Brookson Solutions Limited Privacy Notice

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
4. Accurate and kept up to date.
5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
6. Kept securely.

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

“Special category” is data of more sensitive personal data about you and if we are provided with any such data, we will ensure it receives a higher level of protection.

We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you in order to identify you and facilitate the provision of our services to you. In order to do this, we will need to process the following personal data:

• Name
• Home address
• Residential address
• Work location
• Date of birth
• Title
• IP address/location
• Connect login and password details
• Bank details
• Unique tax reference number / National Insurance Number
• Tax codes and tax status
• National Insurance Number
• Tax codes and tax status
• Financial details
• recruitment information such as your application form and details supplied to us by a recruitment business;
• the contact details for your emergency contacts
• your gender
• your marital status and family details
• information about your contract of employment (or services) including start and end dates of employment, role and location, working hours, details of promotion, salary (including details of previous remuneration), pension, benefits and holiday entitlement
• your identification documents including passport and driving licence and information in relation to your immigration status and right to work for us
• information relating to disciplinary or grievance investigations and proceedings involving you (whether or not you were the main subject of those proceedings)
• information relating to your performance and behaviour at work
• training records
• electronic information in relation to your use of IT systems
• your images (whether captured on CCTV, by photograph or video)
• any other category of personal data which we may notify you of from time to time

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:

• Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records from any Sick Note, Fit Note or other note or records provided by your doctor or medical professional from time to time.
• Information about criminal convictions and offences which you may inform us about from time to time.
• Information about your racial or ethnic origin
• Information about your political opinions
• Information about your religious or philosophical beliefs
• Information about your trade union membership
• Information about your genetic or biometric data
• Information about your sex life and sexual orientation

We collect personal information about customers through the initial recruitment, interviewing and onboarding process, either directly from you over the telephone, or through submitting information to us via the brooksonone.co.uk website, or sometimes from an employment business/agency. We may also collect additional information from third parties including credit reference agencies or other background check agencies to confirm your identity and suitability for employment with us, from your use of our website, or from your end client. We may also receive information from current employees or customers of other parts of the Brookson Group who introduce you as part of our Recommend a Friend scheme.

We will also collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us.

We will collect this data from the following sources:

· E-mail
· Instant messaging
· Letters
· Online data capture forms
· Telephone calls (these may be recorded)
· Information from received directly from end clients
· Information received from recruitment businesses

All data received and recorded will only be used in accordance with the purposes set out below and where we have a legal basis for processing this data.

IP addresses and cookies

As is the case with most websites, we may obtain information about your usage of our web services through the use of cookies on our website. A cookie is a small piece of data placed on your hard drive in order to assist us in ensuring that your experience of using our website is optimised for your personal circumstances. Cookies cannot pass on computer viruses, retrieve other data from your computer’s hard drive or capture your email address. Cookies can be used to save users time on the site, by securely storing a user’s ID and password, personalise web pages and identify visited parts of a site and keep track of user’s selections. We use cookies to estimate our audience size and usage pattern, to speed up your searches and to collect information about your browsing habits and tailor our content, support and advertising in a manner relevant to our users. The data may then be used to track the user’s sites, via third-party vendors such as Google and may show adverts from us or other parts of the Brookson Group on those internet sites.

You have the option to opt-out and manage the cookies by altering the “help” settings on their browser. However, if you choose to disable the cookie, this can impair the functionality of our website and web services being used.

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:

1. Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
3. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party). Where we are processing for a legitimate interest we have balanced this against your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

1. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
2. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

We will use information about you for the following purposes:

• Performing the contract of employment between us
• Complying with any legal obligation
• If it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or for the legitimate interests of someone else). 

However, we can only do this if your interests and rights do not override ours (or theirs). You have the right to challenge our legitimate interests and request that we stop this processing. See details of your rights below.

We can process your personal data for these purposes without your knowledge or consent. We will not use your personal data for an unrelated purpose without telling you about it and the legal basis that we intend to rely on for processing it.

If you choose not to provide us with certain personal data you should be aware that we may not be able to carry out certain parts of the contract between us. For example, if you do not provide us with your bank account details we may not be able to pay you. It might also stop us from complying with certain legal obligations and duties which we have such as to pay the right amount of tax to HMRC or to make reasonable adjustments in relation to any disability you may suffer from.

We have to process your personal data in various situations during your recruitment, employment (or engagement) and even following termination of your employment (or engagement)

We may need to process your personal data for the following reasons:

• Where it is necessary for carrying out rights and obligations under employment law
• Where it is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person where you/they are physically or legally incapable of giving consent
• Where you have made the data public
• Where processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
• Where processing is necessary for the purposes of occupational medicine or for the assessment of your working capacity
• We might process special categories of your personal data for the purposes. In particular, we will use information in relation to:
• Your race, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation or gender to monitor equal opportunities
• Your sickness absence, health and medical conditions to monitor your absence, assess your fitness for work, to pay you benefits, to comply with our legal obligations under employment law including to make reasonable adjustments and to look after your health and safety
• Your trade union membership to pay any subscriptions and to comply with our legal obligations in respect of trade union members
• Making decisions about salary, remuneration and compensation
• Gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings
• Making decisions about your continued employment or engagement
• Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship
• Education, training and development requirements
• Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, workers and contractors, including accidents at work
• Ascertaining your fitness to work
• Managing sickness absence
• Analysing assignment information which you are engaged on our behalf (including location of work, duration of working time, income, timesheet and invoicing information)
• Understanding and analysing working patterns to ensure compliance with legal obligations
• Complying with health and safety obligations
• To prevent fraud
• To provide you with access to a pension scheme
• Analysing and processing eligibility for, and making payment of, expenses incurred during the course of your employment
• Informing recruitment businesses of necessary information in order to comply with obligations imposed by s44 Income Tax Earnings and Protection Act 2003
• To enable other businesses within the Brookson Group to notify you of support services which may be of interest to you during the course of your employment with us

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information. Where the grounds for processing involve marketing to you, you will always have the option to object to us processing for this purpose.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as providing our services to you or your business), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal or regulatory obligations (such as to report financial impropriety in relation to anti-money laundering),

• To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our Company Handbook
• 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 to review and better understand employee remuneration, retention and attrition rates
• To provide you with information and guidance on anything which may impact on atypical working in the recruitment/temporary worker sector (such as legislative changes, government consultations, sourcing statistical information to support our contribution to this sector of society)
• To provide you with information and guidance on efficient ways of working to maximise your take home pay and various vehicles used to provide services (such as personal service companies, sole trader/self employed, CIS and/or other models/vehicles available in the market)
• Equal opportunities monitoring (including gender pay gap reporting)

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as paying you or providing a benefit), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to monitor the health and safety of our workers, working time and/or deduct and pay appropriate tax and national insurance contributions)

Change of purpose

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.

“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information with your explicit 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. We may also process such information about clients or former clients in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

Do we need your consent?

Usually, we will approach you for your explicit consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. 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. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent.

OUR OBLIGATIONS AS AN EMPLOYER

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

• We will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your suitability and fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits.
• 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 equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.
• We will use trade union membership information to pay trade union premiums, register the status of a protected employee and to comply with employment law obligations.

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our data protection policy.

Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary 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.

We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

We do not envisage that we will hold information about criminal convictions.

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision-making in the following circumstances:

1. Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 21 days to request a reconsideration.
2. Where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
3. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however we will notify you in writing if this position changes.

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the Brookson Group.

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.

”Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within our group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, IT services, legal services, financial services. The following third-party service providers process personal information about you for the following purposes:

Brookson Legal Services Limited:	For the provision of legal support for the business during the course of your employment with us. The reason for processing will be performance of a contract but we may also be share data to offer you products that may be of interest to you in which there is a legitimate interest to share.
Brookson Limited:	All of our back office functions are performed by Brookson Limited in order to fulfil our contractual obligations.
Brookson Financial Limited:	Auto enrolment and pension compliance activities
FCSA	For audit and regulatory compliance activities
HMRC	For tax compliance activities
Recruitment businesses	To enable them to manage the assignment on which you are engaged to provide services on our behalf and comply with their legal and regulatory obligations in relation to the same. There is a legitimate interest to share data for this purpose.
End clients	To whom you are engaged to provide services to enable them to manage your engagement, protect your health and safety at work, process working time and comply with their legal, regulatory and contractual obligations in relation to the same. There is a legitimate interest to share data for this purpose.
Credit-Safe Limited	To enable us to verify your identity and any right to work documents provided to us from time to time which we are legally obliged process data for.
Our insurers	In the event of any claims being made in relation to your employment with us.
GoTo	For the provision of telecommunication services and recording facilities.

How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

When might you share my personal information with other entities in the group?

We will share your personal information with other entities in our group as part of our regular operations and reporting activities on company performance, in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise, for system maintenance support and hosting of data, for back office support and legal support.

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the Brookson Group; regulatory compliance activities (as a member of the Freelance and Contractor Service Provider Association (FCSA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales); and recruitment businesses to support us with work finding opportunities and services.

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information and remain keen to comply with the requirements of ISO 27001. Details of these measures are available upon request.

Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. Details of these measures may be obtained from our Group Data Protection Officer.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will you use my information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal information are available in our data retention policy which is available from our Group Data Protection Officer ([email protected]). To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, 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, worker or contractor of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with our data retention policy or applicable laws and regulations (where appropriate).

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

• Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal information to ensure it remains accurate and up to date
• Request erasure of some or all of your information which we hold on you, subject to us complying with our legal and regulatory obligations which may override your right to request erasure
• Right to request that we cease processing some or all of your information, in whole or in part, subject to our legal and regulatory obligations which may override your right to request that we either pause our processing activities or cease processing your personal data entirely
• Right to request that your data is transferred to a third party (portability) in the event that you look to use the services of a third party (such as if you chose to use another accountant or apply for a mortgage), we will share data relating to your engagement with us with such third party (for example, your new accountant or mortgage provider), upon request
• Right to object to some or all of your data no longer being processed by us (either temporarily or permanently). This will be subject to our legal and regulatory obligations which may override your right to request this, but we will ensure that such obligations and or/legitimate interest or ours (or others) are sufficiently compelling in order to override you rights in this regard
• If we use automated decision making or profiling you will be able to request manual/human intervention to ensure appropriate decisions are taken or advice provided

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Everyone who works for, or on behalf of, the Company has some responsibility for ensuring data is collected, stored and handled appropriately, in line with this policy and the Company’s Data Security and Data Retention policies. 

The Company’s Data Protection Officer is responsible for reviewing this policy and updating the Board of Directors on the Company’s data protection responsibilities and any risks in relation to the processing of data. You should direct any questions in relation to this policy or data protection to this person.

You should only access personal data covered by this policy if you need it for the work you do for, or on behalf of the Company and only if you are authorised to do so. You should only use the data for the specified lawful purpose for which it was obtained.

You should not share personal data informally.

You should keep personal data secure and not share it with unauthorised people.

You should regularly review and update personal data which you have to deal with for work. This includes telling us if your own contact details change.

You should not make unnecessary copies of personal data and should keep and dispose of any copies securely.

You should use strong passwords.

You should lock your computer screens when not at your desk.

Personal data should be encrypted before being transferred electronically to authorised external contacts. Speak to IT for more information on how to do this.

Consider anonymising data or using separate keys/codes so that the data subject cannot be identified.

Do not save personal data to your own personal computers or other devices.

Personal data should never be transferred outside the European Economic Area except in compliance with the law and authorisation of the Data Protection Officer.

You should lock drawers and filing cabinets. Do not leave paper with personal data lying about. 

You should not take personal data away from Company’s premises without authorisation from your line manager or Data Protection Officer.

Personal data should be shredded and disposed of securely when you have finished with it.

You should ask for help from our Data Protection Officer if you are unsure about data protection or if you notice any areas of data protection or security we can improve upon. 

Any deliberate or negligent breach of this policy by you may result in disciplinary action being taken against you in accordance with our disciplinary procedure. 

It is a criminal offence to conceal or destroy personal data which is part of a subject access request (see below). This conduct would also amount to gross misconduct under our disciplinary procedure, which could result in your dismissal.

You are also referred to the Information Security section of this Handbook for additional obligations in addition to those this policy.

We have robust measures in place to minimise and prevent data breaches from taking place. Should a breach of personal data occur (whether in respect of you or someone else) then we must take notes and keep evidence of that breach. If the breach is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals then we must also notify the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours.

If you are aware of a data breach you must contact the Data Protection Officer ([email protected]) immediately and keep any evidence you have in relation to the breach.

Where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please respond to the point of contact from whom you received the last communication to which you consented to receive, or our Business Advisory Team. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, insofar that we do not have a legal obligation to do so. Please also note that in certain circumstances withdrawing consent may restrict us from performing our contractual obligations.

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the DPO ([email protected]). You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the Business Advisory Team on 0345 058 1200

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to [email protected].