Job applicants privacy notice

The following information informs you about what we do with your information when you apply for a job within the council.

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (the ‘council’) is committed to ensuring that your personal information is protected, used lawfully and respectfully and in a transparent manner.

Processing your personal information

The processing of your information includes the collection, use, sharing (for successful applications), retention and destruction of your information.

The personal information we collect about you is required for the purposes of your application, and we collect the minimum amount of information necessary for this purpose. The council will also use your information for the purposes of administering the services in connection with this the application process.

Most of the personal information you provide to us is mandatory but some of it is requested on a voluntary basis. In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we will inform you at the point of collection, whether you are required to provide certain information to us or if you have a choice. 

When submitting an application, you will be asked to consent to the processing of special categories information, such as information about your ethnic origin or disability. We collect this information for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

This information is anonymised (this means you cannot be identified from the information) when collated for reporting. The personal information that you give us will also be used in this confidential manner to help us to monitor the effectiveness of our recruitment process to all parts of the community.

Should your application be successful, and you are offered a role, further information will be requested from you, such as banking details, emergency contacts etc. At this stage an employee privacy notice will be provided to you. 

Lawful basis for processing your personal information

The council has to have a lawful reason to process your information. As such the council will process your application as follows:

Article 6, 1(c) Legal Obligation Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject.
Article 6, 1(f), Legitimate Interests Processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller, or by a third party, except where such interests are over-ridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child.
Article 9, 2 b Special Categories

Processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject in the field of employment and social security and social protection law in so far as it is authorised by Union or Member State law or a collective agreement pursuant to Member State law providing for appropriate safeguards for the fundamental rights and the interests of the data subject;

Protecting your personal information 

The council endeavours to ensure that the services we provide comply with all data protection legislation, for example, the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018).  

All of our job application pages contain “https” in the URL – this means that the information you provide us within the application form is encrypted before being transmitted, this guarantees security for transmission over the internet.

However, the internet is an open system and although the council has appropriate security and controls in place to prevent data loss, for example, hacking attempts, we cannot guarantee that the personal information you submit will not be intercepted by others and decrypted.

Sharing your personal information

The council will not share your information with third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and we offer you employment. Once you accept an offer, we will then share your personal information with, for example, former employers, for the purposes of obtaining references for you, occupational health providers and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain any necessary criminal record checks. The council will only share the minimum amount necessary for fulfilling its employer obligations.

The council is under a duty to protect the public funds it administers, and to this end may use the information you have provided in your application form for the prevention and detection of fraud. It may also share this information with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds for these purposes.

Holding your personal information

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, the council will retain your personal information for 1 year after the end of the relevant recruitment process. At the end of that period, or if you withdraw your consent, your information will be deleted from our system.

If your application for employment is successful, personal data gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your personnel file and retained during your period of employment.

Your individual rights

To learn more about your individual rights, or how to raise a concern, read our general privacy notice.