Title: Data Privacy Notice (Candidates)
Author: Kirstie Shannon (HR Director) and Elaine Yersin (Information Governance Manager)
Responsible Person: Kirstie Shannon (HR Director)
Operational Responsible Person: Steve Scott (Chief of Recruitment)
Department: HR
Authorised: Dr Bahman Nedjat-Shokouhi (CEO)
Issue Date: April 2024
Review Date: April 2027
Who does this policy apply to? All individuals who apply for a role working at Medefer. This includes contractor roles and employee roles.
Compliance Monitoring (Audit/spot checks): Weekly Teamtailor data notifications, CQC Inspection, spot checks, Data Security and Protection Toolkit.
Training & Communication: All HR and Recruitment team members are shown how to access the policy as well as how to action and update data requests within the platform.
All concerns should be directed to data.protection@medefer.com
Policy locations and references: BambooHR, Teamtailor, Radar
Keywords: Privacy, Data Protection, Sensitive Information, Personal Information
Version: V02.0
Revision date: April 2024
Approved by: Elaine Yersin, Information Governance Manager
Summary of changes:
April 2024 General review
Executive Summary
Medefer Limited is a data controller in relation to personal data. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you as a job applicant. You are being sent a copy of this privacy notice because you are applying for work with us (whether as an employee, worker or contractor). It explains how and why your personal data will be collected and used, namely for the purposes of the recruitment exercise, and how long it will usually be retained for. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.
1. Aim of this Policy
The aim of this policy is to ensure that candidates and new individuals working at the Company as an employee, contractor, bank worker or volunteer understand how their personal data is used and the process under which it is protected. The policy also informs the candidates of their rights in connection with personal information.
2. Definitions
- Personal data or personal information - means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
There are certain types of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection, such as information about a person's health or sexual orientation.
Information about criminal convictions also warrants this higher level of protection.
- CQC – Care Quality Commission – A Government Agency that regulates and inspects health and social care service in England.
- ICO - Information Commissioner’s Office - The UK’s independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.
- UK GDPR and The Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK's implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Everyone responsible for using personal data has to follow strict rules called 'data protection principles'. They must make sure the information is: used fairly, lawfully, and transparently.
Roles and Responsibilities
Data Protection Officer
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer 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 Data Protection Officer (data.protection@medefer.com) You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) who is responsible for data protection issues in the UK.
Recruitment team
Our HR and Recruitment Team are responsible for ensuring that any Teamtailor data requests are actioned in line with this policy alongside any requests made through other channels.
4. Policy Information
Data protection principles
Medefer will comply with data protection law and principles. This states that the personal information we hold about you must be:
- Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
- Collected only for valid purposes, that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
- Accurate and kept up to date.
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
- Kept securely.
- We are accountable for upholding the above.
The kind of information we hold about you
In connection with your application for work with us, we will collect, store, and process the following personal information about you:
- The information you have provided to us in your CV, covering letter and responses to questions asked within your Teamtailor application.
- The information you have provided on our application form, including name, title, address, telephone number, personal email address, date of birth, gender, employment history, qualifications.
- Any information you provide to us during an interview, including any part of the interview that may be recorded on Microsoft Teams with your verbal consent and your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements.
- Any other information included as part of the application process, such as test results.
- Information about criminal convictions and offences.
- Information about your entitlement to work in the UK if this has been provided during the interview and selection process.
We may also collect, store and process the following ‘special categories’ of more sensitive personal information:
- Whether you have a disability for which the Company needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process; and
- Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
- Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
How is your personal information collected?
We collect personal information about candidates through the application and recruitment process from the following sources:
- You, the candidate your CV and cover letter.
- Interviews, meetings or other forms of assessment, including tests and other information provided directly by you.
- Recruitment agencies.
- Background check providers.
- Credit reference agencies.
- Disclosure and Barring Service in respect of criminal convictions.
- Your named referees.
- GMC registration database.
- We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers.
- Internet searches may be used by the Company as part of due diligence processes on candidates in the course of recruitment and selection. Social media platforms which may include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram may be viewed for these purposes.
How will we store your data?
Data will be stored on your application/candidate record in Teamtailor and on other IT systems (including the Company’s email system) if communications are via any other sources outside of Teamtailor.
How we will use information about you
We will use the personal information we collect about you to:
- Assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the work
- Carry out background and reference checks, where applicable.
- Communicate with you about the recruitment process.
- Keep records related to our hiring processes.
- Comply with legal or regulatory requirements.
We also need to process your personal information to decide whether to enter into a contract with you.
The Company 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 the Company to manage an effective recruitment process, assess and confirm your suitability for employment and decide who to offer a job to. If you are successful, we will also need to process your personal data in order to decide the terms on which we will enter into an employment contract with you. The Company may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to, defend against and otherwise deal with legal disputes involving you or other job applicants, our employees, workers or contractors.
The Company will process the “special categories” of data listed above in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in relation to your application
- Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring; and/or
- In limited circumstances where it is needed in relation to legal claims.
We have in place an appropriate policy document and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
We will use the “special categories” of personal data 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 provide appropriate adjustments during the application process.
- We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting. Data that the Company uses for these purposes is anonymised or is collected with your express consent, which can be withdrawn at any time. You are entirely free to decide whether or not to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.
Given the industry in which we work, we are obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where the Company seeks this information, it does so because it is necessary for us to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment. We have in place an appropriate policy document and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
If your application is unsuccessful, the Company may keep your personal data on file in case there are future employment opportunities for which you may be suited. We will ask for your consent before we keep your data for this purpose and you are free to withdraw your consent at any time.
If you fail to provide personal information
If you fail to provide information when requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully. For example, if we require a DBS check or references for the role and you fail to provide us with the relevant details, we will not be able to progress your application.
How we use particularly sensitive personal information
We will use your sensitive personal information in the following ways:
- We will use information about your disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment process, for example whether adjustments need to be made during a test or interview.
- We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.
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 and provided we do so in line with our policies.
We hold information about criminal convictions in line with the Medefer DBS policy.
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 and apply for DBS checks and/or a relevant police check as may be appropriate, prior to the commencement of employment.
We are allowed to use your personal information in this way to carry out our obligations. We have in place an appropriate policy and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
Automated decision-making
You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.
Data sharing
Who has access to data?
Your information may be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes the hiring manager, interviewers and others involved in managing the recruitment process, managers in the business area with a vacancy and IT staff if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles.
Why might you share my personal information with third parties?
Apart from your data being held within Teamtailor, our recruitment platform, we 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 third parties in order to contact former employers to obtain references for you, obtain employment background checks from third party providers and to obtain necessary criminal record checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) or an equivalent check if you reside outside of England.
All our third-party service providers and other entities are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information and 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.
Data security
Medefer has 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.
We have put in place policies and 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 will retain your personal information for a period of 12 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements and for consideration for future employment opportunities. After this period, you will receive a notification from Teamtailor to the email address that you initially registered interest with Medefer asking if you would like the system and Medefer to retain your personal information. If you do not give consent to this, your data will be automatically deleted from the platform in accordance with our Records Management Policy. If you are a successful candidate, information will be used to create your personnel file and retained in line with our Retention and Disposal Policy and national guidance. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice. Unless you confirm otherwise in notifications from Teamtailor, your personal information will also remain within the Teamtailor platform.
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 from you.
Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction
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.
- 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 where it is appropriate to do so.
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 data.protection@medefer.com
Right to withdraw consent
When you applied for this role, you provided consent to us processing your personal information for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. You have the right to withdraw your consent for processing for that purpose at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact data.protection@medefer.com
or request to be deleted via your Teamtailor Candidate account. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your application and, subject to our retention policy, we will dispose of your personal data securely. When a request is made via Teamtailor, your data will automatically be removed from the system within a 7-day period.
5. Confidentiality
- Any Confidentiality and/or Data Protection requirements are covered in this policy.
6. External bodies
- CQC – Care Quality Commission
- DBS – Disclosure and Barring Service – gov.uk
- ICO – Information Commissioner’s Office
7. External References and Associated Medefer Documents
- Human Rights Act 1998
- Employment Act 2002
- UK GDPR
- CQC Guidance
- Data Protection Act 2018
