Job Applicant Privacy Notice

What this Notice covers

Fitshop is 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 our recruitment process, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and data protection legislation.

Identity of the data controller

Fitshop UK Ltd, trading as Fitshop, 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 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.

Categories of personal data we process

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

• Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, personal email addresses
• Details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
• Information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
• Whether you have a disability for which we need to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment;
• Information about your entitlement to work in the UK;
• Other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process);
• Equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions; and
• Information about professional or regulatory registrations
• Information about criminal convictions and offences

Sources of personal data

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

Our lawful bases for processing your data

We will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to take steps at your request prior to and when entering into a contract 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

We will process health information if we need to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. This is to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment.

We will process other special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin and health for equal opportunities monitoring purposes as permitted by the Data Protection Act 2018.

For some roles, we will be obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where we will only seek this information because it is necessary for us to carry out its obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment/comply with a regulatory requirement to establish whether or not an individual has committed an unlawful act or been involved in dishonesty or other improper conduct.

Our purposes for processing your data

• 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
• Administering the contract we are proposing to enter into with you
• Assessing qualifications to determine your suitability for a particular job or task
• Checking you are able to undertake regulated work with vulnerable groups
• Education, training and development requirements
• Complying with health and safety obligations
• To prevent fraud
• 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

We will not use your data for any purpose other than the recruitment exercise for which you have applied. If your application is unsuccessful, and we would like to keep your personal data on file in case there are future employment opportunities for which you may be suited, we shall ask for your consent before we keep your data for this purpose and you are free to withdraw your consent at any time.

Who has access to your data

Your information will be shared internally with employees involved in the recruitment process and decision making, employees within our HR team, and IT employees only if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles.

We will not share your data with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We may then 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.

Recipients of your data may include former employers to obtain references for you, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks and for certain roles, regulatory bodies to obtain necessary criminal records checks.

Where we do so, we will 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 EU. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Security of your data

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.

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.

How we decide how long to retain your data

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.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• Request access to, and a copy of, your personal information
• Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you
• Request erasure of your personal information.
• 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.

If you believe the Company has not complied with your rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

What if you do not provide personal data?

There is no statutory or contractual requirement on you to provide us with personal data however, if you do not provide personal data, it is likely to be impossible for the Company to progress with your job application or enter into an employment relationship with you.

Automated decision-making

Fitshop may make use of electronic automated decision-making systems. we would only do so in the following circumstances:

• where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request reconsideration.
• where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
• in limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

Employment decisions are not based solely on automated decision–making.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

The Company reserves 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.