Staff recruitment privacy notice

Information you need to know

The Human Resources department is part of Liverpool John Moores University. See further information on the institution.

Liverpool John Moores University is the Data Controller.

Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted at DPO@ljmu.ac.uk.

Liverpool John Moores University takes your privacy very seriously. This privacy notice explains how we use your personal information and your rights regarding that information. We are committed to being transparent about how we collect and use your data and to meeting our data protection obligations.

What information are we collecting?

The University collects a range of information about you during the recruitment process. 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
• bank details at on-boarding stage to set you up for pay if you are successful in your job application
• whether you have a disability for which the University 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 age, ethnic origin, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy/ maternity and religion or belief - this information will not be shared with the recruitment panel and will only be used for monitoring purposes or to assist you where you require special adjustments

The University may collect 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.

The University may also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers and information from criminal records checks. The University will hold referee details supplied by you and other third parties to seek information during the application process, with your permission, 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 (including our recruitment system, Hireserve recruitment software). If successful your data may be stored on grant management systems (where there is external funding relating to your post), HR systems and on other IT systems (including email).

Why are we collecting your data and what is the legal basis for this?

The University needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. It may also need to process your data to enter into an employment contract with you.

The legal basis for processing this personal data is either contract and/or legal obligation when applying for roles and the employment contract between the University and the individual if successful.

In some cases, the University needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations such as checking a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts.

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

The University may process information about whether applicants are disabled to make reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

The University processes other special categories of data in relation to protected characteristics defined under the Equality Act 2010 for equal opportunities monitoring purposes under the condition of being necessary for employment purposes.

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

For other roles, and in order to comply with Health and Safety legislation, we are obliged to ask for additional information on your health status in order to protect your health and safety at work.

If your application is unsuccessful, the University may keep your personal data in case there are future employment opportunities for which you may be suited for a period of 12 months upon which your details will be anonymised and only used for equal opportunities monitoring purposes, unless you specific that you would like your data to be continued to held on the University’s recruitment system.

In addition to the above basis, we may also process for other reasons where it has received your explicit, freely given consent.

Who has access to this data?

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

Information related to your health will be managed by the University’s Occupational Health Department and will not be shared outside Occupational Health without your express consent.

The University will not routinely share your data with third parties. However for the purposes of pre-employment checking we may gather references during the application process. The University will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks, where appropriate. If an external funding body is directly funding the employment, then payroll data and CV’s may be shared with this funder.

If your employment is funded on grant monies, salary information and your curriculum vitae may need to be passed to the external funding body for approval.

How does the University protect your data?

The University 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. The candidate management system used for applications and the management of the recruitment process is known as Hireserve recruitment software. Hireserve’s Applicant Tracking System hosting provider, Rackspace, is based in the UK and complies with the ISO 27001 information security standard

For how long does the University keep your data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the University will hold your data on Hireserve recruitment system after the end of the relevant recruitment process in order to alert you to other vacancies that might be of interest to you. This data will be kept for 12 months after which it will be anonymised, unless you confirmed that you would like your personal data to be continued to be held in the recruitment system.

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 and afterwards in line with legislation including the storage of personal records and to comply with the requirements of the UK Borders Agency and other statutory bodies. This information can be held electronically on the University’s HR system, Staff Infobase, and also in paper format.

We retain employee data for six years from the end of employment as outlined in the University’s retention schedules. For more information please see the university’s retention schedule

Your rights

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

• access and obtain a copy of your data on request, this could be in a portable electronic format
• require the University to change incorrect or incomplete data if you think that it is inaccurate or out of date
• require the University to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary or legally required for the purposes of processing
• if your personal data has been provided by consent, you have a right to withdraw that consent at any time.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer DPO@ljmu.ac.uk.

What if you do not provide data?

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

Transfers of data outside the EAA

Generally, we do not send your personal data outside the European Economic Area. Where we transfer the personal information we collect about you to countries outside the EU in order to perform our contract with you/or a contract with another organisation that requires your personal data i.e. a collaboration agreement with a University based outside of the EU. We ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection and we have put in place the following appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the EU and UK laws on data protection, for example model contractual clauses, data sharing/data processing agreement and binding corporate rules (where applicable).

Automated decision making

We will not make any decisions about you automatically using a computer, based on your personal data. All decisions affecting you will be taken by a human.

How to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office?

You have the right to complain to The Information Commissioner if you believe that our processing of your personal data does not meet our data protection obligations. The Information Commissioner can be contacted:

Post: Information Commissioners Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK95AF.
Telephone: 0303 123 1113.
Email: contact can be made by accessing www.ico.org.uk