Privacy notice

In accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we have implemented this privacy notice to inform you, as prospective candidates and clients of our Company, of the types of data we process about you. We also include within this notice the reasons for processing your data, the lawful basis that permits us to process it, how long we keep your data for and your rights regarding your data.

A)  Who we are and what we do

We are a recruitment agency and recruitment business as defined in the Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003.  We collect the personal data of the following types of people to allow us to undertake our business:

• Prospective and placed candidates for permanent or temporary roles
• Prospective and live client contacts
• Supplier contacts to support our services
• Employees

We collect information about you to carry out our core business

B) Purposes of the processing

The core service we offer to our candidates and clients is the introduction of candidates to our clients for the purpose of temporary or permanent employment.

If you are a candidate, we may use information held about you:

• to process your application
• for matching you with any of our clients and placing you with any of our clients
• to contact you for future work-finding services

In addition, or if you are a client or other third party, we may use information held about you in the following ways:

• to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us
• to notify you about changes to any of our services
• to provide you with information or services that you expressly request from any of us or which any of us feels may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes
• to meet any of our obligations under any applicable laws or regulations
• to carry out any obligations or provide you with any other services, functionality or content which you specifically agree to
• to help us establish, exercise or defend legal claims

You may change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us at tony@emponics.com

We do not use your personal information to make automated decisions. All our recruitment activities and ancillary services involve human decision making in the process.

C) Data protection principles

Under GDPR, all personal data obtained and held by us must be processed according to a set of core principles. In accordance with these principles, we will ensure that:

1. processing is fair, lawful and transparent
2. data is collected for specific, explicit, and legitimate purposes
3. data collected is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purposes of processing
4. data is kept accurate and up to date. Data which is found to be inaccurate will be rectified or erased without delay
5. data is not kept for longer than is necessary for its given purpose
6. data is processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of personal data including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage by using appropriate technical or organisation measures
7. we comply with the relevant GDPR procedures for international transferring of personal data

D) Types of data held

We keep several categories of personal data on our prospective candidates in order to carry out effective and efficient processes. We keep this data in recruitment files relating to each vacancy and we also hold the data within our computer systems, for example within Outlook ..

Specifically, we hold the following types of data:

1. personal details such as name, address, email and phone numbers
2. confirmation of right to work
3. information gathered via the recruitment process such as that entered into a CV or included in a CV cover letter or summary
4. reference contact details from former employers
5. details on your education and employment history etc
6. if you have a driving licence

If you are a client:

1. Contact details  , name , address, email address, phone number
2. Vacancy details , job title , job content , salary package
3. Terms of business , fee charges
4. Invoice details

E) Collecting your data

You provide several pieces of data to us directly during the recruitment process.

Should you be successful in your job application, we may gather further information from you, for example, reference contact details .

F) Lawful basis for processing

The law on data protection allows us to process your data for certain reasons only.

The following information categorises the types of data processing we undertake and the lawful basis we rely on.

G) Special categories of data

As a general rule we do not need information from candidates from these special categories. Our information collection forms do not request them and we ask that you do not include them in your CV or other information you send us. If you feel that information from one of those categories is material to an application please email:  tony@emponics.com before emailing the content to discuss how best it should be handled.

Special categories of data are data relating to your:

1. health
2. sex life
3. sexual orientation
4. race
5. ethnic origin
6. political opinion
7. religion
8. trade union membership
9. genetic and biometric data.

We could  carry out processing activities using special category data:

1. for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring
2. to determine reasonable adjustments

Most commonly, we will process special categories of data when the following applies:

1. a) you have given explicit consent to the processing
2. b) we must process the data in order to carry out our legal obligations
3. c) we must process data for reasons of substantial public interest
4. d) you have already made the data public

H) Criminal conviction data

We will only collect criminal conviction data where it is appropriate given the nature of your role and where the law permits us. This data will usually be collected at the recruitment stage, however, may also be collected at offer stage . We use criminal conviction data to determine your suitability, or your continued suitability for a specific role .

I) Who we share your data with

Employees within our company who have responsibility for recruitment will have access to your data which is relevant to their function. All employees with such responsibility have been trained in ensuring data is processing in line with GDPR.

Data is shared with third parties for the following reasons: Identifying information of candidates provided to Clients; Pre-Screening requirements in order to enter into a contract engagement.

We do not share your data with bodies outside of the European Economic Area.

J) Protecting your data

We are aware of the requirement to ensure your data is protected against accidental loss or disclosure, destruction and abuse. We have implemented processes to guard against such.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data in its transmission to us over the public internet to us , we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

K) Retention periods

We only keep your data for as long as we need it for, which, in relation to unsuccessful candidates, is 2 years..

If your application is not successful and we have not sought consent or you have not provided consent upon our request to keep your data for the purpose of future suitable job vacancies, we will keep your data for 2 years once the recruitment exercise ends.

If we have sought your consent to keep your data on file for future job vacancies, and you have provided consent, we will keep your data for 3 years once the recruitment exercise ends. At the end of this period, we will delete or destroy your data, unless you have already withdrawn your consent to our processing of your data in which case it will be deleted or destroyed upon your withdrawal of consent.

Where you have provided consent to our use of your data, you also have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This means that we will stop processing your data and there will be no consequences of withdrawing consent.

If your application is successful, your data will be kept and transferred to the systems we administer for employees.

L) Automated decision making

Automated decision making means making decision about you using no human involvement e.g. using computerised filtering equipment. No decision will be made about you solely on the basis of automated decision making (where a decision is taken about you using an electronic system without human involvement) which has a significant impact on you.

M) Your rights

You have the following rights in relation to the personal data we hold on you:

1. the right to be informed about the data we hold on you and what we do with it
2. the right of access to the data we hold on you
3. the right for any inaccuracies in the data we hold on you, however they come to light, to be corrected.  This is also known as ‘rectification’
4. the right to have data deleted in certain circumstances. This is also known as erasure’
5. the right to restrict the processing of the data
6. the right to transfer the data we hold on you to another party. This is also known as ‘portability’
7. the right to object to the inclusion of any information
8. the right to regulate any automated decision-making and profiling of personal data

In addition to the above rights, you also have the unrestricted right to withdraw consent, that you have previously provided, to our processing of your data at any time. Withdrawing your consent means that we will stop processing the data that you had previously given us consent to use. There will be no consequences for withdrawing your consent. However, in some cases, we may continue to use the data where so permitted by having a legitimate reason for doing so.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights explained above, please email tony@emponics.com.

N) Making a complaint

If you think your data rights have been breached, you are able to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner (ICO). You can contact the ICO at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745

O) Data protection compliance

Our appointed compliance officer in respect of our data protection activities is:

Tony Hockey
Email address: tony@emponics.com
Emponics Limited