Cornwall Council is a data controller under data protection legislation, registration number Z1745294. That means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use the personal information collected about you.
Cornwall Council is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. We are required under the data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your application to obtain employment with us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice from time to time. It is important that you read this notice so that you are aware and understand how we are using your personal information.
What personal data do we collect?
We collect, store and use the following categories of personal information from you:
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Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers and personal email addresses
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Date of birth
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Gender
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Marital status and dependents
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National Insurance number
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Copy of driving licence
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Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process)
We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:
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Where applicable or if consent is given, equality and diversity monitoring information, for example, information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief
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Information about your health; including any medical condition, health and sickness records
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Where applicable, information about criminal convictions and offences
We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law.
How we collect personal information:
We typically collect personal information about prospective employees through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or background check agencies. We will collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us.
How we may use your personal data?
We will only use your personal information where we are permitted to do so by law. This includes:
We may use your personal information in the following circumstances:
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Making a decision about your recruitment or appointment
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Determining the terms on which you work for us
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Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK
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Ascertaining your fitness to work
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Complying with health and safety obligations
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Equal opportunities monitoring
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.
How we use particularly sensitive personal information
“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:
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In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent
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Where we need to carry out our legal obligations
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Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring
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Where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:
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We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work.
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We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting
Who we will share your personal information with:
Your information may be shared internally, including with members of the HR team and the recruitment manager in the business area in which you are applying to work.
We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another lawful basis doing so. “Third Parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within Cornwall Council. We may share your personal data with third parties in order to obtain pre-employment references from other employers, obtain employment background checks from third-party providers and obtain necessary criminal records checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service.
The personal information which we collect from you will not be transferred to, or stored at, a destination outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).
How we secure your personal data:
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
How long we will store your personal data for:
Inactive or unsuccessful applications will be destroyed after 12 months of the closing date; although anonymized data will be kept for monitoring purposes.
Your rights in relation to your personal data:
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate. Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
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Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
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Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
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Request the erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to stop processing personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.
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Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
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Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, please complete our Rights of Access, Rectification and Erasure request form, which can be accessed by clicking this link; RARE form.
If you wish to object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Data Protection Officer in writing at Cornwall Council, 4th Floor, New County Hall, Treyew Road, Truro, Cornwall TR1 3AY or by email dpo@cornwall.gov.uk
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other legal rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in such circumstances, and in all cases, where we are permitted to do so by law.
We may need to request specific information from you in order to confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information or exercise any of your other rights. This is another appropriate security measure which we use to ensure that your personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
Your right to withdraw your consent:
Where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Data Protection Officer. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so.
Data Protection Officer:
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice and the data protection legislation in general. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.
Amendments to this privacy notice:
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time and will notify you where we make substantial changes. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.