Privacy Statement
If you are applying for a vacancy or registering your interest in working for HBOS Retail, there'll be certain information about you that we need. The Data Protection Act means that you're entitled to know how we intend to use it.
Essentially, we use your information to process your application. We may use scoring methods or other automated decision making systems when considering your application.
The Data Protection Act — How we use your personal information
The Data Protection Act puts obligations on users of personal information and lays down principles for its use. One principle states that information has to be processed fairly and lawfully. This means that you are entitled to know how we intend to use any information you provide. You can then decide whether you want to give it to us.
Organisations must lodge a notification with the Information Commissioner describing the purposes for which they process personal information. The details are publicly available from the Commissioner's office at:
Wycliffe House,
Water Lane,
Wilmslow,
Cheshire,
SK9 5AF
Tel: 01625 545745
Fax: 01625 524510
Alternatively, see the Commissioner's website at www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.
External Companies
Sometimes we need to give information to our agents and subcontractors so that they can provide a particular service for us. Where required, your information may also be shared by other members of the group to keep records up to date and administer your relationship.
Sometimes these companies may be located abroad in countries that do not have data protection laws. In these circumstances we always take great care to ensure that your personal data is kept safe and secure.
Credit Referencing
We may search public records such as the Electoral Roll that are available from Credit Reference Agencies to help us verify your application. The search will include information held in relation to any outstanding credit commitments, including those people whom you are financially associated with. It will not be seen by other lenders, nor will it be used when assessing your ability to obtain credit related products.
The UK Credit Reference agency used is:
Equifax plc,
Credit File Advice Centre
PO Box 1140
Bradford
BD1 5US
Tel: 0870 0100583
www.equifax.co.uk
Crime Prevention and Detection
We will check your details with fraud prevention agencies. If false or inaccurate information is provided and fraud is identified, details will be passed to fraud prevention agencies. Law enforcement agencies may access and use this information. We and other organisations may also access and use this information to prevent fraud and money laundering, for example, when:
- Checking details on applications for credit and credit related or other facilities
- Managing credit and credit related accounts or facilities
- Recovering debt
- Checking details on proposals and claims for all types of insurance
- Checking details of job applicants and employees
Please contact us on 0845 6032128* if you want to receive details of the relevant fraud prevention agencies. We and other organisations may access and use from other countries the information recorded by fraud prevention agencies.
*Calls from 0845 and 0870 numbers will cost a maximum of 5p per minute. The price of calls from other telephone companies will vary.
Disclosure
We will not disclose your information without your consent, unless there is a legal obligation to do so or we believe that failure to disclose, in a particular instance, is likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime.
E–mail
If you e–mail us, or give us your e–mail address, we will keep a record of it. We will not give your e–mail address to any unauthorised third parties.
When e–mailing us, remember that it will be 'insecure' and could be intercepted. If you do send us 'insecure' e–mail, please keep the amount of confidential information you include to a minimum. We will do likewise when we reply.
Telephone Calls
We may record telephone conversations to offer you additional security, resolve complaints and improve our service standards. Conversations may also be monitored or recorded for colleague training purposes.
Responsibility for Customer Confidentiality
Our employees are personally responsible for maintaining customer confidentiality. We provide training and education to all our colleagues to remind them about their obligations. Our policies and procedures are regularly audited and reviewed.
Sensitive Information
The Data Protection Act defines certain information as 'sensitive' (racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health, sexual orientation, criminal proceedings and offences), including any changes to personal information such as previous or subsequent names and sickness/absence records. If you apply to us, your application form may ask you for some 'sensitive' details. We will use this information for monitoring, recruitment and the selection process and we will ask for your explicit consent. We may share it with other parts of the HBOS group and our subcontractors to keep your employment records up to date.
Cookies
We may also store information about you in cookies (files which are sent by us to your computer or other access device) which we can access when you visit our site in future.
If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to the instructions for your file management software to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. Our cookies will have the file names (abc.txt and xyz.txt).
If you want to stop cookies being stored on your computer in future, please refer to your Internet browser's instructions by clicking 'Help' in its menu. Further information on deleting or controlling cookies is available at www.AboutCookies.org. Please note that by deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas of our site.
Record Retention
In the event that your application is unsuccessful, your details will be retained for 6 months, at which time they will be confidentially destroyed.
If you have applied for a speculative vacancy to our candidate pool, your application will be held on record for 6 months. We will contact you at 6 months to see if you wish to remain in our candidate pool. You may remove your details yourself at any time.
Right of Access to Personal Data
Under the Data Protection Act, you have the right of access to your personal data. The Act allows us to charge a fee of £10 for this service. If anything is inaccurate, please let us know and we will correct it.
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