In registering to use our online recruitment system you undertake to provide accurate and current information about yourself, including your correct name, address and any other requested information and to update that as necessary in any subsequent applications.

If you knowingly make any false statements or withhold any relevant information this may result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal or the withdrawal of any offer of appointment.

The University cannot be held liable for delays to applications resulting from failures of the system outside its direct control.

Data Protection - Privacy Statement

As part of any recruitment process, the University of Kent collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants as a controller for the purposes of the data protection legislation. We are committed to being transparent about how we collect and use that data and to meeting our data protection obligations.

The following statement describes the type of data that we keep about job applicants and the purpose for which it is kept and your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA”) and collectively referred to as the Data Protection Legislation related to data processed about you, should you apply to work at the University of Kent. This applies whether your application is received direct by the University or via an agency. 

What information do we collect?

Through the recruitment process, we collect, store and use a range of information about you. This includes:

• the information you have provided to us in your curriculum vitae and covering letter;
• the information you have provided to us as part of your application, including your name, title, gender, date and place of birth, address and contact details, including email address and telephone/mobile number;
• any information you provide to us during an interview;
• details of your qualifications, skills, registrations, experience and employment history;
• information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements;
• whether or not you have a disability for which we need to make reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process;
• information about your entitlement to work in the UK, National Insurance Number, immigration status, visa details, passport number and expiry date; 
• assessment and/or interview notes detailing a job applicant’s suitability for the role applied for;
• diversity monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, etc.; and
• references.

We collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, the information might be contained in application forms, CVs, obtained from your passport or other identity documents, or collected through interviews or other forms of assessment, including online tests.

Personal data about you may also be collected from third parties, such as references supplied by your former employers, information from employment background check providers and information from criminal records checks, post offer of employment where appropriate. When we seek information from third parties, we will inform you that we are doing so. 

Your personal data will be stored on your application record on our recruitment system, in HR management systems and on other IT systems (such as email).

Why do we process personal data?

The University of Kent needs to process personal data about you for the purposes of reaching and communicating a recruitment decision and production of an offer of employment, if appropriate.

In some cases, we need to process data to ensure that we are complying with our legal or regulatory obligations. For example, it is required to check a successful applicant's eligibility to work in the UK before employment starts. 

In the case of Clinical Academics, our compliance obligations include, but are not limited to, regulatory obligations to the General Medical Council and other relevant professional registrations. In addition, where appropriate and in accordance with legal or regulatory requirements, we may also need to collect information related to your fitness to practice and/or professional conduct.

The University of Kent has a legitimate interest in processing personal data during the recruitment process and for keeping records of the process. We consider the processing of your personal data for the purpose of processing your job application to be necessary for taking all relevant and necessary steps to determine whether to make an offer to work at the University of Kent and to decide on the terms of that offer, that is, to take steps at your request before entering into a contract of employment.

Processing data from job applicants allows us to manage the recruitment process, assess and confirm a candidate's suitability for employment and decide to whom to offer a job. We may also need to process data from job applicants to respond to and defend against legal claims.

We process special categories of data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation or religion or belief, for equal opportunities monitoring purposes. Providing us with this information is not mandatory however we would encourage all applicants to do so as it enables us to monitor recruitment statistics. We also collect information about whether or not applicants are disabled (not mandatory) to enable us to make reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process for candidates who have a disability. 

We may process special categories of data in the following circumstances:

• with your explicit written consent;
• where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment;
• where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring; and
• less commonly, where it is needed in relation to legal claims or to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

For some roles, we are obliged to seek information about criminal convictions and offences. Where we seeks this information, we do so because it is necessary for us to carry out our obligations and exercise specific rights in relation to employment. We will seek your consent in respect of any criminal records checks.

Who has access to data?

Your information will be shared internally for the purposes of the recruitment exercise. This includes members of the HR Resourcing team, recruiting managers and interviewers involved in the recruitment process. Where relevant for some posts, your data may be shared with other stakeholders or other partner employers or expert assessors. 

In order to process Clinical Academic and other applications related to the Kent and Medway Medical School, we may need to share your data with Canterbury Christ Church University for the purposes of entering into or conducting the employment relationship, and the General Medical Council for the purposes of ensuring regulatory compliance and NHS bodies for the purposes of entering into or conducting joint appointments. Where your data is shared with third parties, we will seek to share the minimum amount necessary and anonymise where possible.

We will not share your data with other third parties, unless your application for employment is successful and we make you an offer of employment. We will then share your data with former employers to obtain references for you and, where required, employment background check providers to obtain necessary background checks and the Disclosure and Barring Service to obtain necessary criminal records checks. If you require a certificate of sponsorship to work in the UK the University will also share your data with UK Visa and Immigration.

The University of Kent will not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area.

For how long do we keep data?

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 employment. The periods for which your data will be held will be provided to you in a new privacy notice.

If your application for employment is unsuccessful, we will hold your data on file for one year after the end of the relevant recruitment process. This is except if the person appointed to the post is sponsored under the UK’s points-based immigration system, when we are required to retain the applications of all candidates shortlisted for final interview for a year after the successful applicant is no longer employed by the University or until a Home Office compliance officer has examined and approved them, whichever is the longer period.

Your rights

As a data subject, you have a number of rights. You can:

• access and obtain a copy of your data on request;
• require us to change incorrect or incomplete data;
• require us to delete or stop processing your data, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing;
• object to the processing of your data where we are relying on our legitimate interests as the legal ground for processing; 
• ask us to stop processing data for a period if data is inaccurate or there is a dispute about whether or not your interests override our legitimate grounds for processing data;
• request the transfer of your personal data to another party; and
• withdraw your consent for processing your personal data for the purposes of the recruitment exercise

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact the People Services Team on peopleserviceshr@kent.ac.uk. 

If you have any questions about how we handle your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@kent.ac.uk. 

If you believe that the University of Kent has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You are under no statutory or contractual obligation to provide data us during the recruitment process. However, if you do not provide the information, we may not be able to assess your suitability and therefore will be unable to process your application properly or at all.

Automated decision-making

Recruitment processes are not based solely on automated decision-making.

(University of Kent, Human Resources - January 2019)