information will be anonymised but if this is not possible, the recipient of the information will be asked to comply with the required policies and procedures and to put adequate security and confidentiality measures in place (unless an exception applies and/or we are under a professional or legal obligation to disclose the information); 

5.3.6 Courts and tribunals where necessary for establishing or defending legal claims;  

5.3.7 The Disclosure and Barring Service where applicable to the work in question. 

5.4 We may transfer the personal information we collect about you to our company in India in order to provide it to our customers and internally.  To ensure that your personal information is protected we have put in place the appropriate measures to ensure that your information is treated by those organisations in a way that is consistent with EU and UK data protection laws including password protection and encryption; an integral firewall on secure internal intranet and training for staff on use of data.  

5.5 We do not share your information with outside organisations other than for the purposes set out above and will not sell or provide information about you to any organisation for direct marketing purposes without your consent.

6. Why is it being collected is it being collected and how will it be used?

6.1 We provide this Privacy Notice to comply with the principles set out at paragraph 2 above. We gather information in order to conduct due diligence on those we recruit for us and our customers, to ensure we engage the best person for the job, and to comply with our legal obligations and duties both to you and to regulatory authorities and government bodies. In particular this includes: 

6.1.1 assessing your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the work or roles available; 

6.1.2 discussing vacancies and appointments with our customers; 

6.1.3 carrying out background and reference checks, where applicable; 

6.1.4 communicating with you about the recruitment process; 

6.1.5 keeping records relating to our hiring processes; 

6.1.6 making reasonable adjustments.  

6.2 We take data protection very seriously. If you join us, we will provide you with a separate privacy notice regarding your personal data during your work contract with us, and you will also be expected to adhere to our Information Security, Communications and Monitoring Policy.  

7. On what grounds do we process your personal information?

7.1 We rely on a number of lawful reasons for processing the information set out above during the recruitment process. Some of the reasons will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information. The main lawful reasons are that: 

7.1.1 it is necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations, for example, in relation to compliance with employment laws and regulatory requirements;  

7.1.2 it is necessary for our legitimate interests, which in these circumstances are to decide whether to appoint you to the work or role available and ensure we engage the best person for the job, our business and our customer's business, and where necessary establish or defend legal claims; 

7.1.3 it is necessary in order to take steps at your request prior to entering potentially into a contract with you;  

7.1.4 You have explicitly consented to the processing of your personal information for the purposes of contacting you as described in paragraph 4.2 about other workopportunities which may be of interest to you or other positions we are recruiting for in the future should your application be unsuccessful or you choose not to accept a work offer. 

7.2 For "special categories" of personal information (as described above), or information which relates to criminal convictions, the commission/alleged commission of criminal offences, or criminal proceedings, there are separately specified lawful reasons which we rely on in addition to the above. We will only process this information where: 

7.2.1 It is necessary for our or your obligations or rights in the field of employment law or social security law. For example, under the Equality Act 2010 we are obliged to ensure we do not discriminate against those with certain protected characteristics in our recruitment processes. We are also obliged to make reasonable adjustments in our recruitment processes for those who are disabled under the Equality Act 2010. To comply with these legal obligations we might need to process special categories of information such as your racial origin, your religious beliefs, or information concerning your health;  

7.2.2 The personal information has been manifestly made public by you, for example it is in the public domain via social media;  

7.2.3 It is necessary in relation to legal claims, for example you bring a claim against us alleging that we have not appointed you because of a particular protected characteristic that applies to you;  

7.2.4 It is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest. UK law places our monitoring of diversity and equality of opportunity in this category providing certain safeguards are in place. 

7.3 We do not envisage that we will process information about criminal convictions. 

7.4 The information we hold about you will be used for the purposes for which it is collected unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.  

7.5 We have IT protections and other procedures in place to protect the data we hold, including the personal information we receive from you. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a business need to know it and are subject to our data protection procedures. 

8. What will be the effect on you?

8.1 In some cases, if you fail to provide information which is a statutory or contractual requirement, or necessary for your work relationship with us, we may be unable to offer you the work. If that is the case (for example if you fail to provide us with information we need to conduct right to work checks), we will endeavour to give you adequate opportunity to provide the information.

9. Your rights

9.1 Under data protection rules, you have rights in relation to your information. You have the right to request from us access to your own personal information.  

9.2 Additionally, you have the right to request from us: 

9.2.1 that any inaccurate information we hold about you is corrected; 

9.2.2 that information about you is deleted in certain circumstances; 

9.2.3 that we stop using your personal information for certain purposes; 

9.2.4 that your information is provided to you or to a third party in a portable format; 

9.3 In some cases we may not be able to comply with your request in relation to the rights listed at 9.2 above, which are limited to certain defined circumstances. However, we will tell you if that is the case and explain why. 

9.4 If you make a request, we will respond to you within one month.  We will not charge you a fee for dealing with your request (unless your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, such as where you make repeated requests). If you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact the HR Director. 

9.5 If you are unhappy with how we are using your personal information or if you wish to complain about our use of information, please contact the HR Director. If we cannot resolve your complaint, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, which is the statutory regulator for data protection matters.  The Information Commissioner can be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

9.6 If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, would like any further information or wish to discuss any of the above further, please do not hesitate to contact the HR Director.

10. Declaration

When you apply for a position with us you are confirming that you have read and understood the information set out in our Privacy Notice for Job Applicants.  As such you are voluntarily providing personal information gathered in the recruitment process. This information will be used for the purposes of your application to work with Paul Mason Consulting Limited or any of our customers, based on lawful reasons contained in our policy. If your application is not taken forward for any reason, we will still retain all personal information gathered during the recruitment process for a period of 12 months. This is in order to contact you about other work we feel may be of interest. 

You also understand that your consent to Paul Mason Consulting Limited continuing to hold this personal information is entirely separate to any recruitment processes and that you are free to withdraw your consent in writing at any time.