This Privacy Notice was superseded on 20 October 2022
This version was valid from 25 May 2018 to 20 October 2022
As part of any recruitment process, West Lindsey District Council (the council) collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The council is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations. The purpose of this privacy notice is to make you aware of how and why we will collect and use your personal information during the recruitment process. The council are required under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.
This privacy notice applies to all job applicants, whether you apply for a role directly or indirectly through an employment agency. It is non-contractual.
Please see our full Privacy Notice
What information does the organisation collect?
The council collects and processes a range of information about you during a recruitment process. 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 organisation 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.
How is information collected?
The council collects this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment.
The council 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 council 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).
Why does the council process personal data?
The council will use the personal information you provide to process your application. The information you provide on an application form makes it easier for us to assess your skills and knowledge against another applicant’s in a fair and consistent way.
The council may also process information about whether or not applicants are disabled to make reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability in order to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment practices.
The council 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.
In some cases, the council 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.
The council 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 council to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. The council may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.
Where the council processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, age, health or religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes as permitted by the Data Protection Act 2018. You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide personal information to the council during the recruitment process.
For some roles, the council is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where the council 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/comply with a regulatory requirement to establish whether or not an individual has committed an unlawful act or been involved in dishonesty or other improper conduct.
The organisation will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied.
Who we may share your information with
Your information will 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 service area with a vacancy and IT staff if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles.
We may need to share the information you have provided with:
- Third party organisations (for the purpose of seeking references)
- Disclosure and Barring Service
- Occupational Health Provider
- Other Government agencies, HMRC, CSA
We are also required to check individual’s immigration status (as applicable) with Government Agencies.
We are also permitted by law to protect public funds. To this end, we may share information that you provided for the prevention and detection of fraud.
How does the council protect data?
The council 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.
For how long does the organisation keep data?
If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the council will hold your data on file for 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 for Employees.
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 council to change incorrect or incomplete data;
- require the council 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 council is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
- ask the council to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the council’s legitimate grounds for processing data.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Human Resources team by email human.resources@west-lindsey.gov.uk
If you believe that the organisation 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 council during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, the council may not be able to process your application properly or at all. If your application is successful, it will be a condition of any job offer that you provide evidence of your right to work in the UK and satisfactory references.
You are under no obligation to provide information for equal opportunities monitoring purposes and there are no consequences for your application if you choose not to provide such information.
Automated decision-making
Recruitment processes are not based solely on automated decision-making.
Please see our full Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice was superseded on 20 October 2022
This version was valid from 25 May 2018 to 20 October 2022