What is the purpose of this document?

Gaby Hardwicke is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. This notice applies to you if you are applying for work with us (whether as an employee, worker or contractor). It makes you aware of how and why your personal data will be used, namely for the purposes of the recruitment exercise, and how long it will usually be retained for. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under the Data Protection Act 2018.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law and principles, which means that your data will be:

• Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
• Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
• Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
• Accurate and kept up to date.
• Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
• Kept securely.

The kind of information we hold about you

In connection with your application for work with us, we will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

• The information you have provided to us in your curriculum vitae and covering letter.
• Any information you provide to us during an interview.
• Any information provided by recruitment agents on your behalf.

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:

• Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
• Information about criminal convictions and offences.

How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information about candidates from the following sources:

• You, the candidate.
• Recruitment agents.
• Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (for roles in our Private Client Departments).
• Your named referees.
• Publicly accessible sources such as SRA decisions, SDT judgements, social media (Facebook, LinkedIn).

How we will use information about you

We will use the personal information we collect about you to:

• Assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the role.
• Carry out background and reference checks, where applicable.
• Communicate with you about the recruitment process.
• Keep records related to our hiring processes.
• Comply with legal or regulatory requirements.

It is in our legitimate interests to decide whether to appoint you to the role since it would be beneficial to our business to appoint someone to that role. We also need to process your personal information to decide whether to enter into a contract of employment with you.

Having received your CV and covering letter, we will then process that information to decide whether you meet the basic requirements to be shortlisted for the role. If you do, we will decide whether your application is strong enough to invite you for an interview. If we decide to call you for an interview, we will use the information you provide to us at the interview to decide whether to offer you the role. If we decide to offer you the role, we will then take up references and where relevant carry out a criminal record and any other necessary checks before confirming your appointment.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide information when requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully. For example, if we require a credit check or references for this role and you fail to provide us with relevant details, we will not be able to take your application further.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information such as information regarding your disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment process, for example whether adjustments need to be made during a test or interview.

Information about criminal convictions

We envisage that we may process information about criminal convictions. We will collect information about your criminal convictions history if we would like to offer you the role (conditional on checks and any other conditions, such as references, being satisfactory). We are entitled to carry out a criminal records check in order to satisfy ourselves that there is nothing in your criminal convictions history which makes you unsuitable for the role. In particular, the roles of Private Client Executive and Private Client Solicitor require a high degree of trust and integrity since they involve dealing with client money and so we would like to ask you to authorise a basic disclosure of your criminal records history.

Data sharing

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We will only share your personal information with your recruitment agent for the purposes of processing your application. All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your 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 business need-to-know. They will only process your 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 of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

How long will you use my information for?

We will retain your personal information after we have communicated to you our decision about whether to appoint you to the role, on the basis that a further opportunity may arise in future and we may wish to consider you for that, or for our legitimate interests, including where you become our employee. By signing this policy, you give your explicit consent for us to retain your personal information as set out above.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

• Request access to your 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.
• 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.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact our Data Protection Manager in writing.

Right to withdraw consent

When you applied for this role, you provided consent to us processing your personal information for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. You have the right to withdraw your consent for processing for that purpose at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Data Protection Manager. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your application and, subject to our retention policy, we will dispose of your personal data securely.

Data Protection Manager

We have appointed a Data Privacy Manager to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Manager, Gary Winterton. If you wish to contact us, please write to us at Gaby Hardwicke, 33 The Avenue, Eastbourne, BN21 3YD or email us at info@gabyhardwicke.co.uk. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.