EA Privacy Notice (Candidates)

The Education Authority (‘EA’) is the data controller of the personal information you provide to us as an individual seeking employment with the EA. This means the EA determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal information relating to a candidate’s application and the recruitment procedure generally is processed.

We are required under the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UKGDPR) to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information during the recruitment process and afterwards in accordance with the UKGDPR.

It applies to all recruitment candidates whose application is received by EA. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time but if we do so, we will provide you with an updated copy of this notice as soon as reasonably practical.  Should your application be successful, when you commence employment with EA, we will provide you with another privacy notice that explains how we deal with your personal information whilst you are working for us.

It is important that you read and retain this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information and what your rights are under the UKGDPR.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) who monitors the EA’s data protection procedures to ensure they meet the standards and requirements of the GDPR. The DPO can be contacted at the Education Authority, 40 Academy Street, Belfast, BT1 2NQ, by telephone at 028 9047 5011 or by email at dpo@eani.org.uk.

If you are unhappy with how EA have processed your personal data or that EA have not complied with your data protection rights, you can raise a Data Protection Complaint. Information of how to do this is available under Data Protection Complaints.

If you’re unhappy with our response, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) or get advice from the ICO. Further details are available on how to contact the ICO via the ICO website.

We collect personal information about candidates 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 or background check agencies.

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to process your application or proceed through the recruitment process, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations.

At the initial stages of recruitment, we collect, hold and use the following types of personal information:

• personal information (such as name, title, email address, employment history, national insurance number, contact information, photographs, qualifications/training (including academic, vocational and professional qualifications and driving licenses where appropriate), referees’ names and contact details
• publicly available information about you, such as your business social media presence
• selection information, including correspondence, interview notes, internal notes, the results of any written or online selection tests (e.g. technical assessments, ability tests)

If you are shortlisted for a position, or you receive a conditional offer of employment, we may collect, hold and use the following additional types of personal data about you:

Pre-employment check information which may include:

• References - your current/most recent employer will be asked to provide information with regards to your employment and suitability for the post including whether there are any on-going disciplinary investigations or current sanctions.
• Verification of qualifications.
• Right to work checks and related documents.
• Criminal records checks, where relevant to the post applied for.

LAWFUL BASIS

Depending on the processing activity, we rely on one or more of the following lawful bases when we process your personal information:

• We need it to take steps at your request in order to enter into a contract with you (entry into a contract), because by applying for a job with us you are effectively asking us to enter into a contract with you.
• We need it to a public task in the public interest or to exercise our public authority as a public body
• We need it to comply with a legal obligation (legal obligation), e.g. the obligation not to discriminate during our recruitment process, or the obligation not to employ someone who does not have the right to work in the UK.
• It is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests (legitimate interests). For example, it is in our legitimate interests to review and consider your personal information (as listed above) so that we can select the most appropriate candidate for the job.

SPECIAL CATEGORY DATA & CRIMINAL OFFENCE DATA

Special category data and criminal offence data are by their nature more sensitive data and as such, the UKGDPR requires that in addition to a lawful basis, we must also have an additional legal ground to collect, hold and use it. 

The lawful basis we rely on to process any information you provide during the recruitment process which is special category data, (such as health, religious, sexual orientation or ethnicity information) are Article 6 (1) (b) (which relates to processing necessary to perform a contract or to take steps at your request, before entering a contract), Article 6(1)(c) (to comply with our legal obligations) and article 6(1)(f) (for the purpose of our legitimate interests) and Article 6 (1) (e) (necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest). The additional legal ground we rely on are Article 9(2)(b) of the UKGDPR (which relates to our obligations in employment and the safeguarding of your fundamental rights), article 9(2)(g) (necessary for reasons of substantial public interest). The additional DPA 2018 processing conditions we rely on are Schedule 1 part 1(1) which again relates to processing for employment purposes and Schedule 1, part 2 paragraph 6 – statutory etc and government purposes and part 2 paragraph 8. 

The lawful basis and additional legal ground we rely on to process any information you provide during the recruitment process which is criminal offence data, such as criminal records checks from Access NI, DBS, etc., are Article 6(1)(e) for the performance of our public task and the processing condition at Schedule 1 part 2 paragraph 6(2)(a) (statutory etc and government purposes).

We will use all the information you provide during the recruitment process to manage and progress your application, with a view to potentially offering your employment with us or to fulfil regulatory requirements if necessary. Some of our specific uses of personal data collected during the recruitment process are outlined below:

• Processing and progressing your application
• Corresponding with you about your application
• Verifying information provided by you
• Assessing your suitability for the role applied for
• Making an informed decision about your recruitment or appointment
• Determining the terms on which you may ultimately work for us
• Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK
• Assessing skills, experience, qualifications and training for a particular job or task,
• Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other potential candidates or employees
• Equal opportunities monitoring
• To enable us to make reasonable adjustments for candidates with disabilities to apply for jobs
• To assess whether you are fit to do the job with reasonable adjustments and to comply with health and safety requirements
• To ensure that we comply with regulatory obligations placed on us with regard to our hiring
• To keep appropriate records of our recruitment process and decisions
• To develop and improve our recruitment processes - we may contact you to request your feedback about our recruitment process.

Personal information relating to job applicants is stored in line with the Public Record Office (NI) record management good practice guidance and EA’s Retention And Disposal Of Records Schedule, which is published with alongside all of EA’s privacy notices, here. If you would like further information, please contact the DPO using the contact details above.

If your application is successful, when you commence employment with EA, you will be issued an Employee Privacy Notice which will include information about what personal data we keep from the recruitment process and how long we keep your personal information whilst you are working for us and after you have left.

If you have created a candidate profile on EA’s Taleo online recruitment system, that candidate profile, which includes your personal information, will be held for 4 years from your last date of interaction on the system.  You can, however, deactivate your candidate profile at any time.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. 

Once you are no longer an employee, worker or contractor of the EA we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with the Public Record Office (NI) record management good practice guidance and our retention and disposal of records schedule. 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent 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 need to know. They will only process personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator (currently the Information Commissioner’s Office) of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other bodies such as:

• Schools, including the Board of Governors
• The Department of Education
• Northern Ireland Substitute Teacher Register
• Parties providing recruitment and selection services such as recruitment agencies, external selection panel members or assessment providers
• Occupational Health Providers
• Council for Catholic Maintained Schools
• Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta
• General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland
• Education Training Inspectorate
• Northern Ireland Social Care Council
• Internal and external providers of legal/professional services
• Home Office
• Equality Commission
• Northern Ireland Audit Office
• PSNI
• Capita Managed IT Solutions
• Northgate
• Fujitsu

We will not share any of the information you provide during the recruitment process with any third parties for marketing purposes.

We will share the personal information we collect during the recruitment process with third parties only where required by law or where it is necessary for the recruitment process.

To be granted access to your information, organisations must comply with EA’s strict terms and conditions covering the confidentiality and handling of the personal information, security arrangements and retention and use of the personal information.

If you give us details of referees, we require you to inform them what personal information of theirs you are giving to us. You must also give them our contact details and let them know that they should contact us if they have any queries about how we will use their personal information.

We will not transfer the personal information we collect about you to any country outside the EEA without telling you in advance that we intend to do so and what steps we have taken to ensure adequate protection for your personal information in those circumstances.

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during the recruitment and selection process.

Under UKGDPR, you have the right to request access to information about you that we hold. To make a request for your personal information, contact the DPO using the contact details stated above.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Depending on the lawful basis we are relying on to process your personal data, the other data subject rights will also apply, i.e. you also have the right to:

• Request access to 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. You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other 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 the request in such circumstances.
• 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.
• Request 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 delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
• Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
• 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.
• Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

By clicking “I Accept” I confirm that:

I understand the information I have supplied via the creation of a candidate profile on EA’s Taleo online recruitment system or via the submission of a job application form, will be used by the EA, or any appointed third party recruitment and selection suppliers, for the purposes of EA progressing my application with a view to offering me an employment contract or fulfilling legal or regulatory requirements if necessary when processing my application.  The information is covered by the provisions of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UKGDPR). 

I have read and understand the above Candidate Privacy Notice.