Employee Privacy Statement

Introduction

Employees, Applicants, Workers and Contractors Data Privacy Statement Last Revised: March 2023

University of Strathclyde Students’ Union (“we”, “our” or “us”) promises to respect any personal data you share with us, or that we get from other organisations and keep it safe. We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). It applies to all employees, workers and contractors.

University of Strathclyde Students’ Union is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice. This notice applies to current and former employees, workers and contractors. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

Facilitating our legal requirements, organisation policy and services to our employees through using your personal data allows us make better decisions, communicate more efficiently and, ultimately, ensure you receive the services required as a Union employee.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says 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.
Kept securely.
Used in way that enables us to be accountable.

What information we hold about you and how we collect it

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). There are "special categories" of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

The kind of information we hold about you

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
Date of birth.
Gender.
Marital status and dependants.
Next of kin and emergency contact information.
National Insurance number.
Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information.
Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information.
Start date.
Location of employment or workplace.
Copy of driving licence – for relevant staff.
Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process).
Employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, training records and professional memberships).
Performance information.
Disciplinary and grievance information.
CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means such as swipe card records.
Information about your use of our information and communications systems.
Photographs.

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

Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
Information about criminal convictions and offences.

Where this is the case we will ensure we rely upon the appropriate lawful basis.

How we collect your personal information

We typically collect personal information about employees, applicants, workers and contractors through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies.

We will collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us.

How we will use your personal information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where you are a significant member of a team that we need to introduce to a customer or other third party.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests).
Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We need all the categories of information in the list above (see The kind of information we hold about you) primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below:

Making a decision about your recruitment or appointment.
Determining the terms on which you work for us.
Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK.
Paying you and, if you are an employee, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions.
Liaising with your pension provider.
Administering the contract we have entered into with you.
Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing.
Conducting performance reviews, managing performance and determining performance requirements.
Making decisions about salary reviews and compensation.
Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions.
Gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings.
Making decisions about your continued employment or engagement.
Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship (contractors only).
Education, training and development requirements.
Dealing with customers and other third parties to whom your identity and background information is important. For example if you are to work on their premises or because of a proposed merger, acquisition or joint venture.
Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, workers and contractors, including accidents at work.
Ascertaining your fitness to work.
Managing sickness absence.
Complying with health and safety obligations.
To prevent fraud.
To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies.
To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution.
To conduct data analytics studies to review and better understand employee retention and attrition rates.
Equal opportunities monitoring.

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you or providing a benefit), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
Where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our privacy standard.
Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme, and in line with our privacy standard.
Where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

We may also need to process your data where you are at risk or are vuerable. In such circumstances we may rely on an alternative lawful basis and an appropriate policy document.

Our obligations as an employer

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

We will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or family related leaves, to comply with employment and other laws.
We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits.
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.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.

Information about criminal convictions

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our privacy standard. Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

We envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the recruitment process or where we need that information because of your role. We may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us.

We are allowed to use your personal information in this way to carry out our obligations.

Data Sharing

We may have to share your data with third parties, including customers, third-party service providers and other entities in the group. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We may transfer your personal information outside the UK for any of the purposes described in this notice. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

"Third parties" includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, IT services, occupational health, Student staff employment tools, accounting systems and online banking.

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information under the general law or 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.

When might you share my personal information with other entities in the group?

We will share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our regular reporting activities on company performance, in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise, for system maintenance support and hosting of data, for holding in a central repository of employee data.

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Transferring information outside the UK

We may transfer the personal information we collect about you to the countries outside the UK in order to perform our contract with you. There may not be an adequacy decision by the UK in respect of those countries. This means that the countries to which we transfer your data may not be deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information.

However, to ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection we have put in place the following appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the UK laws on data protection we:

Only use globally recognised organisations who have made commitments and reached specific ISO standards in data security.
Require all third party sharing to be undertaken with a valid contract only
Require all third parties to be auditable by our data protection officer
Where a transfer risk assessment has been completed
Where a UK safeguard is in force

If you require further information about these protective measures, you can request it from the Data Protection Officer or it is available the staff intranet.

Data Retention

How long will you use my information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

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. Once you are no longer an employee, worker or contractor of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

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

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). 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 particular 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.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, or object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Data Protection Officer in writing.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Data Protection Officer. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Data protection officer

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO. 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.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the Data Protection Officer.

I,___________________________ (employee/worker/contractor name), acknowledge that on _________________________ (date), I received a copy of University of Strathclyde Students’ Union's Privacy Notice for employees, workers and contractors and that I have read and understood it.

Signature: ………………………………………………

Name: …………………………………………………

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