Recruitment – privacy notice

As part of any recruitment process, Portsmouth City Council (PCC) collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. PCC is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). This privacy notice tells you about how the Council collects and uses personal information relating to the recruitment process.

PCC can collect a range of information about you. This can include:

• 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 the organisation needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process
• Information about your entitlement to work in the UK

PCC may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data will be contained in your submitted application, CV or resume, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment both in person and online.

PCC, where relevant and required, 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. PCC will seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made except where the application is for a safeguarding position references will be obtained, where approval has been given, upfront.

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).

PCC needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you.

It may also need to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

In some cases, PCC needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to check a successful applicant’s eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

Processing data from job applicants allows PCC to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. PCC may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

PCC may process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religion or belief to monitor recruitment statistics, these statistics are anonymised. It may also collect information about whether or not applicants are disabled to ensure reasonable  adjustments can be made within the recruitment process. PCC processes such information to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

For some roles, PCC is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where PCC 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 and relevant legislation.

For a very few roles a pre-employment medical may be required, PCC does so because it is necessary for it to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment, your consent to this pre-employment medical will be requested at the appropriate time in the recruitment process.

PCC will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied.

Your information may be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR and Recruitment Team, interviewers involved in 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.

PCC will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment or we have your authorisation to do so in advance for example for a reference request. PCC may share your data with former employers to obtain employment references, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks. If applying for an apprenticeship, we will also share your information with the provider in order to register and support you with the apprenticeship.

PCC will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

PCC takes the security of your data 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.

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, PCC will hold your data on file for 6 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period, data is deleted 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 privacy notice for employees.

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

• Access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
• Require PCC to change incorrect or incomplete data;
• Require PCC to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing; and
• Object to the processing of your data where PCC is relying on legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact

Data Protection Officer
Portsmouth City Council
Civic Offices
Portsmouth
PO1 2AL

Email: foi@portsmouthcc.gov.uk, Telephone: 023 9282 2251

If you believe that PCC has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

Information Commissioner’s Office,
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (if you prefer to use a national rate number)

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

Recruitment processes are not based on any automated decision-making.

PCC keeps its privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 16/05/2018

Portsmouth City Council is a registered Data Controller, Registration Number Z5578313