Privacy Policy

HANDELSBANKEN RECRUITMENT PRIVACY NOTICE

Introduction

We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice describes how we collect, store, and use personal information about you during our recruitment and selection process. This privacy notice covers candidates applying for jobs with Handelsbanken. It is important that you read this notice so that you are aware of how and why we are handling the personal information we are collecting, storing, and using about you. Your rights over your personal information and how to exercise those rights are also set out in this  notice.

Who We Are

Handelsbanken plc (Handelsbanken) 3 Thomas More Square, London, E1W 1WY is a member of the Handelsbanken group (Group) of companies and is the ‘controller’ of your personal information. This means information about you or information that we can use to identify you. We are the controller of this information under relevant data protection laws because, as a result of our relationship with you, we decide how and why it is processed in the ways explained in this Privacy Notice. When we use terms such as we, us, and our in this notice, we mean Handelsbanken.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer, whose contact details are below.

What Information Do We Collect?

We collect, store, and use the personal information that you provide to us in your CV and covering letter,  as part of our application process (including when you set up a profile on our recruitment system); and, where it is a requirement of the role, confirmation of whether you hold a full UK driving licence and professional qualifications.

We also collect, store and use personal information given to us by recruitment agencies (if applicable).

We use job boards and sites to advertise our vacancies. When you apply for one of these jobs we will collect, store, and use personal information provided to us by the job board/site together with that which you provide directly to us. The information provided by the job board/site is likely to include CV, e-mail address, telephone number, current job title, current location, and current salary. Where you have started an application but not yet completed it, the access granted to us by job boards and sites may mean that we have sight of your application. If you would like further information on how your personal information is processed by job boards and sites and what information they provide to us, please review their privacy notice.

In addition, if you choose to complete our equality of opportunity questions we will retain it for monitoring purposes.

Prior to entering an interview process we will contact you to ask if you require any reasonable adjustments. If these are required, we will collect, store, and use information about any relevant medical condition or disability you have for only this purpose. This is also applicable for the face to face interview stage.

We will collect information about your right to work status in the UK. We may also collect additional information such as current compensation and expectations and notice period during the recruitment process. If you have applied for a role which requires a full driving licence, and role specific qualifications we will take a copy of your required documents as part of the recruitment process.

Once we have offered you a role, we will need to collect, in addition to the above, some personal information about yourself e.g. address, date of birth, NI number.  Also your emergency contact details such as their name and  relationship to you, contact numbers,  and email address. We will also need information about your tax and student loan status (if relevant) and bank account details.

Additionally, we will collect, store, and use personal information from your referees about your previous employment history, including the name of your previous employer, the position you held, your start, and leaving dates, your annual salary upon leaving and your reason for leaving.

How Long Do We Keep Your Information For?

If your application is unsuccessful, we will keep your details for 12 months. If you consent, we would like to match you to any other live vacancies that might be suitable. A member of our recruitment team will use your personal information to match you to any other suitable vacancy without you needing to reapply for up to 12 months.

We will ask you if you would like to keep your personal information - CV, e-mail address, and contact telephone number - on our system. If you consent, your profile on our recruitment system will remain active.

You will then be able to submit future applications without the need to resubmit your personal information for as long as your profile is active. You will have the option to update your profile at any time.

Alternatively, you can register to hear from us in relation to our latest vacancies. We will collect, store, and use your e-mail address and vacancy preferences in order to send you tailored vacancy alerts. We will contact you every 12 months to see if you would like your alerts kept active.

How We Will Use Your Information

Our purpose for processing this information is to assess your suitability for a role you have applied for and to help us develop and improve our recruitment process.

We will use your data to:

  • comply with employment law and other legal obligations;
  • assess your skills, qualifications and suitability for the role to determine whether to interview you;
  • arrange and conduct interviews;
  • communicate with you about the recruitment and selection process;
  • decide and communicate the outcome of your application;
  • determine the terms on which to employ you;
  • carry out verification and vetting;
  • obtain references on you;
  • deal with any legal disputes involving you; and
  • keep records relating to our hiring processes.

Lawful Bases

Our legal basis for processing your personal data is that it is necessary for taking steps prior to entering into a contract with you and for our compliance with legal obligations.

If you provide us with any information about reasonable adjustments you require under the Equality Act 2010 the lawful basis we rely on for processing this information is UK GDPR article 6(1)(c) to comply with our legal obligations under the Act.

If you choose to complete our equality of opportunity questions, our legal basis is UK GDPR article 9(2)(g) - necessary for reasons of substantial public interest and Schedule 1 para. 8 of the Data Protection Act 2018 which relates to equality of opportunity or treatment.

What Happens If I don’t Provide My Personal Information?

If you don’t provide the personal information we need, we may not be able to continue with our recruitment and selection process or a job offer e.g. if you don’t give us details of your eligibility to work in the UK we cannot employ you.

If you have any concerns about whether you need to provide the personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer.

Who We Share Your Information With

We will only share the personal information that you give us with the following third parties and for the following reasons:

If you are applying for a senior role in our company, we may share your personal information with:

  • Tribepad on the basis that they are involved in managing and approving the recruitment and selection process of our senior roles Handelsbanken UK PLC will share your data with Reed Personnel who are our appointed vetting partner. This is part of the necessary due diligence prior to any offer of employment, this may include but not be limited to credit reference checks, employment reference checks, qualification checks and fitness to practice checks  where applicable.
  • Companies who provide support for our internal IT systems and our applicant tracking systems - we use reputable third parties for our IT systems and support services They may access your personal information to the extent that they need to in order to provide their services.
  • A company that we merge with or transfer our business assets to - in the event that we sell all or part of our business, or merge with another company, we may transfer personal information that we have collected as described in this notice, along with our other business assets, to the company that we are selling to or merging with.
  • Entities, organisations, or individuals outside our group for legal reasons- we will share your personal information with entities, companies, or individuals outside our group where this is necessary to comply with any law, rule, regulation, legal procedure, or governmental request that is applicable to us.
  • Entities, companies, or individuals outside our group to obtain advice – we may share your personal information with external professional advisors, such as lawyers or accountants, in order to take advice and for the purposes of legal and tribunal proceedings. The legal basis for this is that it is in our legitimate interests as a business to be able to obtain professional advice from our external advisors about issues that may arise within our business. We will only disclose such personal information to any third party as is necessary to enable them to carry out the function or purpose for which it is disclosed.
  • With other Organisations, we will ensure that we have the right agreements in place to govern the relationship between the bank and these organisations to ensure that your personal data is protected.

Data Protection Principles

We will only ever process your information in a Lawful, Fair and Transparent manner and only collect that which we need as a minimum to carry out processing. We will only use your information for the purposes we have outlined to you, and not in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.

With your help, we can keep these records accurate and up to date. We only keep your data for as long as we are required to in line with our Records Retention Policy, which is based upon legislative requirements and/or we have a business case for doing so.

You can be assured that we will keep your information secure in line with our technical and organisational measures to protect data.

Where Information May Be Held

Data will be stored in our applicant management system.

Information may be held at our registered offices, and third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents.

 Transfers of your personal information outside of the UK:

We’re based in the UK, but sometimes we may need to transfer your personal information outside the UK.

If it’s processed within the European Economic Area (EEA) then it’s protected by data protection standards similar to those in the UK. Some countries outside the EEA also have adequate protection for personal information under laws that apply to us.

We’ll make sure that suitable safeguards are in place before we transfer your personal information to countries outside the EEA.

Safeguards include:

  • contractual obligations imposed on the recipients of your personal information which require them to protect your personal information to the standard required in the UK; and
  • requiring the recipient to subscribe to ‘international frameworks’ intended to enable secure data sharing to protect personal information.

 

Your Rights

The UK GDPR gives you certain rights in respect of the personal data that we hold:

  • You have the right to access your personal data that we hold on you including how it is processed and if we have shared it with Third Parties;
  • You have the right to require us to rectify any inaccurate personal data we hold concerning you;
  • You have the right to request that your data is deleted (Right to be Forgotten) which we will only object to if there is a legal or business case for keeping the information;
  • You also have the Right to Data Portability, where we will provide you with your information in a commonly used machine readable electronic format; and
  • You have the right to object to processing of personal data if you feel we are not processing it in a fair and transparent manner. We can refuse to cease processing where we have a compelling legitimate ground that outweighs your interests, or if we need the data to bring or defend a legal claim to which we will keep you fully informed.;
  • You have the right to require us to restrict the processing of your personal data on certain grounds, including where:
    • you contest the accuracy of the personal data and want us to restrict processing of your personal data while we verify its accuracy;
    • the processing is unlawful, but you request a restriction of the processing rather than erasure;
    • we (as controller) no longer need the data for the purposes of the processing, but you have told us you require us to retain that personal data for you to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
    • you have objected to us processing your personal data on grounds of legitimate interests and want us to restrict processing of your personal data while we consider your objection.

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

How to Complain

We hope that our Data Protection Officer can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information. If not, contact the Information Commissioner at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/or telephone: 0303 123 1113 for further information about your rights and how to make a formal complaint.

Data Protection Officer Contact Details

Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted by writing to 3 Thomas More Square, London E1W 1WY or by emailing dpo-uk@handelsbanken.co.uk if you have queries about this Privacy Notice or wish to exercise any of the rights mentioned in it.

Please note that we may update this Privacy Notice from time to time.