APPLICANT’S PRIVACY NOTICE

HTS Group Limited currently consists of the following companies:

• HTS (Property and Environment) Limited – providing repairs, facilities management, environmental services, compliance, capital and planned works to residents, leaseholders and organisations in the community, and

• HTS (Housing and Regeneration) Limited – carrying out the acquisition and management of properties for renting in Harlow

As part of our recruitment process, HTS Group Limited collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The organisation is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

What information does HTS Group Limited collect?

We collect a range of information about you.
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 organisation needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, and
information about your entitlement to work in the UK.

We may collect 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.

We may also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers, information from employment background check providers and information from criminal records checks. The organisation 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 HTS Group Limited process personal data?

We need to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. We may also need to process your data 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. Processing data from job applicants allows us 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 may process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, to monitor recruitment statistics. We may also collect information about whether or not applicants are disabled to make reasonable adjustments for candidates who have a disability. We process such information to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

For some roles, we are obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where we seek this information, we do so because it is necessary for us to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

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 may be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR and recruitment team, interviewers involved in the recruitment process, managers in the business area for which you may be considered 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 your data with former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to obtain necessary criminal records checks.
HTS Group Limited will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

Where we no longer require your personal information and/or the retention period for it has expired, your personal information will be securely destroyed.

How does HTS protect data?

We take the security of your data seriously and have internal policies and controls in place to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused, disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees in the proper performance of their duties.

For how long does HTS Group Limited keep data?

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 will be either 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
• ask us to change incorrect or incomplete data
• ask us to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing, and
• object to the processing of your data where we are relying on our legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer at:

Mead Park Industrial Estate
River Way
Harlow
Essex
CM20 2SE

EMAIL:
data.protection@htsgroupltd.co.uk

TELEPHONE NO:
01279 446900

If you believe that we have not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO):

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data to HTS Group Limited 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.