Data controller: The Co-operative Party Data protection officer: Karen Wilkie (click here to email) As part of any recruitment process, the Co-operative Party collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The Co-operative Party is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations. What information does the Co-operative Party collect? The Co-operative Party collects 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 Co-operative Party needs to make reasonable adjustments 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. The Co-operative Party 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, including online tests. The Co-operative Party will also collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references supplied by former employers. The Co-operative Party 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 Co-operative Party process personal data? The Co-operative Party 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 Co-operative Party 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 before employment starts. The Co-operative Party 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 Co-operative Party to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate’s suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. The Co-operative Party may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims. Where the Co-operative Party relies on legitimate interests as a reason for processing data, it has considered whether or not those interests are overridden by the rights and freedoms of job applicants, employees or workers and has concluded that they are not. The Co-operative Party 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 Co-operative Party processes 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 by contacting Dorota Kseba (click here to email). If your application is unsuccessful, the Co-operative Party may keep your personal data on file in case there are future employment opportunities for which you may be suited. The Co-operative Party will ask for your consent before it keeps your data for this purpose and you are free to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting Dorota Kseba (click here to email). Who has access to data? Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR and recruitment team and interviewers involved in the recruitment process and IT staff if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles. The Co-operative Party will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. The Co-operative Party will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you. The Co-operative Party will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area. How does the Co-operative Party protect data? The Co-operative Party 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 Co-operative Party keep data? If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the Co-operative Party will hold your data on file for no more than six months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. If you agree to allow the Co-operative Party to keep your personal data on file, the Co-operative Party will hold your data on file for a further twelve months for consideration for future employment opportunities. At the end of that period, or 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 Co-operative Party to change incorrect or incomplete data; require the Co-operative Party 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 Co-operative Party is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and ask the Co-operative Party to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the Co-operative Party’s legitimate grounds for processing data. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact Dorota Kseba (click here to email). You can make a subject access request by contacting Dorota Kseba (click here to email). If you believe that the Co-operative Party 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 the Co-operative Party during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, the Co-operative Party 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 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.