PEXA – UK Joint Privacy Notice for Applicants

 

It is important that you read and retain this notice, together with any other Privacy Notice
we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing Personal Data
about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information and what
your rights are under the UK Data Protection Legislation.

What is the purpose of this document?

Digital Completion UK Ltd (“PEXA“) and Optima Legal Services Limited (“Optima Legal“) are
both companies in PEXA Group Limited (ASX: PXA) (“PEXA Group“). In this notice we refer
to PEXA and Optima Legal collectively as “we”, “us”, or “our”, as applicable.

For the purpose of data protection laws, PEXA and Optima Legal are “Joint Controllers” in relation to
Applicant Personal Data. 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 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 exercise, and how long it will usually be retained for. It
provides you with certain information that must be provided under the UK General Data
Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR“).

If we intend on further processing any Personal Data other than for the reasons and under the lawful basis provided for in this Privacy Notice, the Privacy Notice will be updated accordingly. If you are successful with your application then you will be provided with our Privacy Notice for Employees and Contractors.

Personal Data

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), e.g. Personal Data rendered anonymous in such a manner that
the Data Subject is no longer identifiable. There are certain types of more sensitive
Personal Data which require a higher level of protection, such as information about a
person’s health or sexual orientation. Information about criminal convictions also warrants
this higher level of protection.

Data Protection Principles

We will comply with data protection law and principles, meaning 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; and,
• kept securely.

The kind of information 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:

• the information you have provided to us in your curriculum vitae (“CV”) and any
  covering letter;
• the information you have provided on our application form (if applicable), including
  name, title, address, telephone number, personal email address, date of birth, gender,
  employment history, and qualifications; and,
• any information you provide to us during an interview.

We may also collect, store and use the following types of sensitive personal information:

• equal opportunity monitoring 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, so that we can make reasonable adjustments (where applicable);
• information about criminal convictions and offences; and,
• information about your entitlement to work in the United Kingdom.

How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information about candidates from the following sources:

• you, the candidate;
• recruitment agencies who have referred you;
• Companies House in respect of any directorship;
• FCA Financial Services Register in respect of any current or previous authorisations by
  the FCA or the PRA;
• from any other applicable regulatory body or register, e.g. the Solicitors Regulation
  Authority (SRA);
• Disclosure and Barring Service in respect of criminal convictions;
• any named referees, from whom we may collect details of your professional
  experience;
• CIFAS in relation to any fraud notifications; and,
• our vetting and screening providers whose screening checks will, in addition to the
  above, include media searches, adverse financial information, identity checks and
  PEP/sanctions checks.

How we will use information about you

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

• assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the role;
• carry out background and reference checks, where applicable;
• communicate with you about the recruitment process;
• keep records related to our hiring processes; and,
• comply with legal or regulatory requirements. For example, we are required to check
  a successful applicant’s eligibility to work in the United Kingdom before the start of
  employment.

Having received your CV and any covering letter and/or your application form, 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. If we decide to call you for an interview, we will use the
information you provide to us at the first interview and any subsequent interviews to
decide whether to offer you the role. If we decide to offer you the role, we may then
contact references and carry out a background check before confirming your appointment.
Where required by law, we will also undertake a criminal background check.

Change of Purpose

We will use your Personal Data for the purpose for which we collected it, as outlined above
in ‘How we will use information about you’. If your application is unsuccessful, we may
wish to keep your information on file for longer than our standard retention period in case
there are future employment opportunities with us that are suitable. We will ask for your
consent before we retain your Personal Data on file for this purpose. You may withdraw
your consent as any time.

Legal Basis of Processing

The legal basis for processing your Personal Data as per Article 6 UK GDPR is:

• Contractual: We need to process your Personal Data to decide whether to enter into a
  contract of employment with you;
• Legal Obligation: It is necessary to comply with a legal obligation for our onboarding
  processes, we will also undertake a criminal background check;
• Consent: If we rely on your consent to process your Personal Data for the purpose of
  your application during the recruitment process, you will have the right to withdraw
  your consent to such processing at any time by submitting a written request to:
  • the UK DPO at PEXA at uk.dpo@pexa.com.au; or
  • the Compliance Team at Optima Legal at compliance2@optimalegal.co.uk.
• Legitimate Interests: It is in our legitimate interests to decide whether to appoint you
  to the role because it would be beneficial to our business to fill the role. Where it is
  necessary for our legitimate interests and your interests or fundamental rights and
  freedoms do not override our interests.

The legal basis for processing your special category Personal Data is:

• you have given us explicit consent; and,
• your obligations or rights as a Data Subject under employment, social security and
  social protection (if authorised by law).

If you fail to provide personal information

You have no statutory or contractual obligation to provide information to us during the
recruitment process. However, if you fail to provide such information when requested,
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 a criminal background check or references for the role and you fail to provide us
with relevant details, we will not be able to take your application further.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

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

• 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 interview; and,
• 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

When required by law, we will process 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, and where you have given your
consent. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part
of the recruitment process or we may be notified of such information directly by you
during the recruitment process.

We have in place an Appropriate Policy Document and safeguards which we are required
by law to maintain when processing such data.

Automated decision-making

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

 

Data sharing

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

We may share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our
regular recruitment activities. All our other entities in the group are required to take
appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies
and we only permit them to process your Personal Data for specified purposes and in
accordance with our instructions.

Transferring information outside the UK

We may transfer the personal information we collect about you outside the UK as part of
our regular recruitment activities, including to group companies in Australia. There are no
adequacy decisions in respect of Australia – comparable to that of the European Union.
This means that the country to which we transfer your data is not 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 technical and organisational measures to ensure that your
personal information is required to be treated by those third parties in a way that is
consistent with and which respects UK law on data protection. If you require further
information about these protective measures, you can request it from our Data Protection
Officer.

Our Data Protection Officer is Matt Ellis and can be contacted at uk.dpo@pexa.com.au.

Data Security 

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,
contractors and other third parties who have a business need-to-know. They are only
permitted to process your personal information on our instructions, and they are subject to
a duty of confidentiality. They must also comply with their obligations under applicable
data protection legislation. Details of these measures may be obtained by contacting our
Data Protection Officer at uk.dpo@pexa.com.au.

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. This will be done in line with our Data Protection Policy.

Data retention

How long will you use my information for?

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 the role. We retain
your personal information for that period 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 Records
Management Policy.

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.

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 “Data Subject
  Access Request” or “DSAR”). 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;
• request the transfer of your personal information to another party, as long as it meets
  certain criteria; and,
• withdraw your consent at any time, where our processing is based on your consent
  (or explicit consent).

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 contact our Data Protection Officer in writing at Digital Completion UK Ltd, Suite 5a, West Village, 114 Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 1BA.

Data Protection Officer

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer 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 Data Protection Officer at uk.dpo@pexa.com.au.

If you wish to contact PEXA, you can do so by post at Digital Completion UK Ltd, Suite 5a, West Village, 114 Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 1BA.

If you wish to contact Optima Legal, you can do so by post at Optima Legal Services
Limited, Suite 5a, West Village, 114 Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 1BA.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s
Office (ICO) who is responsible for data protection issues in the UK by visiting https://ico.org.uk.

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.