Job applicant privacy notice

As part of any recruitment process, the organization collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The organization is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

What information does the organization collect?

The organization collects a range of information about you if you or a third party supply it to us. 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;
• whether or not you have a disability for which the organization needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process;
• information about your entitlement to work in the UK or Norway; and
• equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health, and religion or belief.

The organization collects 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 organization will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers. The organization will seek information from third parties only once a job offer to you has been made 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 and on other IT systems (including email).

Why does the organization process personal data?

The organization needs to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. It also needs to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

In some cases, the organization needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK or Norway before employment starts.

The organization has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. Processing data from job applicants allows the organization to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. The organization may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

The organization processes health information if it needs to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

Where the organization processes other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is for equal opportunities monitoring purposes as permitted by the Data Protection Act 2018/reasons of substantial public interest.

For some roles, the organization is obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where the organization 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/it to comply with a regulatory requirement to establish whether or not an individual has committed an unlawful act or been involved in dishonesty or other improper conduct/reasons of substantial public interest.

The organization will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied.

Who has access to data?

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

The organization will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. The organization will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks or criminal records checks.

The organization will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

How does the organization protect data?

The organization 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. 

For how long does the organization keep data?

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the organization will hold your data on file for 12 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period, or immediately once you withdraw your consent, 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 personnel file and retained during your employment. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.

Your rights

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

• access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
• require the organization to change incorrect or incomplete data;
• require the organization to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
• object to the processing of your data where the organization is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
• ask the organization to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the organization's legitimate grounds for processing data.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact dataprotection@bergenbio.com. 

If you believe that the organization has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner or the Norwegian Datatilsynet.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to the organization during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, the organization may not be able to process your application properly or at all. If your application is successful, it will be a condition of any job offer that you provide evidence of your right to work in the UK or Norway and satisfactory references.

You are under no obligation to provide information for equal opportunities monitoring purposes and there are no consequences for your application if you choose not to provide such information.