Privacy Notice: Recruitment

As part of any recruitment process, the practice collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants and is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data in line with data protection legislation.

What information does the practice collect?

The practice collects a range of information about you. This includes:

• 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 practice needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process;
• Information about your entitlement to work in the UK; and
• Equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief

The practice collects this information in a variety of ways, such as:

• Application forms:
• CVs or resumes;
• Copies of your passport other identity documents;
• Information collected through interviews

The practice 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;
• The practice may seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made and will inform you that it is doing so.

Why does the practice process personal data?

The practice needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. It also needs to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

The practice needs to process data to ensure that it complies with its legal obligations such as being required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

The practice 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 practice to:

• Manage the recruitment process;
• Assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment;
• Decide to whom to offer a job;
• Respond to and defend against legal claims.

Where the practice relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it will consider whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of applicants, employees or workers.

The practice will process health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment. Where the practice processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

The practice is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences in line with NHS Employers guidelines on criminal records checks.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes:

• Interviewers involved in the recruitment process
• Managers in the area with a vacancy
• IT staff

The practice will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. The practice will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks.

The practice will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

How does the practice protect data?

The practice takes the security of your data seriously. Internal policies and controls are 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.

For how long does the practice keep data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the practice will hold your data on file for no longer than six months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period, 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 during your employment. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.

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 the practice to change incorrect or incomplete data;
• Require the practice 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 the practice is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
• Ask the practice to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the practice's legitimate grounds for processing data.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact The Medical Centre.

If you believe that the practice 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 the practice during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, the practice may not be able to process your application properly or at all.

Automated decision-making

The practice does not use any form of automated decision making during the recruitment process.