Employee Privacy Policy

Data Protection under GDPR

The Company is aware of its obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and is committed to processing your data securely and transparently. This privacy notice sets out, in line with GDPR, the types of data that we hold on you as an employee or candidate for employment of the Company. It also sets out how we use that information, how long we keep it for and other relevant information about your data.

This notice applies to current and former employees, candidates,workers and contractors.

Any data we collect from you will be stored confidentially and securely as required by the Company Information Security Policy. The Company is committed to ensuring all accesses to, uses of, and processing of Company data is performed in a secure manner.

When we store your personal data on our systems the data will primarily be stored either on the Company premises and secure IT platforms within the European Economic Area (EEA) which are also subject to European data protection requirements

Data controller details

The Company is a data controller, meaning that it determines the processes to be used when using your personal data.

Each business availing of this service is independently owned and operated.  To obtain contact details for Data Protection questions or issues, please contact hrconfidential@bwg.ie.

Data protection principles

In relation to your personal data, we will:

• process it fairly, lawfully and in a clear, transparent way
• collect your data only for reasons that we find proper for the course of your recruitment/ employment in ways that have been explained to you
• only use it in the way that we have told you about
• ensure it is correct and up to date
• keep your data for only as long as we need it
•  process it in a way that ensures it will not be used for anything that you are not aware of or have consented to (as appropriate), lost or destroyed

Types of data we process

We hold many types of data about you, including:

• your personal details including your name, address, date of birth, email address, phone numbers
• your photograph
• next of kin and their contact numbers
• medical or health information including any requirements for any special accommodations
• information used for equal opportunities and nationality relating to rights to work.
• information included on your CV including references, education history and employment history
• documentation relating to your right to work in the ROI
• driving licence if required to carry out your duties or if required for ID verification
• bank details
• tax codes
• PPS or National Insurance Number
• current and previous job titles, job descriptions, pay grades, pension entitlement, hours of work and other terms and conditions relating to your employment with us
• letters of concern, formal warnings, and other documentation with regard to any proceedings that may arise
• internal performance information including measurements against targets, formal warnings and related documentation with regard to capability procedures and appraisal forms
• leave records including annual leave, family leave, sickness, absence and any supporting documents required
• training details
• CCTV footage
• Records relating to Working Time and Attendance.

How we collect your data

We collect data about you in a variety of ways and this will usually start when we undertake a recruitment exercise where we will collect the data from you directly via our website. This includes the information you would normally include in a CV or a recruitment cover letter, or notes made by our recruiting officers during a recruitment interview. If you have submitted your CV or personal data to us speculatively, please note we do not routinely keep this information. We only retain candidate data if it has been submitted by you as part of an application for a current vacancy. However, in cases where it is appropriate to retain a speculative CV or personal data, we will seek consent from the candidate to such processing.

Candidate data will be retained for 18 months. At the end of that period, 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 Human Resources file (electronic and paper-based) and retained during your employment.

Candidates that are successful in their application to this store will have their data moved to software hosted by a third party. This centralised database may indicate to the Company if you have had prior or current instances of user access in this database where, for example, it is presented with a duplication of PPS number and/or other key combined data e.g. date of birth and name, email address etc.

You may decline to provide us with your personal data. However, we will require relevant information to effectively and properly manage our recruitment process, and we may not be able to evaluate or assess your application as part of our recruitment process if you decline to provide us with that personal data that may be relevant. Furthermore, decisions regarding suitability will be made based on the information that is available.

Further information will be collected directly from you when you complete forms as necessary during the application process and, if successful before commencing employment as well as at the start of your employment.

In some cases, we may collect data about you from third parties, such as former employers when gathering references.

Personal data is kept in personnel files or within the Company’s HR and IT systems, and relevant centralised databases hosted by third parties.

Why we process your data

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

•  in order to perform the employment contract that we are party to
• in order to carry out legally required duties
•  in order for us to carry out our legitimate interests
• to protect your interests

All of the processing carried out by us falls into one of the permitted reasons. Generally, we will rely on the first three reasons set out above to process your data. For example, we need to collect your personal data in order to:

• carry out the employment contract that we have entered into with you and
•  ensure you are paid.

We also need to collect your data to ensure we are complying with legal requirements such as:

• ensuring Tax and PRSI, National Insurance is paid
• carrying out checks in relation to your right to work in the ROI
• making reasonable adjustments for special accommodations.

We also collect data so that we can carry out activities which are in the legitimate interests of the Company. We have set these out below:

•   making decisions about who to offer initial employment to, and subsequent internal appointments, promotions etc
• making decisions about salary and other benefits
• providing contractual benefits to you
• maintaining comprehensive up to date personnel records about you to ensure, amongst other things, effective correspondence can be achieved and appropriate contact points in the event of an emergency are maintained
•  assessing training needs
• implementing an effective sickness absence management system including monitoring the amount of leave and subsequent actions to be taken including the making of reasonable adjustments
• gaining expert medical opinion when making decisions about your fitness for work
• managing statutory leave and pay systems such as statutory sick pay etc
• business planning and restructuring exercises
• dealing with legal claims made against us
• preventing fraud
• ensuring our administrative and IT systems are secure and robust against unauthorised access

Special categories of data

Special categories of data is the data relating to, for example,

• Your health
• Your ethnic origin
• Any trade union membership
• Your biometric data.

 We must process special categories of data in accordance with more stringent guidelines. Most commonly, we will process special categories of data when the following applies:

• you have given explicit consent to the processing or
•  we must process the data in order to carry out our legal obligations or
• we must process data for reasons of substantial public interest or
• you have already made the data public.

 We do not need your consent if we use special categories of personal data in order to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights under employment law. However, we may ask for your consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If this occurs, you will be made fully aware of the reasons for the processing. As with all cases of seeking consent from you, you will have full control over your decision to give or withhold consent and there will be no consequences where consent is withheld. Consent, once given, may be withdrawn at any time. There will be no consequences where consent is withdrawn.

In line with the preceding, we may use your special category data as required:

• for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring
• in our sickness absence management procedures
• to determine reasonable accommodations
• as part of our biometric clocking system
•  to make arrangements for third party services and/or payments as agreed

If you do not provide your data to us

One of the reasons for processing your data is to allow us to carry out our duties in line with your contract of employment. If you do not provide us with the data needed to do this, we will be unable to perform those duties e. g. ensuring you are paid correctly. We may also be prevented from confirming, or continuing with, your employment with us in relation to our legal obligations if you do not provide us with this information e.g., the right to work in the ROI.

Sharing your data

Your data may be shared with colleagues within the Company where it is necessary for them to undertake their duties. This includes, for example, your line manager, or support employees, for maintaining personnel records and third parties for administering payment under your contract of employment.

We share your data with third parties in order to obtain references as part of the recruitment process. We also share your data with other third parties which process data for payroll as they are data processors on our behalf. Other Third Parties whom we may share data with are:

• State or regulatory bodies
• Firms that provide professional services to the Company such as payroll services, legal firms, insurance firms and auditors.
• IT or cloud service providers that provide essential services to the Company.
• Firms that provide archiving and storage and disposal of confidential waste.
• Any Law Enforcement Agencies when we are required to do so by law.

When we share your data with the third parties outlined here the Company will endeavour only to share the data that is needed, that the data is only processed according to our specific instructions and that the same standards of confidentiality and security are maintained. Once the processing of the data is complete any third parties with whom data was shared will be required to return the data to the Company except where they are required to retain it by law.

We may also share your data with third parties as part of a Company sale or restructure, or for other reasons to comply with a legal obligation upon us.

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

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.

Where we share your data with third parties, we provide written instructions to them to ensure that your data is held securely and in line with GDPR requirements. Third parties must implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of your data.

How long we keep your data for

In line with data protection principles, we only keep your data for as long as we need it for, which will be at least for the duration of your employment with us though in some cases we will keep your data for a period after your employment has ended. Retention periods can vary depending on why we need your data, as set out in the Data Retention Policy.

Your rights in relation to your data

The law on data protection gives you certain rights in relation to the data we hold on you. These are:

• the right to be informed. This means that we must tell you how we use your data, and this is the purpose of this privacy notice
• the right of access. You have the right to access the data that we hold on you. To do so, you should make a subject access request.
• the right for any inaccuracies to be corrected. If any data that we hold about you is incomplete or inaccurate, you can correct your data or request us to do so on your behalf.
• the right to have information deleted. If you would like us to stop processing your data, you have the right to ask us to delete it from our systems where you believe there is no reason for us to continue processing it
• the right to restrict the processing of the data. For example, if you believe the data, we hold is incorrect, we will stop processing the data (whilst still holding it) until such time as there is an assurance that the data is corrected.
• the right to portability. You may transfer the data that we hold on you for your own purposes
• the right to object to the inclusion of any information. You have the right to object to the way we use your data where we are using it for our legitimate interests
• the right to regulate any automated decision-making and profiling of personal data. You have a right not to be subject to automated decision making in any way that adversely affects your legal rights.

Where you have provided consent to our use of your data, you also have the unrestricted right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent means that we will stop processing the data that you had previously given us consent to use, unless there is no alternative to us processing this data. 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.

Review

This Privacy Notice will be reviewed from time to time to consider any changes in the law or the data protection practices of the Company. You are required to regularly review this policy for changes and to make yourself aware of the same.

Making a complaint

The supervisory authority in the ROI for data protection matters is the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC). If you think your data protection rights have been breached in any way by us, you are able to make a complaint to the DPC.