Job Applicant Privacy Notice

Data controller: University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), Carmarthen Campus, Carmarthen, SA31 3EP

Data protection officer: Paul Osborne (foi@uwtsd.ac.uk)

As part of any recruitment process, UWTSD collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. We are committed to being transparent about how we collect and use your data and to meeting our data protection obligations.

We collect a range of information about you. This includes:

• Your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number(s);
• Your date of birth and your NI number;
• Details of your qualifications, skills, experience, training courses attended and professional memberships;
• Your language skills;
• Details of your employment history,  including start and end dates;
• Information about your salary in your current or most recent employment;
• Whether or not you have a disability for which we need to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process;
• Other equality data for monitoring recruitment statistics;
• Information about your entitlement to work in the UK: and
• Information about any unspent convictions under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

We collect this information in a variety of ways. For example data might be contained in application forms, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment which form part of the selection process.

We will seek information from third parties about a successful applicant. We will seek information only once a job offer has been made and with your permission.   We collect personal data about you from references supplied by former employers and for certain roles verification of criminal records undertaken by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).   

Data will be securely stored in a range of different places, including in HR management systems and on other IT systems (including the email system).

We may need to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you, for example about your availability to commence employment. We will also need to process your data to enter into a contract with you if you accept a job offer.

In some cases, UWTSD needs to process data to ensure that we are complying with our legal obligations. For example we are required to check a successful applicant’s eligibility to work in the UK before employment commences.

UWTSD 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 us to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm an applicant’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. We may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

We process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief, to monitor recruitment statistics. We also collect information about whether or not applicants consider themselves to be disabled in order to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process. We process such information to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

For some roles, UWTSD is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where we seek this information, it is because it is necessary for us to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

Your information may be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, and IT staff where access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles.  Managers involved in shortlisting candidates for interview do not have access to the personal details and monitoring section of your application form.

UWTSD 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 your former employers to obtain references for you. We will also share your data with our chosen Identity Service Provider (IDSP) in order to complete a Right to Work check on our behalf.  For certain roles, we will share your data with the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks when you will also need to read the DBS’s privacy policy.

UWTSD takes the security of your data seriously. We have 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.

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, we will hold your data on file for six months after the end of the relevant recruitment process.  At the end of that period, or once you withdraw your consent, your data is deleted/destroyed.  This period may be extended in order to meet UKVI requirements for a particular vacancy.  We retain special categories of data about job applicants, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief which enables us to monitor recruitment statistics, for example to publish in the Annual Equality Report.   Data published in reports is anonymised.

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file and HR management systems and retained during your employment. Our Employee Privacy Notice informs staff members about the retention of their personal data.

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to UWTSD during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, we may not be able to process your application properly or at all.

UWTSD recruitment processes are not based solely on automated decision-making.

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You have a right to access your personal information, to object to the processing of your personal information, to rectify, to erase, to restrict and to port your personal information.  If you have given consent for UWTSD to process any of your data then you also have the right to withdraw that consent.

If you would like to ask any questions, or raise any concerns or objections to the processing of your personal data, or to exercise any of your rights as a data subject, please contact Paul Osborne the University’s Data Protection Officer (foi@uwtsd.ac.uk) in the first instance.

If you remain dissatisfied then you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF
ico.org.uk

This privacy notice was published on 25th May 2018 and will be reviewed before we make any changes to our data practices or there is a change in data protection regulations.