Former employees - privacy notice
This section of our privacy notice applies to former employees of Homes England.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
It is important that you read this section of our privacy notice together with the main section of our privacy notice above, or any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you. This is so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data.
Information we collect
Homes England does not collect personal data from former employees after they have left our employment, but it may hold the information that was collected before and during the employment relationship, including:
- Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
- Date of birth
- Gender
- Marital status and dependants
- Next of kin and emergency contact information
- National insurance number
- Copy of identification (Passport/driving licence)
- Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information
- Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information
- Start date
- Location of employment or workplace
- Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process)
- Employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, training records and professional memberships)
- Compensation history
- Performance information
- Disciplinary and grievance information
- CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means such as swipecard records
- Information about your use of our information and communications systems
- Photographs
How we process your information
We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to perform the obligations in a contract we have entered into with you, such as the employment contract, or a settlement agreement. Some of the contractual obligations in these contracts continue after your employment has terminated, such as the duty to observe confidentiality.
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
- Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
- Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.
We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
We may process your data for the following purposes:
- Paying you and deducting tax and National Insurance contributions and other lawful deductions.
- Providing you with any employee related benefits to which you are entitled after the termination of your employment.
- To reimburse you for expenses incurred in the course of your employment.
- Liaising with your pension provider and the trustees/administrators of pension schemes.
- Administering any contract we have entered into with you.
- Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing.
- Gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings.
- Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, workers and contractors, including accidents at work.
- To prevent and detect fraud.
- To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution.
- To conduct data analytics studies (such as the staff survey) to review and better understand employee retention and attrition rates.
- Equality and diversity monitoring
- Publicising our activities (e.g., group photos of events, site visits, etc).
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.
How we process “special categories” of more sensitive personal information
We may also store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information that we have collected from you:
- Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
- Trade union membership.
- Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
- Biometric data.
- Information about criminal convictions and offences.
These “special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for storing and using this type of personal information. Our data protection policy contains details of the safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data.
We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment.
- Where it is needed in the public interest: for example, we will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equality and diversity monitoring and reporting. Where possible, we would seek to anonymise this data.
- In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent. However, we do not need your consent to use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of employment law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed 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.
Who is the information shared with
We may share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other Government departments and agencies.
We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We may transfer your personal information outside the EU. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.
Homes England shares your data with:
- Occupational Pension Scheme Trustees and Administrators.
- Service providers such as:
- Concur – employee expenses
- Edenred – employee benefits e.g. childcare vouchers
- OH Assist – employee assistance programme
- Equifax – BPSS identity check
- Redfern – employee travel and accommodation service
- Occupational Health providers
- Nuffield – employee health screening
- Clear Review – performance management system
- Trade Unions of which you are a member including PCS, Unison and Unite
- Social Media Providers for employee engagement and communication such as:
- Facebook Workplace
Retention
Homes England will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected.
Homes England has a records retention schedule that outlines how long we will retain information.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data collected as part of your employment, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you. Once you are no longer an employee we will retain and securely destroy your personal information after the following periods:
- 12 months from date of leaving for employees; except
- Payroll, tax and NIC records which must be retained required for 6 years. This is a legal requirement.
However, these periods only apply to your employment records and not for example to images and materials created and use for marketing and communication purposes (eg group photographs taken at away days etc). If you are concerned about the retention and use of any such materials please see the Data Rights section below.
Last updated 21 May 2021 + show all updates
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Updated to add new service provider.
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First published.