Recruitment Privacy Policy

Data protection privacy notice (recruitment)

This notice explains what personal data (information) we will hold about you, how we collect it, and how we will use and may share information about you during the application process. We are required to notify you of this information, under data protection legislation. Please ensure that you read this notice (sometimes referred to as a ‘privacy notice’) and any other similar notice we may provide to you from time to time when we collect or process personal information about you.

Who collects the information

TBD Legal Limited trading as Thomas Legal (‘Company’) is a ‘data controller’ and gathers and uses certain information about you.

Data protection principles

We will comply with the data protection principles when gathering and using personal information, as set out in our data protection (employment) policy.

What information do we collect and hold (process)?

We may collect the following information up to and including the shortlisting stage of the recruitment process:

• Your name and contact details (i.e. address, home and mobile phone numbers, email address);
• Details of your qualifications, experience, employment history (including job titles, salary and working hours) and interests;
• Your racial or ethnic origin, sex and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs;
• Details of your referees.

We may collect the following information after the shortlisting stage, and before making a final decision to recruit:

• Information about your previous academic and/or employment history, including details of any conduct, grievance or performance issues, appraisals, time and attendance, from references obtained about you from previous employers and/or education providers;
• Information regarding your academic and professional qualifications;
• Information regarding your criminal record;
• Your nationality and immigration status and information from related documents, such as your passport or other identification and immigration information;
• A copy of your driving licence.

You are required (by law or in order to enter into your contract of employment) to provide certain information to us to enable us to verify your right to work and to assess your suitability for the position.

How we collect the information

We may collect this information from you, your referees (details of whom you will have provided), your education provider, the relevant professional body, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), the Home Office.

Why we collect the information and how we use it

We will typically collect and use this information for the following purposes:

• to take steps to enter into a contract;
• for compliance with a legal obligation (e.g. our obligation to check that you are eligible to work in the United Kingdom);
• for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest; and
• for the purposes of our legitimate interests, but only if these are not overridden by your interests, rights or freedoms.

We seek to ensure that our information collection and processing is always proportionate. We will notify you of any changes to information we collect or to the purposes for which we collect and process it.

How we may share the information

At times we may have vacancies open both at Thomas Legal and also at Thomas Legal’s sister Company, Equilaw.  If we consider you to be potentially suitable for an open vacancy at Equilaw we will share your information with the Directors of Equilaw for the purpose of determining your suitability.  If you do not wish to be considered for a vacancy at Equilaw please do not hesitate to inform us in your application to Thomas Legal.

We may also need to share some of the above categories of personal information with other parties, such as HR consultants and professional advisers. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations. We may also be required to share some personal information with our regulators or as required to comply with the law.

Where information may be held

Information may be held at our offices and those of third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above.

How long we keep your information

We keep the personal information that we obtain about you during the recruitment process for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. How long we keep your information will depend on whether your application is successful and you become employed by us, the nature of the information concerned and the purposes for which it is processed.

We will keep recruitment information (including interview notes) for no longer than is reasonable, taking into account the limitation periods for potential claims such as race or sex discrimination (as extended to take account of early conciliation), after which they will be destroyed unless you ask us to keep your records on file for consideration in future recruitment decisions, in which case we will keep them until you notify us otherwise. If there is a clear business reason for keeping recruitment records for longer than the recruitment period, we may do so but will first consider whether the records can be pseudonymised, and the longer period for which they will be kept.

If your application is successful, we will keep only the recruitment information that is necessary in relation to your employment.

Further details on our approach to information retention and destruction are available from our Data Protection Officer.

Your right to access your data and to ask for it to be corrected or erased

Please contact David Bush (our Data Protection Officer) or Lisa Arnold (our Head of HR) who can be contacted via our main office telephone number 01452657950 if (in accordance with applicable law) you would like to correct or request access to information that we hold relating to you or if you have any questions about this notice. You also have the right to ask for some but not all of the information we hold and process to be erased (the ‘right to be forgotten’) in certain circumstances. Our Data Protection Officer will provide you with further information about the right to be forgotten, if you ask for it.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

How to complain

We hope that our Data Protection Officer or Head of HR can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information. If not, contact the Information Commissioner at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone: 0303 123 1113 for further information about your rights and how to make a formal complaint.