PRIVACY NOTICES

Applicants to the Network, Network Appointed Representatives, Advisers, Administrators and Introducers

PRIMIS Mortgage Network (the Network, we, our, us).

Thank you for taking the time to read this Privacy Notice. You are reading this Privacy Notice because you have either applied to become part of our Appointed Representative (AR) Network or are already associated with the Network in some way. This Privacy Notice explains how we will use and process information that relates to you and your rights in relation to that processing.

We will process your information during:

• your initial enquiries to, or preliminary discussions with, the Network and your application
• the period with which you may be associated with us by any contract we may have; and
• after any such contract has terminated

and therefore the contents of this Privacy Notice will apply to you and the use of your information as the case may be, in some or all of these phases.

Our responsibilities under law and regulation

The Network is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Network is responsible for the quality of the advice that its ARs provide to customers in relation to mortgage; insurance; pension; investment and wealth management products, where those products are regulated by the FCA.

Being regulated by the FCA means that we are subject to a number of detailed rules and regulations that operate to ensure that we undertake appropriate due diligence measures on (1) any application we receive and (2) ARs, advisers and introducers (when required) following appointment by the Network.

Our obligation is to assess that:

• applicants to the Network who it is proposed will (1) perform regulated activities on our behalf, or (2) perform certain roles within an AR or (3) otherwise make introductions or referrals to an AR; and
• persons appointed by the Network to carry out any of these roles
• in each case meet the regulatory requirements that apply to the relevant role.

The tasks associated with this are referred to generally in this Privacy Notice as Fit and Proper Checks. These checks cover the following three broad areas of assessment:

• Honesty and integrity
• Competence and capability; and
• Financial soundness

FCA rules also require the Network to operate systems and controls to manage general business risks. This means that we may assess business plans, marketing, product and proposition models, methods of customer acquisition, remuneration and incentive arrangements, business structures, data security, introducer and referral arrangements and anything else we consider relevant to be able to discharge our responsibility to effectively and appropriately manage risk in our business. These assessments could be carried out on application or at any point during your association with us. The tasks associated with this are referred to generally in this Privacy Notice as Business Model Checks.

The process that we will undertake on applicants and persons subsequently appointed, including (when required) Fit and Proper Checks and Business Model Checks, is referred to in this Privacy Notice as Due Diligence.

Types of applications and roles within the Network

The extent to which we are required to undertake Due Diligence will depend upon the type of role you are seeking or already carry out. The following summarises our categories of roles and explains, who, in connection with that role, will be the focus of our Due Diligence and requests for personal information (referred to generally in this Privacy Notice as Role(s)):

Type of Role	Focus of Network Due Diligence/information request:
Appointed Representative	*Limited company or limited partnership	*Partnership	*Sole trader
Owners and Managers of an Appointed Representative	*Director/partner and/or shareholder and/or controller/member of a limited company or limited partnership	*Partner of a partnership
Support to an Appointed Representative	*Individual adviser within any of the AR types in the first row	Individual administrator within or connected to any of the AR types in the first row
Introducer to the Network	Limited company or limited partnership   *Introducer AR or introducer	Partnership *Introducer AR or introducer	Sole trader Introducer AR or introducer
Owners and Managers of an introducer to the Network	Director/partner and/or shareholder and/or controller/member of a limited company or limited partnership applicant for *Introducer AR or introducer status	Partner of a partnership applicant for *Introducer AR or introducer status

 

The Roles marked with a * above are subject to the highest level of Due Diligence by the Network and are referred to in this Privacy Notice as having specific Regulatory Status. Applications submitted by a limited company, limited partnership or general partnership for a Role with Regulatory Status will each contain personal data of officers, employees or partners of those applicants whose personal data will be processed by the Network in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Notice.

It is the responsibility of the applicant concerned to draw the contents of this Privacy Notice to any person whose data will be processed by the Network as a consequence of the submission of the application, and who would not otherwise receive their own communication from the Network to consider the contents of this Privacy Notice.

 What information will the Network process that relates to you?

Applicants for, and persons carrying out, all Roles will provide the Network with personal information relating to title, name, gender, address, date of birth, nationality, and contact information (including e-mail addresses and mobile telephone numbers) (together Your Basic Information).

Dependent upon the Role applied for or carried out, you may be required to provide more detailed information, which is likely to comprise some or all of the following (together Your Detailed Information):

• Documents that are necessary to verify your identity
• Past employment history, including details of persons who may be approached to provide a professional reference
• Information relevant to your eligibility to work in the United Kingdom
• Details of offices, directorships and similar positions held in the past
• Your experience, qualifications and records to evidence any continued professional development undertaken
• (where there are any gaps in your employment history that may be linked to your health) Details of medical conditions (further details are provided below specifically with regard to the processing we may undertake in relation to this type of information); and
• A breakdown of your personal assets and liabilities, bank account details, taxation filing and payment information, loans and credit commitments, sources of income and expenditure, family circumstances and details of dependents
• Details of your business/sales performance, both actual and projected

Specifically, Roles with Regulatory Status will require us to process:

• a report detailing your individual credit history; and
• information relevant to enable the Network to appropriately assess your honesty and integrity including information relating to historic or current criminal convictions or offences (together “Criminal Disclosures”) and to enable the Network to undertake all relevant searches in relation to your conduct generally.

Your Basic Information and Your Detailed Information are referred to generally in this Privacy Notice as Your Information. Your Information essentially means any information describing or relating to you.   Your Information may identify you directly, for example your name, address, date or birth, National Insurance number and the like. Your Information may also identify you indirectly, for example, your employment situation, your physical and mental health history, or any other information that could be associated with your cultural or social identity.

Our Due Diligence may require you to explain periods of absence of work that are due to illness or injury. Where you provide us with these details the Network will also process data that relates to your health and medical history (Your Special Data).

Your Special Data and any Criminal Disclosures will be used by us in the same way as Your Information generally, as set out in this Privacy Notice for the duration of any association you may have with us and after its termination.

The basis upon which the Network will deal with Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

When you apply for a Role or carry out a Role, you will establish a contractual relationship with us in the relevant capacity. The Network will process Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures in order to give effect to and to carry out its obligations under any such contract that is entered into between us.

We have set out above that we have overall responsibility in law to undertake Due Diligence in relation to you, depending on the Role you propose to carry out, or actually, carry out for us. Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures will also be processed by us to enable us to comply with these legal obligations.

We also have the right to use Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures at any time provided it is in our legitimate business interest to do so and your rights are not affected. For example, we may need to respond to requests from mortgage lenders and product providers relating to your connection with the Network and the business you may place with them, including the processing of any procuration fees or commission. You will also receive information in relation to product innovation, features and terms and conditions either from the Network or directly from mortgage lenders and/or product providers. We will use the data you have provided to use to communicate with you using a variety of means including email, video calling, WhatsApp and phone calls

We may at any time, use Your Information, your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to enable us to meet any contractual responsibilities we may owe lenders or providers or for wider compliance with any legal or regulatory obligation to which we might be subject, including any obligations we may have to you. This includes sharing Your Information and Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures with all applicable regulators such as the FCA and the Information Commissioner.

When we process your Special Data and any Criminal Disclosures we do so on the basis you have provided your prior explicit consent, so that we may continue to meet our own obligations as set out generally in this Privacy Notice.

If you visit our websites we may use IP addresses, URLs of requested resources, timestamps and HTTP user agents to analyse trends, administer the system and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.

In addition to this we may use third party services to monitor your use of our Site, including Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc (“Google”). Google Analytics use cookies to help analyse how visitors use our site. The information generated by the cookie about the use of our Site (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our Site, compiling reports on Site activity and providing other services relating to Site activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your web browser, however, please note that if you do this you may not be able to make full use of our Site. By using this Site, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

How does the Network collect Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

We will collect and record Your Information from a variety of sources, but mainly directly from you. You may provide information to us directly for example, when completing an application form or supply us with information requested by us as we carry out our Due Diligence.

In addition Your Information will comprise information from the following sources:

• Companies House
• FCA
• Information Commissioner
• HMRC
• Other regulatory, supervisory, professional, trade or law enforcement bodies or organisations
• Credit reference agencies
• On-line services that may be used to establish or verify your identity
• Social and business networks (such as Facebook and Linked-In)
• On-line engine results (such as Google)
• Former, networks, employers or persons to whom you may have provided consultancy services
• Mortgage lenders or product providers

What happens to Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures when it is disclosed to the Network?

In the course of handling Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures we will:

• record and store Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures on our systems run on secure servers
• provide duly authorised employees and consultants within, or engaged, by us (or by any member of the LSL Property Services PLC group of companies who may provide services to us) with access to Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures as necessary for the purposes of carrying out our Due Diligence either prior to your appointment to a Role and then subsequently to give effect to any contract that has been entered into between you and the Network, including, but not limited to, the carrying out of supervision and monitoring of the service you may provide to customers, the payment of commissions, to provide you with access to systems necessary to perform your Role and to operate any business development or sales support initiatives we may consider to be in our legitimate interests to operate, such as conferences and recognition and reward initiatives
• use, and where appropriate transmit, Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to respond to any request from the FCA, the Financial Ombudsman Service, HMRC, the Office of the Information Commissioner or any other regulatory, law enforcement or governmental body; and
• need to access and process Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to deal with enquiries received from mortgage lenders and product providers that relate to the service that you may provide to customers, including the payment of any commission or fees to us that may be linked to the product you have arranged and that may be due to you.

Security and retention of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

Your privacy is important to us and we will keep Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures secure in accordance with our legal responsibilities. We will take reasonable steps to safeguard against Your Information being accessed unlawfully or maliciously by a third party, accidentally lost, destroyed or damaged.

We also expect you to take reasonable steps to safeguard your own privacy when transferring information to us, such as not sending confidential information over unprotected email, ensuring email attachments are password protected or encrypted and only using secure methods of postage when original documentation is sent to us.

Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures will be retained by us in accordance with the Network data retention policy published separately and accessible via The Hub (Network Intranet) or on request.

The Network has responsibility to ensure the suitability of advice or recommendations provided by you to customers, and to respond to and investigate any complaint that may be made against you. The rules and regulations of the FCA do not generally provide for any automatic time bar after which customers would be prevented from making a complaint to us (the exception being payment protection insurance). We will therefore keep a record of products and services that have been provided to customers by you for as long as we consider reasonably necessary to be able to discharge our obligations to customers.

Your rights in relation to Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

You can:

• request copies of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures that is under our control
• ask us to further explain how we use Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures
• ask us to correct, delete or require us to restrict or stop using Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures (details as to the extent to which we can do this will be provided at the time of any such request)
• ask us to send an electronic copy of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to another organisation should you wish
• withdraw any consent you may have provided to us processing Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures (and any implication of you exercising this right will be explained to you at the time of any such request)

Sharing and transferring Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

From time to time Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures will be shared with or transferred to:

• mortgage lenders and product providers
• contractors or suppliers who we may engage to assist us with any Network monitoring or supervision activities
• suppliers of IT systems, software, hardware, sourcing systems, quotation engines, electronic ID providers, credit reference providers and any other person who, in each case, we consider need to process Your Information
• our professional indemnity insurers, brokers, claims handlers and legal advisers and another person who may provide professional services in connection with the handling of a complaint, litigation or investigation or in connection with the interpretation or enforcement of the terms of any contract we may have entered into with you
• any person we may engage in connection with any investigation to detect, prevent or investigate financial crime, including those that may be carried out by or in conjunction with mortgage lenders, product providers and regulators
• any person who may request a reference from us in the future in relation to you and/or your period of association with the Network;
• other Network members, if we publish your business/sales results in regional and network-wide league tables to promote and recognise high performance and as part of our fulfilment of our recognition and reward strategy;
• third party venue, catering and/or event management providers who assist us with the operation and delivery of regional and network-wide events; and
• LSL Property Services plc, the ultimate parent company of the Network, and any associated company who may provide services to the Network from time to time

in each case for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, i.e. to enable us to comply with our contract that we might enter into with you, to comply with our legal obligations to you, to further our legitimate interests and to detect or prevent financial crime.

These parties may be located in the UK or elsewhere in the world where different privacy laws may apply which may not offer the same level of protection as UK law. We only make these arrangements or transfers where we are satisfied that adequate levels of protection are in place to protect any information held in that country and that the service provider acts at all times in compliance with applicable privacy laws.

How to make contact with the Network in relation to the use of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

If you have any questions or comments about this document, or wish to make contact in order to exercise any of your rights set out within it please contact:

PRIMIS Data Protection Officer: Raj Lyall

E-mail: dpo@primis.co.uk

If we feel we have a legal right not to deal with your request, or to action it in different way to how you have requested, we will inform you of this at the time.

You should also make contact with us as soon as possible on you becoming aware of any unauthorised disclosure of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures, so that we may investigate and fulfil our own regulatory obligations.

If you have any concerns or complaints as to how we have handled Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures you may lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection regulator, the ICO, who can be contacted through their website at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

PRIMIS Mortgage Network is a trading name of each of Advance Mortgage Funding Limited, First Complete Limited, Personal Touch Financial Services Limited and TenetLime Limited

V2.8 February 2024.

 

PRIMIS Mortgage Network (the Network, we, our, us).

Thank you for taking the time to read this Privacy Notice. It is highly likely that you have been directed to this Privacy Notice through the course of your dealings with a member of our Appointed Representative Network (our AR).

We would like to take this opportunity to explain more about the role we play in the service that has been provided, or will be provided, to you by our AR. In doing so, we also explain that as a consequence of our AR providing a service to you, the Network will process information that relates to you. We have set out below the reasons why the Network needs to process your information, and your rights in relation to that processing.

What is the role of the Network when you have contact with our AR?

The Network is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Network is responsible for the quality of the advice that our AR provides to you in in relation to mortgage; insurance; pension; investment and wealth management products, where those products are regulated by the FCA.

Being regulated by the FCA means that we are subject to a number of detailed rules and regulations that operate to ensure that you are treated fairly in your dealings with both us and our AR.

The Network is responsible for ensuring that our AR meets all applicable regulatory requirements in the course of providing you with advice.

What information will the Network process that relates to you?

During the course of your dealings with our AR you will be asked to provide detailed personal information relating to your existing circumstances, your financial situation and, in some cases, your ethnic origin, your health and family health history (together Your Information).

Your Information means any information describing or relating to you. Your Information may identify you directly, for example your name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and the like. Your Information may also identify you indirectly, for example, your employment situation, your physical and mental health history, or any other information that could be associated with your cultural or social identity.

In the context of our AR providing you with assistance in relation to your mortgage; insurance; pension; investment and wealth management requirements Your Information may include:

• title, names, date of birth, gender, nationality, civil/marital status, contact details, addresses and documents that are necessary to verify your identity;
• employment and remuneration information, (including salary/bonus schemes/overtime/sick pay/other benefits), employment history;
• bank account details, tax information, loans and credit commitments, personal credit history, sources of income and expenditure, family circumstances and details of dependents;
• health status and history, details of treatment and prognosis, medical reports (further details are provided below specifically with regard to the processing we may undertake in relation to this type of information);
• any pre-existing mortgage; insurance; pension; investment and wealth management products and the terms and conditions relating to these;

Where you ask our AR to assist you with your insurance or pension needs, in particular life insurance and insurance that may assist you in the event of an accident or illness, our AR will ask you information about your ethnic origin, your health and medical history (Your Special Data).

If you have parental responsibility for children under the age of 16 it is also very likely that our AR (and consequently us) will record information on our systems that relates to those children and potentially, to their Special Data.

The arrangement of certain types of insurance may involve disclosure by you to our AR of information relating to historic or current criminal convictions or offences (together “Criminal Disclosures”). This is relevant to insurance related activities such as underwriting, claims and fraud management.

Your Special Data and any Criminal Disclosures will be used by us in the same way as Your Information generally, as set out in this Privacy Notice.

The basis upon which the Network will deal with Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

We have set out above that we have overall responsibility in law for the quality of the service that our AR supplies to you. This includes a responsibility to investigate and deal with any complaint you may subsequently make against our AR. The primary reason for Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures being processed by us is to enable us to comply with these legal obligations.

Alternatively, we have the right to use Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures provided it is in our legitimate business interest to do so and your rights are not affected. For example, we may need to respond to requests from mortgage lenders, product providers and our AR relating to the advice that has been provided to you, or to make contact with you to seek feedback on the service you received. We also provide our AR with access to systems and software to enable it to source quotations for certain types of insurance products that you may require. We will therefore process Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Your Criminal Disclosures to enable us to fulfil responses to enquiries for such quotations submitted by our AR on your behalf.

On occasion, we will use Your Information, your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to enable us to meet any contractual responsibilities we may owe lenders or providers, our AR, or for wider compliance with any legal or regulatory obligation to which we might be subject, including any obligations we may have to you. This includes sharing Your Information and Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures with all applicable regulators such as the FCA and the Information Commissioner.

When we process your Special Data and any Criminal Disclosures we do so on the basis that it is in the substantial public interest to be able to provide vital insurance products and as permitted by UK data protection related laws and regulations from time to time. Information on Special Category Data and Criminal Disclosures must be capable of being exchanged freely between insurance intermediaries such as the Network, our AR and insurance providers, to enable customers to secure the important insurance protection that their needs require.

How does the Network collect Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures?

We will collect and record Your Information from a variety of sources, but mainly directly from our AR. You may provide information to us directly for example, when providing feedback on an AR or making a complaint. Alternatively we may receive information from mortgage lenders or product providers.

What happens to Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures when it is disclosed the Network?

In the course of handling Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures we will:

• record and store Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures on our systems run on secure servers. Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures will be accessed by authorised employees and consultants within, or engaged, by us as necessary for the purposes of supervision, training, quality audits, customer surveys and complaint handling or otherwise to comply with any other legal or regulatory obligation that we may have;
• use, and where appropriate transmit, Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to respond to any request from the FCA, the Financial Ombudsman Service, HMRC, the Office of the Information Commissioner or any other regulatory, law enforcement or governmental body;
• need to access and process Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to deal with enquiries received from mortgage lenders and product providers that relate to the service that our AR has provided to you, including the payment of any commission or fees to us that may be linked to the product you have taken out.

Security and retention of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

Your privacy is important to us and we will keep Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures secure in accordance with our legal responsibilities. We will take reasonable steps to safeguard against Your Information being accessed unlawfully or maliciously by a third party, accidentally lost, destroyed or damaged.

We also expect you to take reasonable steps to safeguard your own privacy when transferring information to us, such as not sending confidential information over unprotected email, ensuring email attachments are password protected or encrypted and only using secure methods of postage when original documentation is sent to us.

Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures will be retained by us either electronically or in paper format for a minimum of six years. As we have set out above, we have responsibility to ensure the suitability of advice or recommendations provided to you by our AR, and to respond to and investigate any complaint you may make. The rules and regulations of the FCA do not generally provide for any automatic time bar after which you would be prevented from making a complaint to us (the exception being payment protection insurance). We will therefore keep a record of products and services that have been provided to you for as long as we consider reasonably necessary to be able to discharge our obligations to you.

Your rights in relation to Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

You can:

• • request copies of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures that is under our control;
  • ask us to further explain how we use Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures;
  • ask us to correct, delete or require us to restrict or stop using Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures (details as to the extent to which we can do this will be provided at the time of any such request);
  • ask us to send an electronic copy of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures to another organisation should you wish.

Sharing and transferring Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

From time to time Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures will be shared with or transferred to:

• • our AR;
  • mortgage lenders and product providers;
  • contractors or suppliers who we may engage to assist us with any customer feedback exercises
  • our professional indemnity insurers, brokers, claims handlers and legal advisers and another person who may provide professional services in connection with the handling of a complaint, litigation or investigation;
  • any person we may engage in connection with any investigation to detect, prevent or investigate financial crime, including those that may be carried out by or in conjunction with mortgage lenders, product providers and regulators;
  • LSL Property Services plc, the ultimate parent company of the Network, and any associated company who may provide services to the Network from time to time.

In each case for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, i.e. to enable us to comply with our legal obligations to you, to further our legitimate interests, where there is a substantial public interest and to detect or prevent financial crime.

These parties may be located in the UK or elsewhere in the world where different privacy laws may apply which may not offer the same level of protection as UK law. We only make these arrangements or transfers where we are satisfied that adequate levels of protection are in place to protect any information held in that country and that the service provider acts at all times in compliance with applicable privacy laws.

How to make contact with the Network in relation to the use of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures

If you have any questions or comments about this document, or wish to make contact in order to exercise any of your rights set out within it please contact:

PRIMIS Data Protection Officer: Raj Lyall

E-mail: dpo@primis.co.uk

If we feel we have a legal right not to deal with your request, or to action it in a different way to how you have requested, we will inform you of this at the time.

You should also make contact with us as soon as possible on you becoming aware of any unauthorised disclosure of Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures, so that we may investigate and fulfil our own regulatory obligations.

If you have any concerns or complaints as to how we have handled Your Information, Your Special Data and/or Criminal Disclosures you may lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection regulator, the ICO, who can be contacted through their website at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

PRIMIS Mortgage Network is a trading name of each of Advance Mortgage Funding Limited, First Complete Limited, Personal Touch Financial Services Limited and TenetLime Limited.

V2.6 February 2024.

 

NEW PRIMIS STAFF RECRUITMENT PRIVACY NOTICE

LSL Property Services plc and its subsidiaries (LSL Group) are committed to protecting your privacy.

INTRODUCTION

The primary data controller for your personal data is the LSL Group company which you apply to work for.  LSL Property Services plc, your-move.co.uk Limited and (where you have a connection in applying for a role to them) First Complete Limited and/or LSLi Limited are also data controllers for your personal data. This Privacy Notice applies to and is provided by and on behalf of each of these LSL Group entities and references to ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ are references to those LSL Group entities.

Our contact details are as follows:

Address: Newcastle House, Albany Court, Newcastle Business Park, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 7YB
Email: HRAccess@lslps.co.uk
Telephone: 0191 233 4000

We hold and process data on all those who apply to work with us (“applicants” or “you” or “your”).
Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to keeping your information secure and managing it in accordance with our legal responsibilities under applicable data protection laws.

This Privacy Notice sets out the categories of personal data we may process, how your personal data may be processed and how your privacy is safeguarded in the course of the recruitment and selection process.  It is intended to comply with our obligations to provide you with information about our processing of your personal data under privacy laws.

Purely for the purpose of this Privacy Notice, references to applications in this Privacy Notice do not include applications for engagement as a contractor.

We reserve the right to change the contents of this Privacy Notice at any time, by posting such changes on the LSL Group company websites.  It is your responsibility to familiarise yourself with the Privacy Notice regularly to ensure that you are aware of any changes.

PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA

We collect and processes your personal data for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice.  Personal data means any information describing or relating to an identified or identifiable individual.  An identifiable individual is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that individual.

INFORMATION COLLECTION

Personal data

We collect  personal data about you for the purposes of recruitment and selection as described in this Privacy Notice including:

• Personal details: your title, name(s), gender, nationality, disability, date of birth, home contact details (e.g. address, telephone number, e-mail),  identity and immigration and eligibility to work data (e.g. photographic identification, passport, signature), languages spoken, driving licence; and
• Recruitment data:  skills and experience, qualifications, training,  job history, linkedIn contact and profile, references, CV and application, interview and assessment data, vetting and verification information (e.g. results of credit reference check, financial sanction check and a basic disclosure criminal record check relating to unspent convictions where carried out for relevant roles where permitted by law, regulated referencing), information related to the outcome of your application, details of any offer made to you.

To the extent permitted by applicable laws some of the personal data falls into special categories, sometimes called “sensitive personal data”.  This term includes information relating to such matters as racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, physical or mental health (including details of accommodations or adjustments), certain maternity/adoption information, trade union membership, sexual orientation, information regarding sexual life, biometric data, genetic data, criminal records and information regarding criminal offences or proceedings.

How do we collect data?

We collect and record your personal data from a variety of sources, but mainly directly from you. Personal data will also be collected through our managers and Human Resource team involved in the recruitment process.  We will also obtain limited information from third parties, for example, references from a previous employer or where we employ a third party to carry out a background check (where permitted by applicable law). Where necessary and relevant, your consent will be sought.

USE OF THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Your personal data is collected and processed for various business purposes, in accordance with applicable laws.

As applicable to the relevant position for which you may be applying, we collect and process your personal data for various purposes relating only to recruitment and selection, which will be specified further during the recruitment process and may include:

• To assess your suitability to work for us including short listing, assessments and interviews;
• To conduct pre-employment checks including verification of your identity, checking your legal right to work and obtaining references;
• For the relevant network roles and where required by our regulators, to conduct a pre-employment credit reference check, financial sanction check, and a check in relation to unspent criminal convictions in order to prevent crime and other unlawful acts and to protect the business and customers from the risk of dishonesty, malpractice or improper conduct and to fulfil specifications from regulated clients to confirm your eligibility to practice;
• To compare you with other applicants and make a decision whether to offer you employment;
• To consider any reasonable adjustments either for the recruitment process or if you were to commence employment with us  in the event that you have a disability;
• To make a job offer and provide a contract of employment;
• To prepare to bring you on board as an employee where you accept an offer of employment from us. In this case we will continue to use some of the information gathered during recruitment for the purpose of your employment and will transfer some of this to our employment systems and files;
• To contact  you if you are not successful should another potentially suitable vacancy arise during the six months following the completion of the recruitment process for the role you applied for; and
• To deal with any query or request for feedback received in relation to our recruitment decision.

LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING

Processing personal data

We generally process your personal data under one of the following grounds:

• the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject (e.g. checking your right to work); or
• the processing is necessary or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract; or
• if neither of the first two grounds are applicable, the processing is necessary for the legitimate interests pursued by us (being those purposes described in the section above), except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms which require protection of personal data.

We will on occasion process your personal data for the purpose of the legitimate interests pursued by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms which require protection of personal data. For example, a legitimate interest of another LSL Group company or a regulator.

Processing special categories of personal data or sensitive data

The sensitive or special categories of personal data that will be processed by us are set out in this Privacy Notice.

We process special category or sensitive personal data under one of the following grounds:

• the processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising the rights of you or us in the field of employment law, social security and social protection law, to the extent permissible under applicable laws; or
• the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, on the basis of legislation (for example equal opportunity monitoring, the prevention or detection of crime or other unlawful acts, or to protect members of the public from dishonesty or malpractice or seriously improper conduct or incompetence where permitted by applicable data protection laws).

This includes the following, although this is not an exhaustive list:

• your racial or ethnic origin, religion, philosophical or political belief, sexual orientation or disability status will be used for the collection of statistical data subject to legal requirements, or to keep our commitment to equal opportunity under review; and
• health and medical information will be used to make reasonable adjustments and avoid unlawful discrimination or to deal with complaints arising in this regard.

Processing data relating to criminal convictions and offences

Personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences will only be processed where authorised by applicable laws. A criminal record check may be carried out on recruitment or transfer where authorised by applicable laws and only with respect to relevant roles in the LSL Group. If such a check is to be conducted, you will be clearly notified and advised as to why this is applicable.

Data Retention

If you apply to work with us we will keep the information we receive about you throughout the recruitment process and for a period of six months after completion of the process, excepting for roles in our Financial Services network where unsuccessful applications will be kept for a period of twelve months after completion of the process.  If you have not commenced employment with us we will then remove your information (or de-identify or reduce it in the case of Financial Services) where we have not received any query or challenge which is outstanding. We will retain it if needed to deal with any outstanding query or challenge to the process. Where you become our employee we will keep your information where relevant to your employment and this will become part of your employment records.

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION

Within the LSL Group, your personal data can be accessed by or may be disclosed internally on a need-to-know basis to:

• Human Resources, including managers and team members;
• local, regional and executive management responsible for managing or making decisions in connection with your recruitment with us or the terms of our offer to you; or
• system administrators.

Your personal data will be shared with third parties to allow them to provide us with services, such as hosting, supporting and maintaining the framework of our recruitment and HR information systems. Data contained in such systems may be accessible by providers of those systems, their associated companies and sub-contractors.

Examples of other third parties with whom your data may be shared include Creditsafe, Experian, Veriphy, Staff Vetting, Disclosure Scotland, England or Wales, HMRC, Unicorn, regulatory authorities, national authorities and professional advisors.   We expect such third parties to process any data disclosed to them in accordance with applicable law, including with respect to data confidentiality and security.

Where third parties act as a “data processor” (for example, a credit check provider), they carry out their tasks on our behalf and upon our instructions for the above mentioned purposes.  In this case your personal data will only be disclosed to these parties to the extent necessary to provide the required services under a written agreement in place containing terms to protect your data.

SECURITY

We employ security measures which aim to protect the information provided by you from access by unauthorised persons and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage.

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER OF PERSONAL DATA

From time to time your personal data (including special categories of personal data) will be transferred to third parties such as our learning system provider Cornerstone who are located outside the European Union.

As a result, the relevant personal data will be transferred to countries such as the United States whose data protection laws may be less stringent than those in the European Union.

We will ensure that appropriate or suitable safeguards are in place to protect your personal information and that transfer of your personal information is in compliance with applicable data protection laws.  Where required by applicable data protection laws, we have ensured that relevant third parties sign standard contractual clauses as approved by the European Commission.  You can obtain a copy of any standard contractual clauses in place which relate to transfers of your personal data by contacting HRAccess@lslps.co.uk.

YOUR RIGHTS

We aim to ensure that all personal data are correct. If you supply or have asked a third party such as a recruitment agency to supply your personal data to us you have a responsibility to check that the information provided is correct.

You also have a responsibility to ensure that changes in personal circumstances (for example, change of contact information) are notified to us so that we can ensure that your data is up-to-date.

You have a number of rights in relation to your personal data:

• Right of access – you have the right to request access to any of your personal data that we may hold;
• Right to correct inaccurate data – you have the right to request us to correct any inaccurate data relating to you or to complete any incomplete data relating to you;
• Data portability – where we are relying upon your consent or the fact that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party as the legal basis for processing, and that personal data is processed by automatic means, you have the right to receive all such personal data which you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and also to require us to transmit it to another controller where this is technically feasible;
• Right to restriction of processing – you have the right to restrict our processing of your personal data where:
  • you contest the accuracy of the personal data until we have taken sufficient steps to correct or verify its accuracy;
  • where the processing is unlawful but you do not want us to erase the data;
  • where we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of the processing, but you require them for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; or
  • where you have objected to processing justified on legitimate interest grounds (see below) pending verification as to whether we have  compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing.
• Where personal data is subjected to restriction in this way we will only process it with your consent or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims;
• Right to ask us to delete data – You have the right to ask us to erase certain of your personal data in the event that processing is unlawful; there is no longer any need for us to retain the data; or you have objected to processing justified on legitimate interest grounds and we do not have compelling grounds to continue and have no other need to retain the data;
• Right to withdraw consent – where we are relying on consent which you have provided to us to process data, you have the right to withdraw such consent at any time. You can do this by (i) in some cases deleting the relevant data from the relevant HR system (although note that in this case it may remain in back-ups and linked systems until it is deleted in accordance with our data retention policy) or (ii) contacting your local Human Resources contact; and
• Right to object to processing justified on legitimate interest grounds – where we are relying upon legitimate interest to process data, then you have the right to object to that processing. If you object, we must stop that processing unless we can either demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing that override your interests, rights and freedoms or where we need to process the data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. Where we rely upon legitimate interest as a basis for processing we believe that we can demonstrate such compelling legitimate grounds, but we will consider each case on an individual basis.

CONTACT

If you have questions or comments about our Privacy Notice or if you wish to exercise your rights mentioned above, please contact HRAccess@lslps.co.uk.

If you are aware of an unauthorised disclosure of data, please email HRAccess@lslps.co.uk for guidance as to the applicable reporting requirements.

COMPLAINTS

If you have any concerns or complaints as to how we have handled your personal data you may lodge a complaint with the UK’s data protection regulator, the ICO, who can be contacted through their website at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or by writing to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.