Careers at Lakeland Dairies Co-op Society Ltd

Lakeland Dairies Co-operative Society Limited, including all subsidiary and associated companies within the Group (the Company), has created this Data Privacy Notice, pursuant to the provisions of the GDPR and applicable legislation, as the Controller of job applicants’ personal data to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy and to inform job applicants about the information we collect and process in connection with your application.  If you have any queries about this notice, please contact our Data Protection Office at Email: dataprotection@lakelanddairies.com

This notice sets out an explanation of what information we process about you, why we process your information, with whom your information is shared and a description of your rights with respect to your information. This Privacy Notice does not give you any contractual rights. We may update this Privacy Notice at any time.

What information do we process?

When you make a job application, we need to keep and process certain information about you for normal recruitment and selection purposes, to comply with our contractual and legal obligations and, where necessary, to protect our legitimate business interests.  

Personal data is normally obtained directly from you.  In certain circumstances, it will, however, be necessary to obtain data from internal third parties, e.g. if you have been previously employed by the Company, or from external third parties, e.g. references from other previous employers, medical professionals, the state bodies etc.
 

The categories of personal data we process and the legal bases for doing so.

Data protection law divides personal data into two categories: ordinary personal data and special category data. Any personal data that reveals racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health conditions, sexual life or sexual orientation, or biometric or genetic data that is used to identify an individual is known as special category data. (The rest is ordinary personal data).

What type of ordinary personal data do we hold about you and why?

At the initial stages of recruitment, we may collect, hold and use the following types of ordinary personal data about you:

• Any Information contained in your application form/CV/cover letter;
• Publicly available information about you, such as your business/social media presence;
• Selection information, including correspondence, interview notes, internal notes, the results of any written or online assessment tests

If you are shortlisted for a position, or you receive a conditional offer of employment, we may collect, hold and use the following additional types of ordinary personal data about you:

• Pre-employment check information, including references and verification of qualifications;
• Right to work checks and related documents.

We hold and use this personal data so that we can:

• process your application and correspond with you about it;
• assess whether you have the required skills, experience, qualifications and training for a role within the company;
• make informed recruitment decisions;
• verify information provided by you;
• check and demonstrate that you have the legal right to work in the relevant jurisdiction;
• keep appropriate records of our recruitment process and decisions;

What are our legal grounds for using your ordinary personal data?

Data protection law specifies the legal grounds on which we can hold and use personal data.

We rely on one or more of the following legal grounds when we process your ordinary personal data:

• We need it to take steps at your request in order to enter into a contract with you (entry into a contract), because by applying for a job with us you are effectively asking us to enter into a contract with you (whether this is an employment contract, a contract for services or another type of contract).
• We need it to comply with a legal obligation (legal obligation), e.g. the obligation not to discriminate during our recruitment process, or the obligation not to employ someone who does not have the legal right to work in the relevant jurisdiction.
• It is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests (legitimate interest). For example, it is in our legitimate interests to review and consider your personal data (as listed above) so that we can select the most appropriate candidate for the job.

What type of special category personal data do we hold about you, why, and on what legal grounds?

We will only collect, hold and use limited types of special category data about you during the recruitment process, as described below.

Since special category data is usually more sensitive than ordinary personal data, we need to have an additional legal ground (as well as the legal grounds set out in the section on ordinary personal data, above) to collect, hold and use it. The additional legal grounds that we rely on to collect, hold and use your special category data are explained below for each type of special category data.

At the initial stages of recruitment, we may collect, hold and use the following special category data about you:

Equal opportunities monitoring

Equal opportunities monitoring data which could include information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or health. We use this information to report and monitor equality of opportunity and diversity in our recruitment process. Our additional legal ground for using this information is that it is necessary in the public interest for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring and is in line with our Data Protection Policy.

Adjustments for disability/medical conditions

Information relevant to any request by you for adjustments to the recruitment process as a result of an underlying medical condition or disability. We use this information to enable us to carry out a fair, non-discriminatory recruitment process by considering/making reasonable adjustments to our process as appropriate. Our additional legal ground for using this information is that we need it to comply with a legal obligation/exercise a legal right in relation to employment – namely, the obligations not to discriminate, and to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate a disability – and such use is in line with our Data Protection Policy.

If you are shortlisted for a position, or you receive a conditional offer of employment, we may collect, hold and use the following additional types of special category personal data about you:

Pre-employment health questionnaires/medicals

We collect information about your health in a pre-employment medical questionnaire and/or examination, as well as any information about underlying medical conditions and adjustments that you have brought to our attention. We use this information to assess whether you are fit to do the job with adjustments, to consider/arrange suitable adjustments and to comply with health and safety requirements. Our additional legal grounds for using this information are that: we need it to comply with a legal obligation/exercise a legal right in relation to employment – namely, the obligation to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate a disability – and such use is in line with our Data Protection Policy; and it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

How do we collect your personal data?  

You provide us with most of the personal data about you that we hold and use, for example in your written application, by completing any assessments and during any interviews. 

Some of the personal data we hold and use about you is generated from internal sources during the recruitment process. For example, the person interviewing you may score your suitability for the role and we record the reasons for decisions made about whether or not your application is successful.

Some of the personal data about you that we hold and use may come from external sources. For example, a recruitment agency provides us with a shortlist of candidates. If we offer you a role, we will carry out pre-employment checks, such as taking up references from past employers or education providers and we may check your qualifications by contacting the awarding body. We may ask an occupational health professional to report to us on your fitness to do the job. In some circumstances, we may ask a Government Authority for information about your immigration status to verify your right to work in the relevant jurisdiction.  For some roles, we may also obtain information about you from publicly available sources, such as your LinkedIn profile or other media sources. 

Who do we share your personal data with?

Recruitment agencies

We engage recruitment agencies to provide us with the details of suitable candidates for our available vacancies, to communicate with those candidates and handle administration in connection with the recruitment process. If we have received your initial application details from a recruitment agency, we will share with them any of your personal data that is necessary to enable them to fulfil their functions for us. Our legal grounds for doing so are that: it is necessary for entry into a contract; and it is in our legitimate interest to engage service providers to assist us with the recruitment process.

Medical/occupational health professionals

We may share information relevant to any request by you for adjustments to the recruitment process as a result of an underlying medical condition or disability with medical/occupational health professionals to enable us to identify what, if any, adjustments are needed in the recruitment process and, if you are successful, once you start work. We may also share details of disclosed medical conditions and/or answers to pre-employment health questionnaires with medical/occupational health professionals to seek a medical report about you to enable us to assess your fitness for the job and whether any adjustments are needed once you start work. This information may also be used by the medical/occupational health professionals to carry out assessments required by health and safety legislation. Our legal grounds for sharing this personal data are that: it is necessary for entry into a contract; it is in our legitimate interests to consider adjustments to enable Job Applicants to participate fully in the recruitment process and to assess the fitness for work of Job Applicants to whom we have offered jobs; and it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations/exercise legal rights in the field of employment (obligations not to discriminate, to make reasonable adjustments, to comply with health and safety requirements).

Legal/professional advisers

We share any of your personal data that is relevant, where appropriate, with our legal and other professional advisers, in order to obtain legal or other professional advice about matters related to you or in the course of dealing with legal disputes with you or other Job Applicants. Our legal grounds for sharing this personal data are that: it is in our legitimate interests to seek advice to clarify our rights/obligations and appropriately defend ourselves from potential claims; it is necessary to comply with our legal obligations/exercise legal rights in the field of employment; and it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

Government Authority

We may share your right to work documentation with a Government Authority, where necessary, to enable us to verify your right to work in the relevant jurisdiction. Our legal ground for sharing this personal data is to comply with our legal obligation not to employ someone who does not have the right to work in the relevant jurisdiction.

Consequences of not providing personal data

We only ask you to provide personal data that we need to enable us to make a decision about whether or not to employ you.  If you do not provide particular information to us, we must make a decision whether or not to offer you a role without that information, which in some cases could result in us deciding not to recruit you.  For example, if we ask for a certificate verifying a qualification and it is not provided, we will have to decide whether to recruit you without that information.  If you do not provide us with reference details when asked, we will not usually be able to offer you the role.  If you do not provide us with documentation needed to check your right to work in the relevant jurisdiction, we would not be able to offer you a role.

If you choose not to provide us with personal data requested, we will tell you about the implications of any such decision at the relevant time.

How long will we keep your personal data?

We will keep your personal data throughout the recruitment process.

If your application is successful, when you start work for us you will be issued with an Employee Privacy Notice which will include information about what personal data we keep from the recruitment process and how long we keep your personal data whilst you are working for us and after you have left.

If your application is unsuccessful, we will keep your personal data for up to 12 months from the successful candidate is appointed. There may be circumstances in which it is appropriate for us to keep particular items of your personal data for longer, e.g. equality monitoring.  We will base these decisions on relevant circumstances, taking into account the following criteria:

• the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data
• the risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure
• the purposes for which we process your personal data and how long we need the particular data to achieve these purposes
• how long the personal data is likely to remain accurate and up to date
• for how long the personal data might be relevant to possible future legal claims
• any applicable legal, accounting, reporting or regulatory requirements that specify how long certain records must be kept  

In all cases, we will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for our legitimate purposes.

Will we keep your application on file?

It is not the Company’s Policy to keep any CVs/application forms on file for the purposes of considering for alternative positions.

References

If you give us details of referees, who are individuals rather than company representative we require you to inform them what personal data of theirs you are giving to us. You must also give them our contact details and let them know that they should contact us if they have any queries about how we will use their personal data.

Solely automated decision-making  

Solely automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We may require applicants to complete an online psychometric test to determine their suitability to progress further in the recruitment process and be shortlisted for interview. Some of our subsidiary locations utilise a process where there is a set pass mark for the test and the software automatically excludes applicants who do not meet this pass mark. Applicants who are required to take the test will be given details of who to contact if they are concerned about their score, or wish to query a rejection decision or otherwise obtain human input.

Your rights  

You have a number of legal rights relating to your personal data, which are outlined here:

• The right to make a subject access request. This enables you to receive certain information about how we use your data, as well as to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• The right to request that we correct incomplete or inaccurate personal data that we hold about you.
• The right to request that we delete or remove personal data that we hold about you 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).
• The right to object to our processing your personal data where we are relying on our legitimate interest (or those of a third party), where we cannot show a compelling reason to continue the processing
• The right to request that we restrict our 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.
• The right to withdraw your consent to us using your personal data. As described above, we do not normally rely on your consent as the legal ground for using your personal data. However, if we are relying on your consent as the legal ground for using any of your personal data and you withdraw your consent, you also have the right to request that we delete or remove that data, if we do not have another good reason to continue using it.
• The right to request that we transfer your personal data to another party, in respect of data that you have provided where our legal ground for using the data is that it is necessary for the performance of a contract or that you have consented to us using it (this is known as the right to “data portability”).
• The right to object to a decision based on profiling/solely automated decision-making, including the right to voice your opinion, and obtain human intervention in the decision-making.
• If you would like to exercise any of the above rights, please contact dataprotection@lakeland.ie. Note that these rights are not absolute and in some circumstances we may be entitled to refuse some or all of your request.

If you have any questions or concerns about how your personal data is being used by us, you can contact by emailing the Company’s data protection lead on dataprotection@lakelanddairies.com

Note too that you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the relevant regulatory authority, contact details below:

Republic of Ireland

Data Protection Commissioner
Phone +353 (0761) 104 800
e-mail: info@dataprotection.ie

United Kingdom

Information Commissioner’s Office
Phone:  028 90 278757 / 0303 123 1114
e-mail: ni@ico.org.uk