What information do we collect?
As part of the application process, we collect a range of information about you including:
- your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number;
- details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
- whether or not you have a disability which needs reasonable adjustments to be made during the recruitment
process;
- information about your entitlement to work in the UK; and
- equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual
orientation, health, and religion or belief.
We collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be contained in online and paper
application forms, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or
other forms of assessment.
We will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers,
and information from employment background check providers via recruitment agencies.
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 do we process personal data?
We need to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you, and
also to enter into a contract with you.
In some cases, we need to process data to ensure that we are complying with our legal
obligations. For example, we are required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in
the UK before employment starts.
We have a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping
records of the process. We process data from job applicants to manage the recruitment process; assess and
confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. We may also need to
process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.
We process health information if we need to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for
candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to
employment.
Where we process other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation,
health, religion or belief, age, gender or marital status, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities
monitoring with the explicit consent of job applicants, which can be withdrawn at any time.
We 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.
We will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and
we make you an offer of employment. We will then share some data with former employers to obtain
references for you at your consent.
We will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.
How is data protected?
We take the security of your data seriously. We have 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.
How long is data kept for?
If your application for employment is unsuccessful,we will hold your data on file for 6 months’ after the
end of the relevant recruitment process. 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 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 (known as a “subject access request”);
- require the SU to change incorrect or incomplete data;
- require the SU 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 SU is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal
ground for processing; and ask to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a
dispute about whether or not your interests override the SU’s legitimate grounds for processing data.
You can make a subject access request by completing the subject access request form and send it to the General
Manager at ac2568@coventry.ac.uk
If you believe that the SU has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information
Commissioner.
What if you do not provide personal data?
You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to during the recruitment process.
However, if you do not provide the information, we may not be able to process your application properly
or at all.
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.
Automated decision making
Recruitment processes are not based solely on automated decision making.
Changes to this privacy notice
Coventry University Students' Union reserves the right to update this privacy notice at any time.
If any significant changes are made in the way it treats your personal information, the SU will make
this clear on its website or by contacting you directly.