HR recruitment privacy
We’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This privacy notice tells you what to expect from us when we use information about you to manage HR Recruitment.
Corporate privacy notice covers how Southern Water uses information about people.
What information we collect about you
We collect a range of information about an individual when they apply for a job with us. This includes:
- name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number
- details of qualifications, skills, experience and employment history
- information about an individual’s current level of remuneration, including benefits
- whether or not an individual has a disability that we need to make reasonable adjustments for during the recruitment process
- information about an individual’s entitlement to work in the UK
- equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about gender, ethnicity, age, marital status and nationality.
How we collect information about you
We collect information electronically (or in hard copy) in a variety of ways, including:
- application forms, CVs or resumes
- from passports or other identity documents
- gathered through interviews or other assessment process, such as group exercises
- case studies, online tests or personality questionnaires.
Why we process personal information
In some cases, we need to process personal information to ensure that we’re complying with our legal obligations. For example, we’re required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before we employ them.
Southern Water has a legitimate interest in processing personal information during recruitment, and keeping records of the process. Processing personal information from job applicants enables us to manage the recruitment process, assess and establish a candidate's suitability for employment and decide who to offer a job to.
We process health information if we need to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates with a disability, fulfilling our obligations so a candidate can exercise specific rights in relation to equality legislation.
When we process other special categories of personal information, such as ethnicity, it’s for equal opportunities monitoring with the explicit consent of job applicants – which can be withdrawn at any time.
For some roles, we’re obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. We do this because it’s necessary for us to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment. We’ll only request this information after an offer has been made and accepted.
We won’t use an individual’s personal information for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which they’ve applied.
Who can access personal information
For the purposes of the recruitment exercise personal information will be shared internally with members of the HR department, our recruitment partners and hiring managers.
We won’t share personal information with third parties, unless an individual’s application for employment is successful and we make a formal offer of employment.
How we protect personal information
We take the security and protection of personal information seriously. We have internal policies and controls in place to ensure that personal information is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is inaccessible, except to our trained employees in the proper performance of their duties.
How long we keep personal information
If an individual’s application for employment is unsuccessful, we’ll hold personal information for six months after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period, or when an individual withdraws their consent, we’ll securely delete or destroy the information.
If an individual’s application for employment is successful, personal information gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to the individual’s personnel file and kept during employment. We’ll notify the individual how long we’ll hold their information in our formal Privacy Notice and data protection policy.
Applicant Tracking System
Our website and applicant tracking system monitors the behaviour of job applicants using tracking technologies (known as ‘cookies’). This provides our recruitment teams with information on how applications are completed, their progress, and the likely return on investment attached to any advertising campaign. No personal data is collected at any stage and candidates are not identifiable at any point during this tracking process. For more information, please see the main Cookies page.
Further information
If you want to know more about how Southern Water stores and uses your personal data, please:
- visit privacy
- email the Data Protection Officer at [email protected] or write to Data Protection Officer, Southern Water, Southern House, Yeoman Road, Worthing, BN13 3NX