Privacy Notice for Employees, Workers, Contractors and Job Applicants
(Version 9, 14 June 2024)
Guidance notes
This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you before, during and after your employment with us, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This privacy notice applies to all job applicants and current and former employees, workers and contractors.
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 information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information and what your rights are under the data protection legislation.
This notice does not form part of any contract of employment. We may update this notice at any time but if we do so, we will provide you with an updated copy of this notice as soon as reasonably practicable.
1. Introduction
1.1 VORBOSS LIMITED, incorporated and registered in England and Wales with company number 05678571 whose registered office is at 10 Exchange Square, London, United Kingdom, EC2A 2BR (“Vorboss”, “we”, “us” or “our”) are committed to protecting the privacy and security of the personal data of any person applying for a job with Vorboss (“Candidate”) and every employee, worker or contractor (“you”).
1.2 Vorboss is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use your personal data. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.
2. Data Protection Principles
2.1 Vorboss will comply with data protection legislation, your personal data that we hold must be:
(a) used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
(b) collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
(c) relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;
(d) accurate and kept up to date;
(e) kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about; and
(f) kept securely.
3. The kind of information we hold about you
3.1 We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal data:
• 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.
• Copy of driving licence.
• Names, addresses and dates of birth for any Life Assurance Policy beneficiaries.
• Leaving date and your reason for leaving.
• Start date and, if different, the date of your continuous employment.
• Location of employment or workplace.
• 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, holidays, training records and professional memberships).
• Performance information.
• Disciplinary and grievance information.
• CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means such as access card records.
• Photographs, videos and audio.
• Information about your use of our devices including any mobile, laptop etc. (as well as location data) and information and communications systems.
• Results of HMRC employment status check, details of your interest in and connection with the intermediary through which your services are supplied.
3.2 We may also collect, store and use the following more sensitive types of personal data:
(a) information about criminal convictions and offences;
(b) information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions on an anonymous basis to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting;
(c) trade union membership; and
(d) information about your health, including any medical condition, Covid-19 and vaccination related information, health and sickness records, biometric data, and any records relating to employee drug/substance abuse tests including:
(i) where you leave employment and under any share plan operated by a group company the reason for leaving is determined to be ill-health, injury or disability, the records relating to that decision;
(ii) details of any absences (other than holidays) from work including time on statutory parental leave and sick leave; and
(iii) where you leave employment and the reason for leaving is related to your health, information about that condition needed for pensions and health insurance purposes.
3.3 We may share Covid-19 and similar information shared with us by you, with our employees, workers and contractors where Covid-19 symptoms have been reported to us, to help us comply with our health and safety obligations.
4. How your personal data is collected
4.1 We collect your personal data 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 or payroll.
4.2 We will collect additional personal data in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us.
5. How we will use information about you
5.1 We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
(a) where we need to perform the contract of employment we have entered into with you, or take steps to enter into such a contract;
(b) where we need to comply with a legal obligation; and
(c) where it is necessary for legitimate interests pursued by us or a third party and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
5.2 We may also use your personal data in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
(a) where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests); and
(b) where it is needed in the public interest.
6. Situations in which we will use your personal data
6.1 We need all the categories of information listed above for three main reasons: (a) to allow us to enter into or perform our contract with you (see examples marked “1” below); (b) to enable us to comply with legal obligations (see examples marked “2” below); and (c) in some cases, we may use your personal data to pursue legitimate interests (see examples marked “3” below), in each instance, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The table below therefore sets out the situations and purposes for which we are processing or will process your personal data:
• Assessing your skills, qualifications and suitability for a role and making a decision about your recruitment or appointment.1, 3
• Carrying out background and reference checks.1, 2
• Communicating with you about the recruitment process.1
• Determining the terms on which you work for us, for example, the hours of work and the salary.1
• Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK.2
• Paying you and, if you are an employee or deemed employee for tax purposes, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs).1, 2
• Providing the following benefits to you: (i) reimbursement of reasonable business expenses; and/or (ii) commission. 1
• Enrolling you in a pension arrangement in accordance with our statutory automatic enrolment duties.1, 2
• Liaising with your pension provider and any other provider of employee benefits.1, 2
• Administering the contract we have entered into with you.1
• Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing.2, 3
• Conducting performance reviews, managing performance and determining performance requirements.1
• Making decisions about salary reviews.1 Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions.1
• Gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings.1
• Making decisions about your continued employment or engagement.1
• Equal opportunities and diversity monitoring.1, 2
• Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship.1
• Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, including accidents at work.1, 2
• Managing sickness absence.1
• To market Vorboss and its services. For example, by using photographs, videos and audio to pursue the legitimate interest of marketing and developing the business via (amongst others) printed materials and Vorboss’ website and social media channels.3
• Ascertaining your fitness to work.2, 3
• Education, training and development requirements.1
• To determine whether we need to make reasonable adjustments to your workplace or role because of your disability.1, 2, 3
• Complying with health and safety obligations.2
• To prevent fraud.2
• To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies.3
• To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution. 3
• To conduct data analytics studies to review and better understand employee retention and attrition rates.3
• Inviting you to participate in any share plans operated by us. 1, 3
• Administering your participation in any share plans operated by us, including communicating with you about your participation. 1, 3
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal data. You will not be subject to decisions based on automated data processing without your prior consent.
7. If you fail to provide personal data
7.1 Whilst you are a Candidate, if you fail to provide 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.
7.2 If you are an employee, contractor or worker, and 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).
8. Change of purpose
8.1 We will only use your personal data 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 data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
8.2 Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
9. How we use particularly sensitive personal data
9.1 "Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal data, such as information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, biometric data, or trade union membership, require higher levels of protection.
9.2 We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal data. We have in place an appropriate policy document and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
9.3 We may process special categories of personal data in the following circumstances:
(a) in limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent;
(b) where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment; and
(c) where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme.
9.4 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 (this is less common).
10. Situations in which we will use your sensitive personal data
10.1 In general, we will not process particularly sensitive personal data about you unless it is necessary for performing or exercising obligations or rights in connection with employment. On rare occasions, there may be other reasons for processing, such as it is in the public interest to do so. The situations in which we will process your particularly sensitive personal data are listed below. We have indicated the purpose or purposes for which we are processing or will process your more sensitive personal data:
(a) 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 or adjustments during the recruitment process (for example during a test or interview), to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits including statutory parental pay, statutory sick pay, pensions and health insurance. We need to process this information to exercise rights and perform obligations in connection with your employment; and
(b) we will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.
11. Your consent
We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal data 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.
12. Information about criminal convictions
12.1 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 we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us. We will use information about criminal convictions and offences in the following ways:
(a) to ensure that the individual is suitable to work in the job role; and
(b) to ensure that the individual is not restricted from working with vulnerable adults or children.
12.2 If a DBS certificate is applied for and does contain information which may prohibit you from carrying out your job role (as above) we will discuss this with you in the first instance. This information will be recorded on your HR file.
12.3 If you are already in post and your DBS certificate expires, we may apply for an up-to-date certificate. If the information on the certificate has changed, rendering you unsuitable for the role, we may take necessary steps to terminate your employment.
12.4 We are allowed to use your personal data in this way to carry out our obligations and to ensure the individuals suitability to work in the specific role. We have in place an appropriate policy and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
13. Data sharing
Why might you share my personal data with third parties?
13.1 We will share your personal data with third parties where required by law, where necessary for the purposes of processing your application, where it is necessary to administer your employment or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.
13.2 We may share personal data relating to your participation in any share plans operated by us with any third party administrators, nominees, registrars and trustees for the purposes of administering the share plans.
13.3 Which third party service providers process my personal data?
“Third parties” includes third party service providers (including contractors, designated agents and professional advisors). This could potentially include customers and clients. The activities carried out by third party service providers includes: payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, tax advice, travel and expenses administration, IT services, pre-employment checks, driving license checks and legal services from external law firms regarding complex HR matters.
13.4 When might you share my personal data with other entities in the group?
We may share your personal data with other entities in our group, for example as part of our regular reporting activities on company performance or in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise. We may also share personal data relating to your participation in any share plan, pension or similar arrangements operated by us with other entities in the group for the purposes of administering any company share plan, pension scheme or similar arrangement.
13.5 How secure is my information with third party service providers?
All our third party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal data 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. We will at all times remain the “data controller”.
13.6 What about other third parties?
We may share your personal data with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. In this situation we will, so far as possible, share anonymised data with the other parties before the transaction completes. Once the transaction is completed, we will share your personal data with the other parties if and to the extent required under the terms of the transaction.
We may also need to share your personal data with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law. This may include making returns to HMRC, disclosures to stock exchange regulators and disclosures to shareholders such as directors’ remuneration reporting requirements.
13.7 Transferring personal data outside the UK
Through Vorboss’ use of Airtable (a third party cloud database platform), we will transfer some of the personal data we collect about you to the United States in order to perform our contract with you.
To ensure that your personal data receives an adequate level of protection and in order to ensure that your personal data is treated by Airtable in a way that is consistent with and which respects UK law on data protection, our agreement with Airtable includes a set of clauses approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) to ensure an adequate level of protection for personal data. Further information about this protective measure is available from the People and Culture Team or from the DPO (as defined below).
14. Data retention
How long will you use my information for?
14.1 We will only retain your personal data 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.
14.2 In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data 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 Vorboss we will retain and securely destroy your personal data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
15. Rights of access, correction, erasure and restriction
15.1 Your duty to inform us of changes
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your working relationship with us.
15.2 Your rights in connection with personal data
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
(a) Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
(b) Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
(c) Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data 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 data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
(d) Object to processing of your personal data 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 data for direct marketing purposes.
(e) Request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
(f) Request the transfer of your personal data to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal data, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal data to another party, please contact the People and Culture Team or your supervisor in writing.
15.3 No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (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.
15.4 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 data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
16. Right to withdraw consent
In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing, and transfer of your personal data 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 People and Culture Team or your supervisor. 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.
17. 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 data, please email the DPO (dpo@vorboss.com). You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the ICO, the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. You can contact the ICO on 0303 123 1113 or you can access their website (www.ico.org.uk) to make a complaint and/or for further information.
18. 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 data.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the People and Culture Team or your supervisor.