Job Applicant Privacy Notice
As part of our recruitment processes, the Company collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The Company is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.
Aquis is a “Data Controller” and gathers and uses certain information about you.
What information does the Company collect?
The Company collects a range of information about you. This includes:
- Your name, address and contact details, including email address and home and mobile phone numbers.
- Details of your qualifications, skills, experience, and employment history, including start and end dates with previous employers and with the Company where relevant.
- Information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements.
- Whether or not you have a disability for which the Company needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process.
- Information about your entitlement to work in the UK.
The Company may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms, CVs or resumes, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment, including online tests.
The Company may 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. The Company 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 and hard copy notes).
Why does Aquis process personal data?
Aquis 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, Aquis 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.
Aquis 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 Aquis to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. The Company may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.
Aquis may process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, to monitor recruitment statistics. Aquis also may collect information about whether or not applicants are disabled in order to make reasonable adjustments for candidates during the recruitment process who have a disability. Aquis processes such information to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.
For some roles, Aquis is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where Aquis 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.
Aquis will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied.
Who has access to data?
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.
Aquis also shares your data with third parties that process data on its behalf, in connection with its Human Resources provider, recruitment partner, and the provision of occupational health services. The recipients of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations. We may also be required to share some personal information as required to comply with law or regulation such as with UK Visas and Immigration and law enforcement agencies.
Your data may be transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to (specify purpose). Data is transferred outside the EEA on the basis of (specify relevant safeguards e.g. declaration of adequacy, binding corporate rules or other safeguards).
How does Aquis protect data?
Aquis 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.
Where Aquis engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf during the recruitment process, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical Aquis measures to ensure the security of data.
For how long does Aquis keep data?
If your application for employment is unsuccessful, and if you agree to allow Aquis to keep your personal data on file, Aquis will hold your data on file for 6 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process for consideration for future employment opportunities. At the end of that period, or once you withdraw your consent, your 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 for the duration of your employment. The periods for which your data will be held are contained in Aquis’s Data Protection Policy.
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 Aquis to change incorrect or incomplete data.
- Require Aquis 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 Aquis is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact HR
If you believe that Aquis has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.
What if you do not provide personal data?
You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to Aquis during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information Aquis 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.