GDPR Privacy Notice
Fair Processing Notice - for Recruitment Procedures

What is the purpose of this document?

Hargreaves Services plc and all its subsidiaries (Hargreaves) are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during a recruitment/application process, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

This privacy notice applies to all individuals participating in a recruitment/application process. If you fall into one of these categories then you are a "data subject" for the purposes of this privacy notice.

Hargreaves is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

The kind of information we hold about you:

Personal data, or personal information, means any information which relates to a living individual from which that person can be identified (a "data subject") on its own, or when taken together with other information which is likely to come into our possession. It includes any expression of opinion about the individual and an indication of the intentions of us or others, in respect of that individual. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

This privacy notice applies to all personal data whether it is stored electronically, on paper or on other materials.

There are "special categories" of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

  • personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses
  • date of birth
  • gender
  • details of family relationships
  • location of employment or workplace
  • copy of driving licence (if relevant to your role)
  • recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process) and
  • employment information (including job titles, work history, working hours, training records and professional memberships).

We may also collect, store and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information about you:

  • information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions
  • trade union membership
  • information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records and
  • information about criminal convictions and offences.

How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information about you through the application and recruitment process, either directly from you or sometimes from an employment agency, background check provider (e.g. DBS for criminal record checks) or previous employer (for references). We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies, third party medical screening/assessment agencies or other background check agencies.

We will collect additional personal information from you should you be offered and accept employment with Hargreaves. You will be given a separate Privacy Notice in this event.

How we will use information about you?

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

1. Where we need to progress and manage your application or the recruitment process more generally.

2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

3. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

1. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests).

2. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We need all the categories of information in the list above (see The kind of information we hold about you) primarily to allow us to progress and manage your application or the recruitment process more generally and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

Making a decision about your recruitment or appointment. Determining the terms on which you might work for us. Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK. Equal opportunities monitoring.
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

If you fail to provide personal information:

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to progress and manage your application or the recruitment process more generally, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

Change of purpose:

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, 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.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information:

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

1. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.

2. Where we need to carry out our legal obligations.

3. Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

Our obligations as a potential employer:

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety and to assess your fitness to work and to provide appropriate adjustments. We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like to process and the reason we need to process it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.

Information about criminal convictions:

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations.

Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

We envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences to assess your suitability for the role. We are permitted to use your personal information in this way in order to: comply with our legal obligations; and to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).

Automated decision-making:

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:

1. Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request a reconsideration.

2. Where it is necessary and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

3. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however, we will notify you in writing if this position changes.

Data sharing:

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the group.

We require those third parties to keep your personal data confidential and secure and to protect it in accordance with the law and our policies. They are only permitted to process your data for the lawful purpose for which it has been shared and in accordance with our instructions. We may transfer your personal information outside the EU.

If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example when we need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

"Third parties" includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: credit reference agencies, third party medical screening/assessment agencies or other background check agencies.

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with GDPR. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

When might you share my personal information with other entities in the group?

We will share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of recruitment activities elsewhere in the group.

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example when we need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Data security:

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request

Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. Details of these measures may be obtained from the Hargreaves HR Team.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data Retention:

How long will you use my information for?

We keep the personal information that we obtain about you during the recruitment process for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. How long we keep your information will depend on whether your application is successful and you become employed by us, the nature of the information concerned and the purposes for which it is processed.

We will keep recruitment information (including interview notes) for no longer than is reasonable, taking into account the limitation periods for potential claims such as race or sex discrimination (as extended to take account of early conciliation), after which they will be destroyed. If there is a clear business reason for keeping recruitment records for longer than the recruitment period, we may do so but will first consider whether the records can be pseudonymised, and the longer period for which they will be kept.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you

If your application is successful, we will keep only the recruitment information that is necessary in relation to your employment. For further information, see our data protection privacy notice for employees, workers and consultants.

Once you are no longer an employee, worker or contractor of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction:

Your duty to inform us of changes:

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during the application/recruitment process.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it. Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.

Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Hargreaves HR Team in writing.

No fee usually required:

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you?

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to withdraw consent:

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Hargreaves HR Team. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Data Protection Officer

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. Full contact details including a helpline number can be found on the Information Commissioner’s Office website (www.ico.org.uk).

Changes to this Privacy Notice:

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice please contact:

The Hargreaves HR Team on 0191 373 4485