Data controller: Susie Timlin, UK Government Investments Ltd, 100 Parliament Street, London, SW1A 2BQ
Data protection officer: Deb Hunt, UK Government Investments Ltd, 100 Parliament Street, London, SW1A 2BQ
Email: [email protected]
As part of any recruitment process, UK Government Investments Ltd (UKGI) collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. UKGI is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.
What information does UKGI collect?
UKGI collects a range of information about you. This includes:
- information provided in your application form, 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 UKGI needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process;
- information about your entitlement to work in the UK; and
- equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief.
UKGI collects this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be provided by you in application forms and letters, CVs or resumes, obtained by UKGI from your passport, other identity documents or those that give proof of address, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment, which may include on-line tests.
UKGI will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers, information from employment background check providers and information from criminal records checks. UKGI 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 UKGI process personal data?
UKGI 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 UKGI to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. Following the conclusion of the campaign, UKGI may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.
It also needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, UKGI is required to check a successful applicant’s eligibility to work in the UK before their employment begins. It also needs to collect data to undertake any relevant security vetting processes.
Finally, UKGI needs to process the successful candidates’ data to take steps at their request prior to and in order to enter into a contract with them. Therefore, if your application is successful, UKGI will need to process your data to enter into a contract of employment with you.
Where UKGI relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it has considered whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of employees or workers and has concluded that they are not.
UKGI processes health information where it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This allows it to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.
Where UKGI processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, it does so for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.
For some roles, UKGI is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where UKGI seeks this information, it does so because it is necessary for it to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.
Who has access to data?
Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the UKGI HR Team, HM Treasury HR Operations team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, Line Managers who have a vacancy and IT staff for whom access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles.
If you are successful in the application process and receive an offer of employment, your data will be shared with HM Treasury to allow the relevant security checks to be carried out. During this process, HM Treasury will hold your data as joint controller with UKGI, which means that use of it by HM Treasury will be governed by the HM Treasury Privacy Notice. This can be found at: https://hmtreasury.referrals.selectminds.com/info/page3.
UKGI will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. UKGI will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks, the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks and our Payroll and Pension providers to set up your employee benefits.
How does UKGI protect data?
UKGI takes the security of your data very 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.
For how long does UKGI keep data?
If your application for employment is unsuccessful, UKGI will hold your data on file for 6 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the expiry of this 6 month period, UKGI may hold your data for a further 12 months, subject to seeking and receiving your consent, in order to consider you for future employment opportunities. If, at any time, you do not give your consent when requested, or if you contact UKGI to withdraw your consent, your data will be deleted and/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. 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;
- require UKGI to change incorrect or incomplete data;
- require UKGI 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 UKGI is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
- ask UKGI to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override UKGI’s legitimate grounds for processing data.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer using the details listed at the top of this notice.
You can make a subject access request by contacting the Data Protection Officer using the details set out at the start of this notice.
If you believe that UKGI has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Email: [email protected]
What if you do not provide personal data?
You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to UKGI during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, UKGI may not be able to process your application properly or at all.
Automated decision-making
Recruitment processes are not based solely on automated decision-making.