Guidance

Recruitment: privacy information notice (accessible version)

Updated 11 October 2023

Your personal information, supplied for the purposes of recruitment will be held and processed by the Home Office – 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF. The Home Office is the controller of this information. This also includes situations where it is collected or processed by third parties on our behalf, including the Government Recruitment Service (part of the Cabinet Office).

The Department’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at: dpo@homeoffice.gov.uk

This Recruitment Privacy Notice covers recruitment of the following types:

Primary

• Fixed term appointments
• Permanent recruited through an external fair and open competition
• Individuals hired not through a fair and open competition
• Recruitment of staff from Other Government Departments
• Secondments and loans recruited through non-fair and open recruitment
• Staff that are subject to reinstatement / re-employment
• Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment (TUPE) / Machinery of Government (MOG) transfers
• Border Force seasonal workers
• Contingent Workers
• Network users
• Public hiring of Special advisors at the request of the Government Hiring of Senior Civil Servants
• Hiring of Public Office Holders (Fee paid or Salaried)
• Appointment of Non-Executive Directors & Audit Risk and Assurance Committee members Ministers
• Apprentices
• Withdrawals or Failed Applicants (applications within third party systems are managed by suppliers)
• Pre-appointment checks for failed applicants (applications are destroyed as per the agreed retention policy)
• Expressions of Interest (EoI) are retained locally by hiring managers (applications are destroyed as per the agreed retention policy)

Secondary

• Promotions
• Internal transfers
• Downgrades
• Detached Duty
• Reinstated / re-employed

Recruitment for International Postings

• Home Office overseas roles, paid through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) payroll

The lawful basis for processing your information 

The Home Office collects, processes and shares personal information to enable it to carry out its statutory and other functions. For the purposes of recruitment, this is covered under the following Articles of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR):

• Article 6 (1)(b) the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. In this case, the contract would be a contract of employment, if you are successful in your application.

• Article 6 (1) (c) for the compliance with a legal obligation (e.g. - UK employers have a legal requirement to ensure that those they employ have immigration status that provides them with a legal Right to Work in the UK).

• Article 6 (1)(e) the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest

• Article 6 (1)(f) the processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the Home Office or by a third party. In this instance, the legitimate interest of the Home Office is to carry out adequate checks on candidates to assess their suitability to have access to sensitive information, assets and equipment as potential employees. The risk to data subjects arising from these checks is that if adverse information is discovered during the recruitment process, the Home Office may not provide or confirm an offer of employment to a candidate. It is in a candidate’s best interest to provide full disclosure during preemployment assurance processes, so any risks they present as a potential employee can be properly assessed.

Where we process special category data about you, we rely on the following lawful basis: 

• Article 9(2)(b) which relates to carrying out our obligations and exercising our rights in employment and the safeguarding of your fundamental rights.

• Article 9(2)(h) for the purposes of preventative or occupational medicine and assessing your working capacity as an employee

• Article 9(2)(f) for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims

In addition, we rely on processing conditions at Schedule 1 part 1 paragraph 1 and Schedule 1 part 1 paragraph 2(2)(a) and (b) of the Data Protection Act 2018. These relate to the processing of special category data for employment purposes, preventative or occupational medicine and the assessment of your working capacity as an employee.

Please see  GOV.UK for a specific Border Force Personnel Security Privacy Information Notice.

Data sharing and data processors

The Home Office will share information about you with third parties who provide certain parts of our recruitment service process. These third parties are known as data processors. We have contracts in place with them and they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do so. Our current data processors are listed at Annex A.

Pre-employment checks and Security Clearance

If your application is successful, in order to work in the Home Office, we will need to establish your identity, your legal Right to Work in the UK, and you will need to go through a security clearance process. Different roles in the Home Office have access to different levels of sensitive information, so the type and level of security clearance you need will depend on what the role entails. As part of the security clearance process, we will share information about you with public authorities which maintain criminal records databases.

Confirmation that you have passed is required. You are required to provide the information necessary to carry out the pre-employment checks and relevant security clearance processes for the role before your appointment can be formally confirmed. Failure to provide the necessary information may mean we are unable to offer you an appointment.

Very exceptionally, data supplied by you or by a third party may be sufficiently serious that the data controllers (Home Office, or Government Recruitment Service) consider it is necessary and in the public interest to share relevant information with an appropriate authority, such as the police. This might occur, but is not limited to, when information suggests that:

• you may have committed a previously undetected criminal offence, or that an offence may be about to be committed
• you or others may be at risk of harm;
• action is required to safeguard national security

Storing your information 

Your personal information will be retained for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it is being processed and in line with departmental retention policy. Details of the Home Office retention policy can be found at Retention and Disposal Standards

Use of social media platforms for recruitment

For some specialist vacancies, the Home Office HR recruitment team may use different social media platforms to search through professional profiles and identify potentially suitable candidates.

Any discussions or details shared with individuals on social media platforms about such vacancies will not be shared with any third party and will solely be used for Home Office recruitment purposes.

Requesting access to your personal data

You have the right to request access to the personal information the Home Office holds about you. This is commonly known as a Data Subject Access Request (SAR). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and check that we are lawfully processing it. If you wish to make a Subject Access Request, please contact:info.access@homeoffice.gov.uk

You can find more information about the ways in which the Home Office may use your personal information in the Personal Information Charter.

Other rights

In certain circumstances, you have the right to:

1. object to and restrict the use of your personal information, or to ask to have your data deleted, or corrected.
2. the right to withdraw your consent to the processing of your data (where you have explicitly consented to the use of your personal data and that is the lawful basis for processing it).

Questions or concerns about personal data

If you have any questions or concerns about the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information please contact the Home Office at: info.access@homeoffice.gov.uk

The Department’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted at:dpo@homeoffice.gov.uk

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the way the Home Office is handling your personal information. You can contact the ICO at:

Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 08456 30 60 60 or 01625 54 57 45
Fax: 01625 524510

You can also visit the Information Commissioner’s Office website.

Annex A – Data processors 

Below is a current list of our data processors for recruitment.

Data processor	Purpose
Government Recruitment Service (Cabinet Office)	Carries out recruitment campaigns on behalf of the Home Office, including producing and processing all assessments for senior personnel recruitment
Recruitment agencies	Recruitment agencies, including: Gatenby Sanderson, Peregrine (formerly known as Capita Resourcing), Omni, Reed
Your current or past employer/s	To check your previous employment history
Protective Security Centre (hosted by Home Office)	Delivery of National Security Vetting
UK Security Vetting	Conduct external checks as part of National Security Vetting on behalf of the Protective Security Centre
Disclosure and Barring Service	Carry out criminal record checks where necessary for the role including standard and enhanced disclosure checks
SSCL (Shared Services Connected Ltd)	Commence the onboarding process for successful candidates, so they are enrolled on the Home Office HR system (Metis). Conduct pre-employment checks including Right To Work. SSCL may also share your information with another government shared service provider (if you already work in another department), to transfer you. To enrol you into the Civil Service Pension Scheme with the provider, My CSP (My Civil Service Pension)
Other government departments	If you already work in a government department and are transferring to a different department, we share information to calculate your salary correctly
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office	When people are posted to roles overseas, Home Office shares information so they can be enrolled into FCDO’s HR and payroll systems
Healix Healthcare	For overseas roles, information is shared to assess the state of your health, before you go overseas
Pickfords	For overseas roles to assist with shipping belongings overseas
Civil Service Commission	To seek advice/permission relating to a recruitment campaign you have applied for, e.g. to seek permission to extend the time we are holding a reserve list for a campaign Assessing diversity of senior personnel candidates