Privacy policy and candidate agreement
Our Commitment
Burness Paull is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. Please read the following policy which explains how we use and protect the information that you provide.
Data protection principles
We will comply with data protection law and the fundamental data protection principles, which state that the personal information we hold about you must be:
- used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
- collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you, and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
- relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;
- accurate and kept up to date;
- kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about; and
- kept securely.
Data we collect from you
We collect data about you:
- When you provide us with your personal details by completing the online form on this site;
- from your usage of the website and any other information you post on the website, email or otherwise send to us;
- from recruitment agencies which may provide us with the following categories of data: name, contact details, a copy of your CV and qualifications
- background check provider, Amiqus, from which we collect the following categories of data: Identity report, disclosure documents, Photo ID verification, Watchlist report, reference details
- credit reference agencies from which we may collect the following categories of data: credit reports
- Professional bodies such as the Law Society of Scotland, the Law Society of England and Wales, and / or the Solicitors Regulation Authority may provide us with the following personal information: qualifications, registrations, practising certificates, accreditation details and membership details.
- from other publicly available sources.
By subscribing through the website, you consent to the collection, storage, use and retention of your data by us in accordance with the terms of this privacy policy.
The information we will collect and store by your use of this website may include:
- Contact details
- Right to work documents
- Details of driving licence
- Emergency contact details
- A copy of your CV
- Qualifications
- Professional memberships
- Salary and additional benefits information
- Positions you have previously applied for
How we will use this information
We will use your personal information primarily to allow us to assess your suitability for job vacancies we may have. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.
- Assess your qualifications and suitability for a particular job
- Check you are legally entitled to work in the UK and relevant background checks
- Communicate with you as part of our interview, assessment and recruitment process should we offer you an interview or position
- Maintain a business relationships with you
- Send you further information relating to Burness Paull and vacancies which may be of interest to you
- Keep records related to our hiring processes
- Decide whether to enter into a contract with you
- Comply with our legal and statutory obligations
It is in our legitimate interests to process your personal data to enable us to consider your application as distinct from other candidates, assess your suitability for the role and liaise with you or a recruitment agent directly about your suitability for the role.
Our processing of your data is based on our compliance with our legal obligations; where necessary to enter a contract with you; or where there is another legitimate interest in doing so.
How we use particularly sensitive information
We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:
As part of your application, we may request that you provide certain personal data to a third party Contextual Recruitment System (CRS). This would involve answering a series of questions about your socio-economic background. Your answers to these questions will exclude identifying data and will be pseudonymised. This information is used to help us assess whether you overachieved academically in light of your surrounding personal circumstances by comparing your results with national statistics. We may then link the result to your individual application and further assess your application with this information. Please note that the CRS does not involve automated individual decision-making (making a decision solely by automated means without any human involvement). The CRS collects specific data which allows a human recruiter to better evaluate outperformance of an individual.
We will use information about your disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment process, for example whether adjustments need to be made during an assessment or an interview.
We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.
Information about criminal convictions
We will collect information about your criminal convictions history if we would like to offer you the role (conditional on checks and any other conditions, such as references, being satisfactory). We are required to carry out criminal records check to satisfy ourselves that there is nothing in your criminal convictions history which makes you unsuitable for the role. We have in place an appropriate policy document and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
Our basis for processing special category data shall be our compliance with statutory obligations.
If you fail to provide personal information
Please make sure that you keep your information up to date.
If you fail to provide certain information requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application, we may not be able to process it.
Automated Decision-Making
We will not make a decision based solely on automated decision-making.
If we offer you a role, we shall require additional information from you at that stage. Your personal information provided through this online form and additional information you provide at that stage will be held in accordance with our data protection policy for employees. We will provide you with a copy of this policy along with our job offer.
Disclosure of Data
We process all data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation. We will not share your data with third parties: i) unless we are required to do so in order to comply with our legal obligations, ii) unless necessary to enter a contract with you; iii) where there is another legitimate interest in doing so; or iv) where it is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person.
Data Security
All information you provide to us is stored on secure servers with industry standard anti-virus and firewall protection in place.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted online or through the website. Any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
Data Retention
You can choose to delete your information from the website and opt out of further communication from us at any time. We will not continue to retain or use any of your information after you have done this.
Otherwise, we will retain your personal information for a period of 12 months after we have communicated to you our decision about whether to appoint you to a role if you are unsuccessful. After this period, we will securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our data retention policy.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.
Your Rights
You have the right to ask for a copy of the data held by us in our records. You also have the right to require us to correct any inaccuracies in your data or delete your data.
Changes
We may make changes to this policy from time to time and any changes will be posted on this page.
Contact Us
If you have any queries or concerns regarding the use of your data or this policy then please contact dataprotection@burnesspaull.com or contact our Data Protection Officer. We will make all efforts to deal with any requests or concerns as speedily as possible.
If we are unable to resolve any issue to your satisfaction, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Contact information can be found at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
Last updated 04/07/2024.
