Privacy notice – Acuity HR Clients, Clients Employees

The Company (Acuity HR Limited) is aware of its obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and domestic data protection legislation and is committed to processing your business and employee’s data securely and transparently. This privacy notice sets out, in line with current data protection obligations, the types of data that we hold relating to your business/employees as a client/clients’ employee of the Company. It also sets out how we use that information, how long we keep it for and other relevant information about your data.

This notice applies to current and former clients/clients’ employees and workers.

Data controller details

Acuity HR is a data controller for its own employee’s data, meaning that it determines the processes to be used when using their personal data.

When working under contract for our clients we are a Data Processor of the Controllers (clients) data and will follow the processing provisions.

Our contact details are as follows: Acuity HR Limited, 23 Thistle Down Close, Streetly, Sutton Coldfield, B74 3EE.

Email: acuityhrltd@gmail.com. Mark any correspondence regarding Data Protection for the Data Protection Officer.

Data protection principles

In relation to your personal data, we will:

process it fairly, lawfully and in a clear, transparent way
collect your data only for reasons that we find proper for the course of the assignment in ways that have been explained to you
only use it in the way that we have told you about
ensure it is correct and up to date
keep your data for only as long as we need it
process it in a way that ensures it will not be used for anything that you are not aware of or have not consented to, lost or destroyed
Return your employee data to you securely once the assignment is completed in line with our retention schedule
Transfer the data as securely as possible and only if it needs to be transferred
Delete your data once you have confirmed you have received it back from us

Types of data we process

Depending on the assignment, we could hold many types of data about you or your employees, including:

Your employee’s personal details including name, address, date of birth, email address, phone numbers
Photographic evidence
gender and ethnicity data
marital status
dependants, next of kin and their contact numbers
Employees medical or health information including whether or not your employees have a disability
information used for equal opportunities monitoring about your employee’s ethnic origin
information included on your applicant’s CV including references, education history and employment history
documentation relating to your employees or applicants right to work in the UK
driving licence
bank details
CCTV footage/web‐based recordings of meetings
tax codes for employees
National Insurance numbers for employees
current and previous job titles, job descriptions, pay grades, pension entitlement, hours of work and other terms and conditions relating to your employment/engagement with us
letters of concern, formal warnings and other documentation with regard to any disciplinary proceedings or, in the case of workers, confirmation of other discussions about your conduct
internal performance information including measurements against targets, formal warnings and related documentation with regard to capability procedures, appraisal forms or, in the case of workers, confirmation of other discussions about your performance
leave records including annual leave, family leave, sickness absence etc
training details
Confidential Company financial data or information
VAT numbers

How we collect your Company and employee data

We collect data about your Company and employees in a variety of ways and this will usually start when we undertake a brief from you concerning the assignment to be undertaken, in this instance we will collect the data from you or a representative from your Company directly. This includes the information that would be fundamental to deliver the services required under the contract we enter into with your Company. Further information may be collected directly from you or your employees during the assignment.

In some cases, we will collect data about you for the processing of third parties, such as employment agencies, Associates/Contractors, Occupational Health provider, former employers when gathering references or credit reference agencies. We will only share this information with those third parties if you have agreed to this as part of the contract for our services.

Personal data is kept in personnel files or within the Company’s HR and IT systems.

Why we process your data

The law on data protection allows us to process your data for certain reasons only:

in order to perform the employment contract that we are party to
in order to carry out legally required duties
in order for us to carry out our legitimate interests
to protect your interests and
where something is done in the public interest
where we have obtained your consent.

All of the processing carried out by us falls into one of the permitted reasons. Generally, we will rely on the first three reasons set out above to process your data. For example, we need to collect your personal data in order to:

carry out the contract that we have entered into with you and
ensure employees are paid.

We also need to collect your data to ensure we are complying with legal requirements such as:

ensuring tax and National Insurance is paid
carrying out checks in relation to your right to work in the UK
carrying out pre‐employment checks, such as DBS and

We also collect data so that we can carry out activities on your behalf as part of the contract for services which are in the legitimate interests of the Company. We have set out what these might include below:

if we are acting on behalf of a client to fill vacancies
making decisions about who to offer initial employment/engagement to, and subsequent internal appointments, promotions etc.
making decisions about salary and other benefits
advising on contractual benefits to your employees
maintaining comprehensive up to date personnel records about your employees to ensure, amongst other things, effective correspondence can be achieved and appropriate contact points in the event of an emergency are maintained
if you are a client’s employee, effectively monitoring both your conduct and your performance and to undertake procedures with regard to both of these if the need arises as part of the contract, we have with your employer
if you are a client’s employee, offering a method of recourse for you against decisions made about you via a grievance procedure as part of the contract we have with your employer
assessing training needs
implementing an effective sickness absence management system including monitoring the amount of leave and subsequent actions to be taken including the making of reasonable adjustments
gaining expert medical opinions when making decisions about a client’s employees’ fitness for work
managing statutory leave and pay systems such as maternity leave and pay etc
business planning and restructuring exercises
dealing with legal claims made against the client or by the client’s employees
preventing fraud
ensuring our administrative and IT systems are secure and robust against unauthorised access

Special categories of data

Special categories of data are data relating to your employees:

health
sex life
sexual orientation
race
ethnic origin
political opinion
religion
trade union membership
genetic and biometric data.

We must process special categories of data in accordance with more stringent guidelines. Most commonly, we will process special categories of data when the following applies:

you as the client have given explicit consent to the processing
we must process the data in order to carry out our contractual or legal obligations
we must process data for reasons of substantial public interest
you as the client have already made the data public.

We will not use your or your employee’s special category data for any other purposes than is necessary for the assignment:

for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring
in management of sickness absence procedures
to determine reasonable adjustments
To carry out DBS or pre/post‐employment checks on your employees

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of personal data in order to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights under employment law. However, we may ask for your consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If this occurs, you will be made fully aware of the reasons for the processing. As with all cases of seeking consent from you, you will have full control over your decision to give or withhold consent and there will be no consequences where consent is withheld. Consent, once given, may be withdrawn at any time. There will be no consequences where consent is withdrawn.

Criminal conviction data

We will only collect criminal conviction data where the assignment requires it, and it is appropriate given the nature of your employee’s role and where the law permits us. This data will usually be collected at the recruitment stage, however, may also be collected during your employee’s employment. We do not currently collect criminal conviction data from employees and if we were required to in the future, we would obtain your consent to provide this data and tell you why we needed it.

Any criminal conviction data will be recorded but will not be kept for any longer than is necessary for the assignment purposes. It will then be returned to you or destroyed in line with our Data Retention Policy.

If you do not provide your or your employees data to us

One of the reasons for processing your data is to allow us to carry out our duties in line with your contract with us. If you do not provide us with the data needed to do this, we will be unable to perform those duties e.g., ensuring we complete the assignment or your employees are paid correctly. We may also be prevented from completing the contract that is in place if essential data is not available to us.

Sharing your data

Your or your employee’s data may be shared with colleagues within the Company where it is necessary for them to undertake their duties. This includes, for example, core team members, associates of our Company, legal advisors, but only where the assignment requires the sharing.

We share your or your employee’s data with third parties in order to obtain references as part of the recruitment process, Occupational Health service for medical referrals, our employment checks provider.

We may also share your Company data with third parties as part of a Company sale or restructure, or for other reasons to comply with a legal obligation upon us.

We do not intentionally share your data with bodies outside of the European Economic Area.

Protecting your data

We are aware of the requirement to ensure your data is protected against accidental loss or disclosure, destruction and abuse. We have implemented processes to guard against such. Our Data Protection Policy outlines the principles involved in Data Transfer Security and Subject Access Requests; we monitor all data held through our Information Asset Register on Acuity HR Retained Service Agreement 2021 21 a regular basis, along with training for all our staff to ensure they are compliant with the principles.

Where we share your or your employee’s data with third parties, we provide written instructions to them to ensure that data is held securely and in line with current data protection requirements. Third parties must implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of your or your employee’s data. They must also provide our Company with their Data Protection Policy.

How long we keep your data for

In line with data protection principles, we only keep your data for as long as we need it for, which will be at least for the duration of the assignment with us though in some cases we will keep your data for a period after this has ended. Once we have finished with your data, we will return it to you securely and once receipt is confirmed it will be securely destroyed. Retention periods can vary depending on why we need your data, as set out in our Data Retention Policy.

Automated decision making

No decision will be made about your Company or employees solely on the basis of automated decision making (where a decision is taken about you using an electronic system without human involvement) which has a significant impact on you.

Your rights in relation to your data

The law on data protection gives you and your employees certain rights in relation to the data we hold. These are:

the right to be informed. This means that we must tell you how we use your data, and this is the purpose of this privacy notice
the right of access. You and your employees have the right to access the data that we hold on you. To do so, you or your employees should make a subject access request. You can read more about this in our subject access request policy which is available from the Data Protection Officer on acuityhrltd@gmail.co.uk.
the right for any inaccuracies to be corrected. If any data that we hold about you or your employees is incomplete or inaccurate, you are able to require us to correct it
the right to have information deleted. If you would like us to stop processing your or your employees’ data, you have the right to ask us to delete it from our systems where you believe there is no reason for us to continue processing it
the right to restrict the processing of the data. For example, if you believe the data, we hold is incorrect, we will stop processing the data (whilst still holding it) until we have ensured that the data is correct
the right to portability. You may transfer the data that we hold on you or your employees for your own purposes
the right to object to the inclusion of any information. You have the right to object to the way we use your data where we are using it for our legitimate interests
the right to regulate any automated decision‐making and profiling of personal data. You have a right not to be subject to automated decision making in way that adversely affects your or your employee’s legal rights.

Where you have provided consent to our use of your or your employees data, you also have the unrestricted right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent means that we will stop processing the data that you had previously given us consent to use. There will be no consequences for withdrawing consent. However, in some cases, we may continue to use the data where so permitted by having a legitimate reason for doing so.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights explained above, please contact the Data Protection Officer on acuityhrltd@gmail.co.uk.

Making a complaint

The supervisory authority in the UK for data protection matters is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). If you think your or your employee’s data protection rights have been breached in any way by us, you are able to make a complaint to the ICO