Job applicant privacy notice

OPFS collects a range of information about you. 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 OPFS 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.

OPFS collects this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in application forms, CVs or resumes, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment.

OPFS may 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. OPFS 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).

OPFS 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, OPFS 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.

OPFS 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 OPFS to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. OPFS may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

OPFS processes health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

Where OPFS processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

For some roles, OPFS is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where OPFS 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.

If your application is unsuccessful, OPFS will keep your personal data on file for 6 months for the purposes of providing feedback. OPFS will ask for your consent before it keeps your data for this purpose and you are free to withdraw your consent at any time.

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR and recruitment team, and interviewers involved in the recruitment process.

OPFS will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. OPFS 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.

OPFS will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

OPFS 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. Please contact us for details of our ICT Policy, Data Protection Policy, Confidentiality Policy, Data Retention and Destruction Policy.

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, OPFS will hold your data on file for 6 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period [or once you withdraw your consent], 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 included in your conditions of employment.

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

• access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
• require OPFS to change incorrect or incomplete data;
• require OPFS 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 OPFS is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
• ask OPFS to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override OPFS legitimate grounds for processing data.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact Ann McKenzie, Deputy Director, One Parent Families Scotland, 2 York Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3EP, 0131 556 3899.

If you believe that OPFS has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. www.ico.org.uk

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to OPFS during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, OPFS may not be able to process your application properly or at all.

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.

OPFS recruitment processes do not include automated decision-making.