1. What is the Purpose of this Document?

Vitacress (Limited/Herbs/Salads) is a ‘data controller’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. You are being sent a copy of this candidate privacy notice because you are applying for work with us (whether as an employee, worker or contractor). It makes you aware of how and why your personal data will be used, namely for the purposes of the recruitment or engagement exercise, and for how long it will usually be retained. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

Further information on how we comply with our data protection obligations and individuals’ rights and obligations in relation to the processing of personal data whilst working for or on behalf of Vitacress can be found in our Privacy Statement, Data Breach Policy and Data Retention Policy.

2. What are the ‘Data Protection Principles’?

We will comply with data protection law and principles, which means that your data will 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
Kept securely

3. What kind of information will we hold about you?

In connection with your application for work with us, we will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

All of the information you have provided to us in your application including covering letter, curriculum vitae and application form, including name, title, address, telephone number, personal email address, date of birth, gender, employment history, education and training, qualifications, referees, right to work in the UK and any details provided regarding your suitability for the role.
Any information you provide to us or that is generated when you attend an interview including, for example, notes made and presentations given, car registration number, details of holidays and visits abroad.
The results of any testing undertaken by you.

We may also collect, store and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information:

Information about your nationality
Information about your health, including any medical condition for which Vitacress needs to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment or engagement process

4. How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information about candidates from the following sources:

You, the candidate
The recruitment agency that has recommended you
Your named referees
Disclosure and Barring Service in respect of criminal convictions

5. How will we use information about you?

We will use the personal information we collect about you to:

Assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the work or role
Carry out background and reference checks, where applicable
Communicate with you about the recruitment or engagement process and to understand your availability to attend interviews, assessments and induction etc.
Keep records related to our hiring or engagement processes
Comply with legal or regulatory requirements

It is in our legitimate interests to decide whether to appoint you to the work since it would be beneficial to our business to appoint someone to that role.

We also need to process your personal information to decide whether to enter into a contract of employment with you.

Having received any of the following: your CV, your covering letter, your application form and any results from tests which you may take, we will then process that information to decide whether you meet the basic requirements to be shortlisted for the role. If you do, we will decide whether your application is strong enough to invite you for an interview. The above information will be made accessible to the HR Department and the relevant personnel involved in the recruitment decision only. If we decide to call you for an interview, we will use the information you provide to us at the interview and throughout the recruitment or engagement process to decide whether to offer you the role or work. If we decide to offer you the role or work, we will then take up references and ask you to provide original documentation as proof of your identity, right to work and qualifications, carry out a criminal record and any other checks required before confirming your appointment. Copies of these documents will be kept in the HR Department in your file.

6. What if you fail to provide personal information?

If, when requested, you fail to provide information which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully. For example, if we require references for this role and you fail to provide us with relevant details, we will not be able to take your application further.

7. How will we use particularly ‘sensitive’ personal information?

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

We will use information about your health and disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment or engagement process, for example whether adjustments need to be made during any test or interview.
If you are offered a role at Vitacress, we will use information about your nationality and entitlement to work in the UK to ensure we are compliant with our legal obligation to prevent illegal working.

8. Do we obtain information about criminal convictions?

We do not envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.

9. Will we use your personal data for automated decision-making?

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.

10. Data sharing - Who do we share your personal data with?

We will share your personal information between the Vitacress entities on a need to know basis as we do share our department resources. We will not share your personal data with any other organisation or third-party provider. All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

11. Data security - How do we keep your data secure?

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, agents and contractors who have a business need-to-know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. Details of these measures may be obtained from the Human Resources department conducting your interview process.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach as set out in our Data Breach Policy and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

12. Data retention - How long will you use my information for?

If you are successful and we appoint you to a role or work, we will retain your personal information in line with the data retention legislation and our Data Retention Policy. You will also be provided with a separate privacy notice explaining how we will process your personal data during your time working for or on behalf of Vitacress.

If you are unsuccessful we will retain your personal information for a period of 6 months after we have communicated to you our decision; we do this so that we can show, in the event of a legal claim, that we have not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that we have conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. After this period, we will securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our Data Retention Policy. After the 6-month period, we will securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our Data Retention Policy and applicable laws and regulations.

If we wish to retain your personal information on file, on the basis that a further opportunity may arise in future and we may wish to consider you for that, we will write to you separately, seeking your explicit consent to retain your personal information for a fixed period on that basis.

13. What are your rights of access, correction, erasure and restriction?

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request access to your personal information; commonly known as a ‘Subject Access Request (SAR). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please inform the Human Resources department conducting your interview process.

14. What are your rights to withdraw consent?

Where we are relying on your explicit consent as the lawful basis for processing your personal data as part of the recruitment or engagement process, you have the right to withdraw your consent for processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Human Resources representative conducting your interview process and they will advise you of the correct procedure to follow. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your application and, subject to our retention policy, we will dispose of your personal data securely.

15. What do we do about a data protection officer?

Under the General Data Protection Legislation (GDPR), Vitacress is not required to appoint a data protection officer (DPO) however; we have appointed data protection representatives within our businesses to oversee compliance with data protection including this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Human Resources representative conducting your interview process.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

By continuing with your application you are confirming that you have read and understood Vitacress' Candidate Privacy Notice and that you also give consent to Vitacress to contact your named referees for a reference request.