Welcome to Pennard Vets (“we”, “us” or “our”).
Thank you for your interest in applying for a role with us. As part of the recruitment process, we will collect and process your personal data. We take your privacy and security very seriously and are committed to protecting it, so this privacy policy gives you information about how we collect and process your personal data when you apply for a role with us.
It is important that you read this privacy policy carefully so that you understand how we look after and process your personal data, and so that you are aware of your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
What is included in this policy?
1. Important information and who we are
2. The personal data we collect and how we use it
3. Who we share your personal data with
4. International transfers
5. Keeping your personal data secure
6. Data retention
7. Being in control of your own information
8. Changes to this privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes
1. Important information and who we are
Purpose of this privacy policy
This privacy policy aims to give you information on how we collect and process your personal data through your use of our website and throughout the application process.
This privacy policy only applies to the personal data of job applicants, potential candidates for employment and those who participate in our recruitment programmes and events. It does not apply to our employees, contractors or clients.
Controller
For the purpose of the UK General Data Protection Regulation Pennard Vets, 26-28 Pembroke Road, Sevenoaks TN13 1XR is the data controller who is responsible for your personal data.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK with reference number ZA184179.
Contact details
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer who is responsible for overseeing this privacy policy.
If you have any questions about this policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using one of the following methods:
By telephone – 01732 452 344
By post – FAO: Pennard Vets Sevenoaks, 26-28 Pembroke Road, Sevenoaks TN13 1XR
By email – privacy@pennardvets.com
Third-party links
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications.
In some instances, we may be “joint controllers” with this third party. This means that we might be jointly responsible with that third party for determining the collection and/or use of your personal information with this organisation.
Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you.
When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of the websites you visit.
2. The personal data we collect and how we use it
If you have applied for a position or otherwise interacted with our website, we will use your personal data in several different ways where at least one of the following legal bases applies:
Consent – where you have given us your consent (or explicit consent where appropriate);
Contract – it is necessary for entering into or performing a contract with you;
Legal obligation – it is needed to comply with a legal obligation that is imposed on us;
Legitimate interest – 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 have set out below the types of personal data we collect, how we use it and the legal basis we are relying upon for doing so.
To process your application (Contract, Legitimate Interest)
We ask about your experience (including your employment and educational history, qualifications, references and accreditation with the relevant regulatory bodies) as well as for copies of the documentation the role may require (such as insurance or a fire arms licence), the reason for your application, your availability to work and information about your health and any disability and reasonable adjustment requirements and we will consider your competency-based assessment scores to assess your suitability for the role.
If you have uploaded your CV to a job board or website, or indicated you are open to recruiters, such as on LinkedIn, we may use this information as part of the process.
If you are applying for a clinical role, we will check if there have been any recent or outstanding concerns registered with the RCVS when deciding whether to offer you the role.
We use information that you have provided about your health and any disability and reasonable adjustment requirements to try and make these adjustments and accommodate you during the application process and in the workplace.
We will ask for and consider your location and pre-booked annual leave when deciding interview and assessment dates and times.
To decide whether to offer you the role and on what terms (Contract, Legitimate Interest)
We ask for your current and expected salary, availability to work and your preferred location and commute time to determine the salary and location we include in an offer that we make you.
During and after the interview, the interviewee(s) may make notes based on your performance in the interview and the information you provided to decide whether to offer you the role.
To keep in touch with you (Contract)
We ask for your name, telephone number, address and email address to set up a record of, and contact you about, your application.
To send you information about us and our current vacancies (Consent)
If you provide us with your consent, we will use your name, telephone number, email address and your LinkedIn, VetClick or similar account details to send you job alerts.
We will ask for the professional areas that interest you or you would like to avoid and your preferred location and commute time, and use the information about your experience, availability to work, assessment scores and your preferences to receive job alerts from us to ensure the job alerts that we send you are suitable and of interest to you.
We may post job adverts on our social media accounts or LinkedIn page and if you comment or send us a direct message, we will process your account details to respond to you.
To safeguard the business assets, colleagues and clients (Contract, Legal Obligation, Legitimate Interest)
After we have offered you the role, we ask if you have any unspent criminal convictions so that we can safeguard the business assets and our colleagues and clients. This data will be shared with HR and your line manager to assess your suitability for the role which may result in the offer being revised or withdrawn.
To fulfil our legal obligations (Legal Obligation)
We ask for your date of birth, national insurance number, passport, driving licence, right to work documentation and visa details to check that you are legally entitled to work in the United Kingdom.
We ask you equality and diversity questions about your religion, race, ethnicity, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation and for Northern Ireland candidates, we also ask about your community background, so that we can complete equal opportunities reporting. These questions are not mandatory and will not affect your application. Any information you do provide will only be used to produce and monitor equal opportunities statistics.
To enter into a contract of employment with you (Contract)
If you accept an offer from us, we will use your name, national insurance number and ask for your bank details to set you up on our payroll system so that we can send your salary direct to your bank account.
To ensure the website operates properly (Legitimate Interest)
We use technical information about your device (such as your IP address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types, versions and screen sizes, operation system and platform, URL clickstream to and from our website and download errors) to ensure the website is secure and works on your device without errors.
To improve our recruitment process (Legitimate Interest)
We use information about how you use our website (such as cookie information, if you consent to our cookie banner, your page response times, lengths of visits to certain pages, page interaction information and methods used to browse away from our website) to improve our recruitment process and identify the best channels to advertise our vacancies.
We use different methods to collect data including through:
a) Direct interactions – you may give us any of the above information as part of your application and during the recruitment or assessment process, at recruitment fairs or when corresponding with us via telephone, email or face to face.
b) Automated technologies or interactions – as you interact with our website, we will automatically collect some technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive this technical data about you if you visit other websites which employ our cookies – click here to see our cookie policy for further details.
c) Third parties – we may receive the above categories of information about you from third parties such as:
Your former employers
Your named referees
Employment agencies
Background check providers
Recruitment agencies
Platforms such as LinkedIn, VetClick and Vet Times where candidates indicate they are available for work
Educational establishments
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
Disclosure and Barring Service
Employees who have referred you to us
Where we have received information from other sources, we will have informed you when we collected that data that it may be shared internally and combined with the data that we collect about you from your use of this website.
If you fail to provide your information
If you fail to provide certain information when requested (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application and we will inform you that your application has been unsuccessful.
Marketing
If your interests or requirements change, you can unsubscribe from part or all of our marketing content (including job alert emails) by clicking the unsubscribe link in an email you have received.
Change of purpose
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 you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at privacy@pennardvets.com.
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.
Please note, 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.
3. Who we share your personal data with
We may share your personal data with the following groups so that we can manage the recruitment process:
Interview software
Disclosure and Barring Services
Professional bodies
Companies that advertise our roles on their platforms
Recruitment software and applicant tracking system (BreatheHR)
Payroll
HR
Before we share your data with any third party, we will check:
They can provide sufficient guarantees regarding the confidentiality and security of your personal data;
With all data processors, we will have a written contract with them that defines how they can lawfully use your data, how they can protect it and what to do with it when our relationship with them is terminated; and
We only share the data that they need in order to fulfil their services to us.
4. International transfers
Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.
Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.
Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK.
5. Keeping your personal data secure
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.
We also limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they will be subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and we will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
If you would like to know more about how to protect your information and your computer and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and other online problems, please visit Get Safe Online. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
6. Data retention
If you accept an offer of employment with us, any relevant personal data collected during the recruitment process will become part of your employment record. This will be retained in accordance with the specific country requirements and in line with the privacy notice which is applicable to employees.
If we do not employ you, we will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to process your application and satisfy any legal or reporting requirements. If you have given us permission to send you marketing email (including job alerts), we will retain your personal data until you opt out.
We may want to remain in contact with you and consider you for future employment opportunities. In such circumstances, we will seek your consent to include you in our recruiting programmes that enable you to stay in touch and apply for future roles.
7. Being in control of your own information
Under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, you have some important rights available to you. In summary, these include:
Be informed about how we use your personal data (hopefully this privacy policy explains it all)
Access to the personal information that we hold about you
Request that we transfer elements of your data to another service provider
Require us to correct any mistakes in the information which we hold about you
Ask us to erase your personal data in certain situations
Withdraw your consent at any time where the processing of your personal data is based on consent
Object to or restrict or suspend us from processing your personal data in certain circumstances (for example, if you want to restrict processing whilst we are establishing the accuracy of your personal data)
Request not to be subjected to automated decision-making that significantly affects you
The right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (this is the UK’s data protection regulator, and you can do this via the ICO’s website)
If you want to exercise your rights, please contact privacy@pennardvets.com.
8. Changes to this privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes
We may change or update this policy from time to time, so please check it every time you make an application, to make sure you are aware of the most recent version.
This version was last updated on 6th December 2021.
It is your responsibility to ensure that the information you provide is truthful and accurate. If any of your personal data that we hold is incorrect or changes during the recruitment process, please let us know by contacting privacy@pennardvets.com.