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Oak National Academy
Oak National Academy
Teachers
Pupils

Recruitment privacy notice

Updated

1. Overview


Oak National Academy Limited (“Oak”, “we”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

We are the data controller for the purposes of data protection law.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during our application process (which is managed through BeApplied) during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018).

This notice applies to current and former applicants for employment, employees and workers (“you”). 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.

It is important that you read 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. This privacy notice should also be read in conjunction with our Data Protection Policy, our Colleague Privacy Notice and our Recruitment and Selection Policy, which are available upon request from our DPO.


2. Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

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

3. Information Oak holds about you


We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, address, telephone numbers, and personal email address;
  • Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV, cover letter or as part of the application process through BeApplied and through our providers, Trust ID and uCheck);
  • Details of your education, previous employment and professional memberships provided as part of our application process);
    Photographs and videos;
  • We may also collect, store and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information:
    • Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions;
    • Trade union membership;
    • Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records;
    • Information about criminal convictions and offences.

4. How do we collect this information?


We typically collect personal information about you, through the application and recruitment process (using BeApplied), either directly from you with your consent or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies. We use Trust ID and uCheck to carry out identity, right to work and DBS checks.

5. How we will use your information


We need all the categories of information in the list above (see Information Oak holds about you) primarily to allow us to undertake our recruitment process, enter into a contract with successful applicants and enable us to comply with legal obligations.

Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  • With your consent, assess your suitability for the role to which you are applying.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

  • Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

The situations in which we will process your personal information are as follows:

  • Making a decision about your recruitment or appointment;
  • Determining the terms on which you work for us;
  • Checking whether you are legally entitled to work in the UK;
  • Ascertaining your fitness to work;
  • To prevent fraud;
  • Equal opportunities monitoring.

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

For special category data, we need further justification for collecting, storing, and using this type of personal information. For example, we will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or family-related leave, to comply with employment and other laws, and we will use information about your race or ethnic origin to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.

6. If you fail to provide personal information


If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to consider you for the role to which you are applying, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

7. Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

8. Information about criminal convictions

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate to the role for which you have applied and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us.

We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:

  • To make an informed decision about your recruitment or appointment;
  • To carry out statutory checks;
  • To comply with our legal obligations;
  • To comply with our legitimate interests or for reasons of substantial public interest (preventing or detecting unlawful acts and protecting the public against dishonesty).

9. How we store your personal information

All information relating to your application to join us is kept electronically on Oak’s and/or Applied systems, is kept secure and is only used for purposes directly relevant to your recruitment or appointment.

Our Retention of Records Policy (which is available upon request from our DPO) explains how long we retain your information, depending upon whether your application to join us is successful or not.

10. Data sharing

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in our group, including the Department for Education. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We may transfer your personal information outside the UK and the EEA.

If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We may share your personal information with third parties as required by law, as necessary to administer our working relationship with you, or when we have another interest in doing so.

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

All our third-party service providers and other entities in our group 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.

11. 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.

Details of these measures can be found in our Data Protection and Acceptable Use Policies, which can be requested from our DPO.

We have implemented procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of any actual or suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

12. Data retention

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal information are available in our Retention of Records Policy, which is available by contacting our DPO.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

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 Oak we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our data retention policy or applicable laws and regulations.

If you are not successful in the role you apply for, we may wish to retain the information you provided to us as part of our recruitment process, in order to contact you again, if a suitable role arises. We will retain your information with your consent for a period of up to one year following your unsuccessful application. If you do not wish us to do so, you can withdraw your consent at any time.

13. Rights in respect of your personal data

Your duty to inform us of changes

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 your relationship with us.

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 an 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 the DPO in writing or by email.

No fee usually required

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. A request will be deemed to be unfounded or excessive if it is repetitive, or asks for further copies of the same information. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

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.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the DPO. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

14. Data Protection Officer (DPO)

We have appointed a DPO 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 the DPO. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK’s supervisory authority for data protection issues.

15. Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will notify you of a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

16. Complaints

We take any complaints about our collection and use of personal information very seriously.

If you think that our collection or use of personal information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate, or have any other concern about our data processing, please raise this with us in the first instance.

To make a complaint, please contact our DPO. This will be investigated and you will be notified as to the outcome within a reasonable timescale. We aim to respond to you within 20 working days of receipt of your complaint.

Alternatively, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

  • Report a concern online at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/
  • Call 0303 123 1113
  • Or write to: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

If you have any questions, concerns or would like further information about anything mentioned in this privacy notice, please contact our DPO.