Job Applicant Privacy Notice
Registered Office:
iQSA Services Limited (trading as iQ Student Accommodation)
7th Floor, Cottons Centre
Cottons Lane
London, SE1 2QG
Company number: 09857188, registered in the UK.
Introduction
iQSA Services Limited is referred to as “iQ Student Accommodation”, “iQ” and “the organisation” throughout this privacy notice
As part of any recruitment process, iQ Student Accommodation 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.
By using our Applicant Tracking System (the “ATS”) and submitting your personal information to iQ through this system, you agree that iQ may process your personal information for the purposes described below. iQ is the data controller for the information you provide through this ATS and you as an applicant is the data subject.
What information does iQ Student Accommodation collect?
The organisation collects a range of information about you via our ATS. This includes:
- 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 for which the organisation needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process; and
- equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief.
The organisation 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 organisation will 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 the organisation process personal data?
To help us with the recruitment process, we will collect personal information about you. If you register for and complete an online application form using the ATS to apply for positions of employment with iQ Student Accommodation, we will collect information about you, as above, through the ATS.
In some cases, the organisation 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 organisation 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 organisation 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. This is to ensure our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. Submitting this information via the ATS is not compulsory and does not affect your application and chances of employment with iQ in any way. The information provided in this form is anonymised and is not used during the selection process.
Who has access to data?
Your information collected via your application will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise, with the exception of any special categories of data collected as referred to above. This includes members of the HR and recruitment 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 organisation will share your data with its third-party Applicant Tracking System Provider (the ATS) as this provider is a data processor for iQ. It is necessary to share the data with the ATS provider as part of iQ’s business operations.
The organisation will not share your data with any other third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and it makes you an offer of employment. The organisation 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 to obtain necessary criminal records checks as part of iQ’s onboarding process.
The organisation will not ordinarily transfer your data outside the European Economic Area, the only instance we would do so is when you have specifically provided referees who are based outside of the European Economic Area.
How does the organisation protect data?
The organisation 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 organisation keep data?
If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the organisation will hold your data on file for 12 months after the end of the relevant recruitment process, in order for us to contact you for future opportunities at iQ Student Accommodation. We will contact you towards the end of this 12-month period to regain your consent to retain your data, if you do not reconfirm consent at this juncture, your personal data will be erased from our records. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time as per below.
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 and withdrawal of your consent
As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:
- access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
- require the organisation to change incorrect or incomplete data;
- request the organisation 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 organisation is relying on its legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; and
- ask the organisation to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override the organisation's legitimate grounds for processing data.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact dpo@iqstudent.com You can make a subject access request by completing the organisation's form for making a subject access request. You can obtain a copy of this form from the IQ Student Accommodation web site and navigating to the Privacy Centre, the web address of the privacy centre is here.
If you believe that the organisation has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.
You may revoke your consent to iQ Student Accommodation processing of your personal data. To do so, please submit a request in writing to dpo@iqstudent.com. Because iQ must process your personal data in order to consider you for a position as part of the recruitment process, if you revoke your consent, iQ may need to terminate your application. iQ may retain certain information related to your application for a reasonable but limited period to meet applicable legal or records retention requirements.
Automated decision-making
iQ’s recruitment processes are not based solely on automated decision-making.
How to contact us
Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you:
by email dpo@iqstudent.com
or write to us at 7th Floor, Cottons Centre, Cottons Lane, London, SE1 2QG, for the attention of the Data Protection Officer