Privacy Notice - Job Applicants

Please read the following Privacy Notice carefully.

Why we are collecting your data

Basildon Borough Council needs to collect your personal data so that the Council can deliver a recruitment process for new staff; contact applicants, process applications for vacancies and appoint suitable applicants.

Information collected

• 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 council needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process

• Information about your entitlement to work in the UK

• Equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin

• Disclosure Baring Service DBS information.

Basildon Borough Council needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. The organisation also needs to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

In some cases Basildon Borough 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.

As an equal opportunity employer we process health information as we may need to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to ensure that we are able to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

We also process other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, for equal opportunity monitoring purposes.

To meet our safeguarding responsibilities we are obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where Basildon Borough 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.

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

The data is collected through:

• Application forms

• Website

• Email

• Phone

• Third Parties.

The basis for the processing

• Contract: the processing is necessary for the Council to have a potential employment contract with you.

• Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for the Council's legitimate interests, in which the Council has considered whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of applicants and has concluded that they are not. This is to ensure the Council can run the recruitment processes and maintaining and promoting equal opportunities within the workplace.

• Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for the Council to comply with the law such as checking the successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

Basildon Borough 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 us as a council to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job.

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to Basildon Borough Council during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, as an organisation we may not be able to process your application.

Who your information will be shared with

• Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR Team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, managers in the vacancy related business area and IT staff if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles

• Basildon Borough Council will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. We 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 council will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area

• We have arrangements with a range of IT providers who support the Council's IT systems and services, therefore your data may be accessed by these suppliers. Where we have these arrangements there is always a contractual agreement with them to ensure they comply with the Data Protection Law.

We will never sell your data, however it will be shared with third parties to:

• Comply with legal obligations and legislative requirements

• To help if there is need of any professional or legal advice on a matter relating to you

• Help prevent fraud or criminal activity

Provide accurate information

We need to hold accurate and up to date information about you so that we can deliver appropriate services. If any of your details change, you need to tell us as soon as possible so that we can update your records.

We will not:

• Use your information for marketing or sales purposes without your prior explicit consent.

• Send or store your data abroad unless it meets the requirements of the Data Protection regulations

• Make decisions about you based on automated processing.

How long will we hold your data for?

We will keep all records relating to Recruitment for 1 year if unsuccessful. If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.

Your rights

You have the right to access the personal information we hold about you.  Any access requests are free of charge.
If the information we hold about you is inaccurate, you have a right to have this corrected and you have the right to request completion of incomplete data.
You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data in certain circumstances ('right to be forgotten').

You have the right to ask us to stop or restrict the processing of your personal data, in certain circumstances.  Where possible, we will seek to comply with your request, but we may need to hold or process information to comply with a legal requirement.

You can make any of these requests by:

• Email: Data Protection Officer

• Phone: 01268 533333

• Letter to:

If you are dissatisfied with how we have used your personal information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, by:

• Email: casework@ico.org.uk (opens new window)

• Phone: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745

• Letter to:

Further independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues is available from the Information Commissioner's Office, see:

• Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) (opens new window).