Careers Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

1.1. Under UK data protection laws, including the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), Protect Line Limited (“we”, “us”, “our”), as the data controller, must comply with certain regulations designed to ensure that we process any personal information (“personal data”) you provide appropriately, safely, fairly, and securely.

1.2. This Privacy Policy explains how we use and process your data if you are involved in our recruitment process. Should you have any questions around your data, please contact us using the contact details below.

You can also find out more information via our main privacy policy: https://www.protectline.co.uk/privacy-policy/

2. Information processed from the careers website

2.1. When you visit the careers site, we will collect various types of information that is automatically available, such as your IP address, location data, device type and other technical information so that we can analyse and personalise our service.

2.2. We also make use of cookies to improve the experience you have when visiting and to collect, analyse and improve the performance of our Services, and to help us measure the effectiveness of the website and our job advertising campaigns. If you choose not to receive cookies, you may not be able to use certain features of our website. These cookies may also allow you to participate in interactive features on the website, when you choose to do so, and such features are available. It will be clear when you first visit the website that we’re using cookies, and there will be controls to allow you to consent to specific cookie types.

3. Data used at the start of the recruitment process

We use several techniques to identify and recruit individuals for our vacancies. We use this information purely for the recruitment process and for considering you further for the role you have applied for.

3.1. Via our careers website:

If you fill out one of our “Apply for this job” forms on the website, we will ask you to provide your name, email address, phone number and to upload your CV. We will use this information to consider you for the position for which you have applied. We may also use this information, with your permission, for future job opportunities.

The information you supply via this method will be stored within the website database and the recruitment team will be alerted, by email, of your submission. This means your information will be stored within the website and via our recruitment team’s email program. We may also store your information in our Applicant Tracking System (ATS).

3.2. Via third-party recruitment websites:

We also attract potential candidates for our roles, by using online job advertising (e.g. via Indeed) or via recruitment agencies we work with.

Online job boards and job advertising sites will typically ask you to supply basic information such as your name, email address, contact details and in some cases, your CV or other supporting documentation. This information will then be sent to us either directly (via email) or by sending an alert that someone has applied for our vacancy, in which case we will log into the service and download your information onto our computer and then into our recruitment ATS.

3.3 Via recruitment outreach (e.g. job boards and linkedin):

As well as receiving applications via the careers website and online job sites, we may also contact individuals directly for the purposes of seeing if you are seeking new employment opportunities. It will be clear to you that we are contacting you for this purpose.

At this point, we will only be processing your online profile information for the purposes of reaching out to you. We do so as our legitimate interest, and you can ask us at any time to stop contacting you further or in the future.

If you are interested and respond to our outreach, you will then enter our recruitment process which will include storing what information we have on you within our recruitment ATS, so that we can take your interest further. This will include asking you for your contact details and a copy of your CV.

3.4 Via other contact methods:

If you contact us directly to see if we have any vacancies, via telephone, we will ask you to visit the careers website to see our vacancies.

If you send us your details via email or via our refer a friend link, these details may be considered as part of the recruitment process, which means the information will be stored in our team’s email program and/or within our recruitment ATS.

4. Use of data throughout the interview process

4.1 When we process your personal data, we will store a copy of your data and any appropriate details in our recruitment ATS, for the purposes of considering you for the position you have applied for, and to maintain relevant information and details during the application process, such as interview notes, additional information we request, etc.

4.2 If your initial application is successful, you may be invited to an interview either in person at our offices or online. Information collected during the interview will be recorded and stored with your other recruitment information.

4.3 All offers of employment are subject to satisfactory pre-employment checks, such as carrying out right to work checks, criminal record checks and collecting information about you from employment history references. We may also collect personal information from Credit reference agencies, in relation to your credit history.

4.4 This information will be accessible to our recruiting team, but also to the appropriate employees, such as the recruiting manager and our HR department. We will never ask for more information than we need, and we will only ask for different types of information at the relevant part of the process (for example, we will not carry out right to work checks until you have been offered a position).

5. Legal basis for processing your personal data

5.1 We process your personal data for the following reasons:

· For performance of a contract we enter with you, i.e. To process your data to consider you for the role you are interested in.

· Where necessary for compliance with a legal obligation we are subject to, e.g. Right to work checks.

· For our legitimate interests such as reference checks

· Consent, where you have provided it if you want us to keep your information for future opportunities

6. Disclosure of your data to third parties

6.1 In addition to the third parties mentioned previously in this policy, we may disclose your personal data to IT software and storage providers that store data on our behalf. We always carry out due diligence against all our third-party suppliers for the purposes of ensuring their compliance with data protection, maintaining adequate security of your data and ensuring they apply adequate data protection principles to the processing of the data we supply. We also make sure a legally binding contract (sometimes called a Data Processing Agreement or DPA) is in place to protect your data.

6.2 We may disclose your personal data to the police, regulatory bodies, legal advisors or similar third parties where we are under a legal duty to disclose or share your personal data to comply with any legal obligation, or to enforce or apply our agreements; or to protect our rights, property, or safety of our customers, or others.

7. Cross-border data transfers

7.1 We do not transfer personal data outside the UK or EEA. Where this is required in the future, we will ensure that safeguards are in place so that such transfers comply with data protection legislation.

8. Data security

8.1 Information you provide to us is stored on our secure infrastructure. We have implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures designed to secure your information against accidental loss and unauthorised access, use, alteration or disclosure. In addition, we limit access to personal data to those employees, and other third parties that have a legitimate business need for such access.

8.2 Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to us via the internet; any transmission is at your own risk.

9. Retention

9.1 How long we keep your data will depend on several different circumstances. In some cases, we may need to keep your information longer than for other reasons.

Unless stated elsewhere in this document or in any agreement or contract, the following retention policy will apply:

· For successful candidates we will keep the information collected through the recruitment process for the purposes of you becoming an employee. At this point the recruitment information will form part of your employment records, and our employee privacy policy will apply.

· If your application is unsuccessful, we will keep your recruitment information for up to 6 months from when your application was received, for our legitimate interests to protect yourselves from any claims arising from the recruitment process. After 6 months, we will delete the information, unless it is lawful for us to keep your data for future use, or you provide us with consent to keep the

information for the purposes of considering you for future opportunities, in which case we will keep your details for up to 2 years. You should note that if you do not consent to us retaining your information past the 6 months, we are unlikely to contact you about future opportunities, unless you see a vacancy and apply again. You can withdraw your consent at any time.

If you have any questions or concerns about the length of time we keep your information, please contact us and we will be happy to explain further.

10. Your rights

10.1 Under current data protection legislation in the UK, you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the data we store and process about you. You can find more information about your rights on the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/

10.2 Right of access: you have the right to ask us about what data we hold about you, how we process it and to ask us to provide you with a copy of the information, free of charge and within one calendar month of your request.

To make a request for any personal information we hold and process about you, we would prefer it if you could put it in writing or in an email to the addresses above. We will need to verify your identity before providing the information and where necessary may contact you further to ensure we understand what data you are requesting.

10.3 Right to rectification: it is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if the personal data we hold about you changes.

10.4 Right to erasure (right to be forgotten): under some circumstances you may request us to delete your data from our systems. Where this is possible (e.g. we don’t have any legal purpose for continuing to process your data) we will erase it from our systems.

10.5 Right to restrict processing: in some circumstances you may be able to limit how we use your data. This is most likely if you dispute the accuracy of your information or object to us relying on a legitimate interest as our lawful basis

10.6 Right to portability: your right to portability allows you to request a machine-readable format of the data you supplied to us and associated service logs (where we store them).

10.7 Right to object: you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances and to withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal data where this has been provided.

Where you have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data, you may withdraw that consent at any time. To withdraw your consent please contact us at dataprotectionqueries@protectline.co.uk

10.8 Rights related to automated decision making and profiling: we do not rely on any automated decisions when processing your information, and we do not maintain profiles (e.g. for marketing purposes)

10.9 We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity, before acting on your request. Data protection legislation may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all the personal data that we hold about you or to comply with any requests made in accordance with your rights referred to above. If we cannot provide you with access to your personal data, or process any other request we receive, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions.

Please send any requests relating to the above to: dataprotectionquries@protectline.co.uk specifying your name and the action you would like us to undertake.

11. Complaints

11.1 If you feel this privacy policy does not go far enough in explaining how we have used your personal data, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to dataprotectionqueries@protectline.co.uk.

11.2 If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, we’d rather you brought it to us in the first instance, but of course you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in their capacity as the statutory body that oversees data protection law – www.ico.org.uk/concerns

12. Changes to our privacy policy

12.1. Information you provide to us is stored on our secure infrastructure. We have implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures designed to secure your information against accidental loss and unauthorised access, use, alteration or disclosure. In addition, we limit access to personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties that have a legitimate business need for such access.

12.2. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk.

13. Retention

Unless stated elsewhere in this document or in any agreement or contract, we only store the data necessary for the purpose of having the data in the first place. We will keep this data for as long as it is lawful for us to do so (this may be for as long as you are a customer or because of a legal obligation to retain the information, whichever is the longest).

14. Your Rights

Under current data protection legislation in the UK, you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the data we store and process about you. You can find more information about your rights on the Information Commissioner’s website: ico.org.uk/for-the-public. We may request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity. Data protection legislation may allow or require us to refuse to provide you with access to some or all the personal data that we hold about you or to comply with any requests made in accordance with your rights referred to above. If we cannot provide you with access to your personal data, or process any other request we receive, we will inform you of the reasons why, subject to any legal or regulatory restrictions. Please send any requests relating to the above to dataprotectionquries@protectline.co.uk specifying your name and the action you would like us to undertake. Note that we reserve the right to charge a reasonable fee for administrative costs of complying with a request if it is excessive, manifestly unfounded or you request further copies of your data.

14.1. Keeping your data up to date
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if the personal data we hold about you changes.

14.2. Objecting to our processing and withdrawing consent
You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances and to withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal data where this has been provided. Where you have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data, you may withdraw that consent at any time. To withdraw your consent please contact us at dataprotectionqueries@protectline.co.uk

14.3. Erasure of your data (the “right to be forgotten”)
Under some circumstances you may request us to delete your data from our systems. Where this is possible (e.g. we don’t have any legal purpose for continuing to process your data) we will erase it from our systems.

14.4. Portability
Your right to portability allows you to request a machine-readable format of the data you supplied to us and associated service logs (where we store them).

14.5. Access to your data (a so-called Data Subject Access Request)
You have the right to ask us about what data we hold about you, how we process it and to ask us to provide you with a copy of the information, free of charge and within one calendar month of your request.

To make a request for any personal information we hold and process about you, we would prefer it if you could put it in writing or in an email to dataprotectionqueries@protectline.co.uk. We will need to verify your identity before providing the information and where necessary may contact you further to ensure we understand what data you are requesting.

15. Complaints

If you feel this privacy notice does not go far enough in explaining how we have used your personal data, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to dataprotectionqueries@protectline.co.uk. If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, we’d rather you brought it to us in the first instance, but of course you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office in their capacity as the statutory body that oversees data protection law – ico.org.uk/concerns.

16. Changes to our Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update this privacy policy at any time, and any changes we make to our privacy policy will be posted on this page. We will notify you if there are any changes to this policy that materially affect how we collect, store or process your personal data. If we would like to use your previously collected personal data for different purposes than those we notified you about at the time of collection, we will provide you with notice and, where required by law, seek your consent, before using your personal data for a new or unrelated purpose. We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent where required by applicable law or regulation.

17. Contact Us

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee compliance with this privacy policy. If you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this policy or how we use your personal data please contact our Data Protection Officer atdataprotectionqueries@protectline.co.uk. This is in addition to your right to contact the Information Commissioners Office if you are unsatisfied with our response to any issues you raise at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/