Privacy Notice, Cookie & Data Control Policy
 
Last updated: May 2018
 
This Privacy Notice sets out the basis on which Opus Recruitment Ltd will process personal information provided to us; this information is also referred to as ‘personal data’.
 
We have set out our Privacy Notice, Cookie & Data Control Policy below. This policy is in line with GDPR requirements as well as other relevant legislation and current best practice. Please take some time to read and digest it. If you have any questions or would like any further clarification, please don’t hesitate to contact our Data Protection Officer, Sarah Woods, as detailed below.
 
We take our obligations in respect of the privacy of personal data very seriously and we will only process personal information as detailed in this notice, unless we inform you otherwise. To ensure that the personal data we hold is accurate and up to date, we request that you inform us of any relevant changes to the personal information we hold about you.
 
Our core business activity is recruitment; we assist individuals in finding work with our hirer clients, whether this is directly or through supply by us; and we assist hirers in introducing or supplying the staff that they require. For the purposes of this Privacy Notice, our commercial activities and services for individuals and businesses are referred to as ‘Recruitment Services’, and our actual or potential hiring customers are referred to as ‘Clients’.
 
Opus Recruitment Ltd (Company Registration 11240919) is the Data Controller.
 
The person responsible for data protection matters within our organisation is Sarah Woods, Director and Sarah can be contacted by email: admin@opusrecruits.co.uk.
 
If you do not wish us to process personal data in accordance with this policy, then please do not provide it to us. Please refer to Section 4 ’Your rights ‘, in respect of data that we already hold, or which we receive from third parties.
 
i. Individuals wishing to use or using our Recruitment Services (‘a Candidate’):
 
The personal data we collect or receive may include the following, as applicable:
 
* Name and address
* Email, telephone and any other contact details
* Date of birth
* Job history (including information relating to placements through us)
* Educational history, qualifications & skills
* Visa and other right to work or identity information
* Passport
* Bank details
* National insurance and tax (payroll) information
* Next of kin and family details
* Contact details of referees
* Personal information relating to hobbies, interests and pastimes
* Information contained in references and pre-employment checks from third parties
* Other sensitive personal information such as health records (see ‘Sensitive Personal Data’ section below)
 
We may obtain your personal data from the following sources (please note that this list is not exhaustive):
 
* You (e.g. a Curriculum Vitae, application or registration form)
* A client
* Other candidates
* Online jobsites
* Marketing databases
* The public domain
* Social Media
* At interview
* Conversations on the telephone or video conferencing (which may be recorded)
* Notes following a conversation or meeting
* Our websites and software applications
* Where you are a Candidate and we have obtained your personal data from a third party such as an online job board, it is our policy to advise you of the source when we first communicate with you.
 
How we will use your personal data:
 
The processing of your personal information may include:
 
* Collecting and storing your personal data, whether in manual or electronic files
* Notifying you of potential roles or opportunities
* Assessing and reviewing your suitability for job roles
* Introducing and/or supplying you to actual or potential Clients
* Engaging you for a role with us or with our Clients including any related administration e.g. timesheets and payroll
* Collating market or sector specific information and providing the same to our Clients
* Sending information to third parties with whom we have or intend to enter into arrangements which are related to our Recruitment Services
* Providing information to regulatory authorities or statutory bodies, and our legal or other professional advisers including insurers
* To market our Recruitment Services
* Retaining a record of our dealings
* Establishing quality, training and compliance with our obligations and best practice
* For the purposes of backing up information on our computer systems

Why we process your personal data:
 
1. Entering into and performing a contract with you:
 
In order to provide our Recruitment Services, we may enter into a contract with you and/or a third party. In order to enter into a contract, we will need certain information, for example your name and address. A contract will also contain obligations on both your part and our part and we shall process your data as is necessary for the purpose of those obligations. For example, in order to process payroll, a national insurance number and bank details will be required. This is our contractual obligation.
 
2. Compliance with legal obligations (regulatory and statutory obligations):
 
We must comply with a number of statutory provisions when providing our Recruitment Services, which necessitate the processing of personal data. These include the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, which amongst other things requires us to:
 
* Verify your identity
* Assess your suitability for an external job role
* Maintain records for specific periods  

Where we engage a person to work for us (whether directly or as supplied to a Client), there are other statutory obligations that must be complied with including payroll, tax, social security, HMRC reporting requirements, and any other law or regulation.
 
We are also required to comply with statutory and regulatory obligations relating to business generally, for example complying with tax, bribery, fraud/crime prevention and data protection legislation, and co-operating with regulatory authorities such as HMRC or the Information Commissioner’s Office.
 
3. Our legitimate interests (carrying on the commercial activity of Recruitment Services):
 
In providing our Recruitment Services, we will carry out some processing of personal data which is necessary for the purpose of our legitimate interests, which include: 
 
Retaining records of our dealings and transactions and where applicable, use such records for the purposes of:
 
* Establishing compliance with contractual obligations with Clients or suppliers
* Addressing any query or dispute that may arise including establishing, exercising or defending any legal claims
* Protecting our reputation
* Maintaining a backup of our system, solely for the purpose of being able to restore the system to a particular point in the event of a system failure or security breach
* Evaluating quality and compliance including compliance with this Privacy Notice
* Determining staff training and system requirements
 
Using your personal data to:
 
* Assess suitability and contact you regarding potential opportunities and/or our services
* Collate market information or trends including providing analysis to potential or actual Clients
* Source potential opportunities or roles as part of our Recruitment Services
* Personalise your experience and our offering, whether via our website or otherwise
 
This means that for our commercial viability and to pursue these legitimate interests, we may continue to process your personal data for as long as we consider necessary for these purposes.
 
4. Consent to our processing of your data:
 
We may process your personal data on the basis that you have consented to us doing so for a specific purpose, for example, if you apply for a specific role you may have consented to our processing of the data that has been provided for the purpose of progressing your application and considering your suitability for that role. In other cases, you may have provided your written or verbal consent to the use of your data for a specific reason.
 
You may withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal information for a particular purpose at any stage. However, please note that we may continue to retain, or otherwise use your personal information thereafter where we have a legitimate interest or a legal or contractual obligation to do so. Our processing in that respect will be limited to what is necessary in furtherance of those interests or obligations. Withdrawal of consent will not have any effect on the lawfulness of any processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
 
What if we obtain your personal data from a third party?
 
Part of our business activity involves researching information relating to individuals for the purposes of filling job roles. This may include obtaining personal data from online sources, for example we may obtain information from social media sites such as LinkedIn and job boards, some information being publicly available but others being from sites or providers to which we subscribe. From time to time we may also receive personal information about you from hiring organisations, colleagues and former employers, or from persons for whom you have provided services or been otherwise engaged.
 
Where information from third party sources is of no use to us, or where you have notified us that you do not want us to provide you with services, we shall discard it, however we may maintain a limited record in order to avoid the duplication of process. Where we consider that information may be of use to us in pursuance of the provision of our Recruitment Services, any processing will be in accordance with this Privacy Notice. You do have the right to object to processing, please see Section 4 ‘Your rights’.
 
Sensitive Personal Data (SPD)
 
Sensitive personal data is information which is intensely personal to you and is usually irrelevant to our consideration of your suitability for a job role. Examples of SPD include information which reveals your political, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, race or ethnic origin, or information relating to your health.
 
Regardless of the basis for your dealings with us, we request that you do not provide us with any sensitive personal data unless absolutely necessary. However, to the extent that you do provide us with any sensitive personal data, such as data which you choose to share with us in conversation, we shall only use that data for the purposes of our relationship with you or for the provision of our Recruitment Services. This will be for one or more of the following reasons:
 
* You have explicitly consented to the processing
* For the purpose of our assessment of your suitability for job roles or working capacity
* Where processing is necessary for the purpose of obligations or rights under employment, social security or social protection law
* To maintain records of our dealings to address any later dispute, including but not limited to the establishment, exercise or defence of any legal claims

Who we share personal data with:
 
We shall not share your personal information unless we are entitled to do so. The categories of persons with whom we may share your personal information include:
 
* Individuals, hirers and other third parties necessary for the provision of our Recruitment Services
* Any regulatory authority or statutory body pursuant to a request for information or any legal obligation which applies to us
* Parties who process data on our behalf, which may include:
Outsourced payroll providers, IT support, Storage service providers including cloud, Background screening providers 
* Legal and professional advisers
* Insurers
 
ii. Individuals working for a third party with whom we have dealings (‘a Client’):
 
We may collect your personal data, and this may include the following:
 
* Your contact information, which may include your full name, job role, contact telephone number and email
* Your statements and opinions about candidates and/or other personnel e.g. a reference
* Information relating to our relationship with you or the party for whom you work including records of any meetings or discussions 
* Your marketing preferences

We may obtain your personal data from the following sources (please note that this list is not exhaustive):
 
* You, including where you have provided us with your contact details or other information for the purposes of using our Recruitment Services
* Staff or other representatives of the organisation you represent
* Candidates
* Marketing databases
* Social media
* The public domain
* Conversations, with you or others, on the telephone or video conferencing (which may be recorded) or in meetings
* Notes following a conversation, with you or others, or meetings you attend

How we will use your personal data:
 
We will process your personal data in the context of our dealings with the third party for whom you work and as part of our Recruitment Services.
Processing may include:
 
* Collecting and storing your personal data, whether in manual or electronic files
* For marketing and public relations in relation to our services
* Using the data to communicate with you
* Sending information to third parties with whom we have or intend to enter into arrangements which are related to our Recruitment Services
* Actions necessary to further any obligation on us pursuant to a contract between ourselves and the third party you work for
* Collating market or sector specific information and providing the same to our clients
* Providing information to regulatory authorities or statutory bodies and our legal or other professional advisers including insurers
* Retaining records of our dealings with you and the organisation whom you represent
* Establishing quality, training and compliance with our obligations and best practice   

Why we process your personal data:
 
1. Compliance with legal obligations (regulatory and statutory obligations)
 
We must comply with a number of statutory provisions when providing our Recruitment Services, which necessitate the processing of personal data. These include the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, which amongst other things requires us to assess suitability of candidates and obtain information from Clients.
 
We are also required to comply with statutory and regulatory obligations relating to business generally, for example tax, bribery and fraud/crime prevention legislation, and co-operating with regulatory authorities such as HMRC.
 
2. Our legitimate interests (carrying on the commercial activity of Recruitment Services):
 
In providing our Recruitment Services, we will carry out some processing of personal data which is necessary for the purpose of our legitimate interests, which include:
 
Using your personal data:
 
* To contact you regarding our Recruitment Services
* To assess suitability of Candidates and roles, for example, referencing or other feedback  
* To collate market information or trends including providing analysis to potential or actual Clients
* As otherwise necessary to provide our Recruitment Services and/or to meet our obligations towards either the party whom you represent, or other Clients or suppliers
* To personalise your experience and our offering, whether via our website or otherwise

Retaining records of our dealings and transactions and where applicable, use such records for the purposes of:

* Establishing compliance with contractual obligations with Clients or suppliers
* Addressing any query or dispute that may arise including establishing, exercising or defending any legal claims
* Protecting our reputation
* Maintaining a backup of our system, solely for the purpose of being able to restore the system to a particular point in the event of a system failure or security breach
* Evaluating quality and compliance including compliance with this Privacy Notice
* Determining staff training and system requirements

For our commercial viability and to pursue these legitimate interests, we may continue to process your personal information for as long as we consider reasonably appropriate for these purposes.
 
3. Consent
 
We may process your personal data on the basis that you have consented to us doing so for a specific purpose, for example, if you have provided your contact details in order that we may use these to provide you with details of our services you may have consented to our processing of the data for that purpose. In other cases, you may have provided your written or verbal consent to the use of your data for a specific reason, for example references.
 
You may withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal data for a particular purpose at any stage. However, please note that we may continue to retain, or otherwise use your personal information thereafter where we have a legitimate interest or a legal or contractual obligation to do so. Our processing in that respect will be limited to what is necessary in furtherance of those interests or obligations.  Withdrawal of consent will not have any effect on the lawfulness of any processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
 
What if we obtain your personal data from a third party?
 
Part of our business activity involves researching information for the purposes of finding and filling job roles. This may include obtaining personal data from sources including job boards, advertisements, LinkedIn or other social media, some information being publicly available but others being from sites or providers to which we subscribe. From time to time we may also receive personal data about you from hiring organisations, colleagues and former employers, or from persons for whom you have provided services or been otherwise engaged.
 
Where information from third party sources is of no use to us we shall discard it, however we may maintain a limited record in order to avoid the duplication of process. Where we consider that information may be of use to us in pursuance of the provision of our Recruitment Services, any processing will be in accordance with this Privacy Notice. You do have the right to object to processing, please see Section 4 ‘Your rights’.
 
Sensitive Personal Data (SPD)
 
Sensitive personal data is information which is intensely personal to you and is usually irrelevant to our dealings with you in respect of our Recruitment Services. Examples of SPD include information which reveals your political, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, race or ethnic origin, or information relating to your health.
 
Regardless of the basis for your dealings with us, we request that you do not provide us with any sensitive personal data unless absolutely necessary. However, to the extent that you do provide us with any sensitive personal data, such as data which you choose to share with us in conversation, we shall only use that personal data for the purposes of our relationship with you or for the provision of our Recruitment Services. This will be for one or more of the following reasons:
 
* You have explicitly consented to the processing
* Where processing is necessary for the purpose of obligations or rights under employment, social security   or social protection law
* To maintain records of our dealings to address any later dispute, including but not limited to the establishment, exercise or defence of any legal claims

Who we share personal data with:
 
We shall not share your personal data unless we are entitled to do so. The categories of persons with whom we may share your personal information include:
 
* Candidates and other third parties necessary for the provision of our Recruitment Services
* Any regulatory authority or statutory body pursuant to a request for information or any legal obligation which applies to us
* Parties who process data on our behalf, which may include:
Outsourced payroll providers, IT support, Storage service providers including cloud providers, Background screening providers
* Legal and professional advisers
* Insurers
 
iii. All personal data
 
If you do not wish to provide us with necessary data
 
There may be circumstances where we require you to provide data which is necessary in order for us to meet statutory or contractual obligations or perform our Recruitment Services. If you do not wish to provide us with information we request, then please notify us. However, please be aware that as a result we may be unable to provide you or the party who you represent with a Recruitment Service, and in some cases may result in a breach of the contract we have with you or a third party you represent.
 
Data Security and Confidentiality
 
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.
 
Any data we collect is stored and processed using carefully selected secure software providers. We take the security of your data very seriously and have taken all appropriate steps to safe guard it including:
 
* Using only established industry leading software providers
* Obtaining information & guarantees from software suppliers around their own data security policies and guarantees
* Utilising Firewall/antivirus protection in house and keeping it up to-date
* Testing our security systems to ensure they are robust
* Training staff on how to keep personal data secure
* Password protecting software, PCs, laptops etc. used to store data
* Encrypting data where possible
 
Cookies
 
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is downloaded on to your computer when you visit a website, which enables the website to tailor its offerings to your preferences when you visit it.
 
Our website uses Google Analytics, one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution available. This helps us understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things like how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.
 
For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.
 
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.
 
Links
 
This website may contain links to other external websites. Please be aware that Opus Recruitment Ltd is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites.  We encourage you to be aware of this when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of every website that collects personally identifiable information.
 
Compliance with the children’s online privacy protection act
 
Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important to us. For this reason, we never collect or maintain information at our site from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 13.
 
Retaining your data
 
We conduct regular data-cleansing and updating exercises with our candidates and clients to ensure that the data that we hold is accurate, and that we are not holding data for too long. In most circumstances your data will not be retained for more than 7 years from the last point at which we provided any services or otherwise engaged with you and it is our policy to only store your personal data for as long as is reasonably necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations and for our legitimate business interests.  However, we may retain data for longer than a 7-year period, where we have a legal or contractual obligation to do so, or we form the view that there is otherwise a continued basis to do so, for example where your personal information identifies specialist skill sets which may remain in demand, or we are subject to a legal obligation which applies for a longer period.
 
If, however you believe that we should delete your personal data at an earlier date, please inform us in writing of your reasons.  Please see Section 4 ‘Your Rights’ below.
 
Changes to this Privacy Notice
 
This Privacy Notice is regularly reviewed and may be updated from time to time to reflect changes in our business, or legal or commercial practice.  Where an update is relevant to our processing of your data, we shall notify you of the same.
 
iv. Your rights
 
We take the protection of your personal data very seriously and it is important that you know your rights within that context, which include rights to:
 
* Request a copy of the personal data that we hold
* Object to our processing of your data where that processing is based upon legitimate interest and there are no compelling grounds for the continued processing of that data
* Request that we restrict processing of your data in certain circumstances
* Request that data is erased where the continued use of that data cannot be justified
* Object to any decision, which significantly affects you, being taken solely by a computer or via another automated process
* Withdraw your consent to our processing of your personal data for a particular purpose at any stage. However, please note that we may continue to retain, or otherwise use your personal information thereafter where we have a legitimate interest or a legal or contractual obligation to do so. Our processing in that respect will be limited to what is necessary in furtherance of those interests or obligations
* Request that inaccurate or incomplete data is rectified
* Request that data provided directly by you and processed by automated means is transferred to you or another controller; this right only being applicable where our processing of your data is based either on your consent or in performance of a contract
* Make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office Request that direct marketing by us to you is stopped

Please note that should you exercise your right to request that we erase data or cease any processing activity, we may retain a record of this request and the action taken in order to both evidence our compliance, and to take steps to minimise the prospect of any data being processed in the future should it be received again from a third-party source.
 
If you have any questions concerning your rights or should you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact our Directors at admin@opusrecruits.co.uk
 
Complaints
 
If you are dissatisfied about any aspect of the way in which your data is processed you may, in the first instance refer the matter to our Directors at admin@opusrecruits.co.uk. This does not affect your right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113 or at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.

© Lawspeed Limited 2018
Opus Recruitment Ltd
Registered Office: 19, Railway Street, Pocklington, York, YO42 2QR
Registered in England and Wales
Company number: 11240919