Candidate Privacy Statement

To access the CONTACT PRIVACY NOTICE, please click here:
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To access the CLIENT PRIVACY NOTICE, please click here.:
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Candidate Privacy Notice

RQM+ is committed to processing your data securely and transparently. This privacy notice sets out the types of data that we collect and hold on you as a current or previous candidate for job opportunities with RQM+. It also sets out how we use that information, how long we keep it for and other relevant information about your data.

RQM+ is aware of its obligations to residents and citizens of the EU under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), of the UK under the Data Protection Act (UKDPA), of the USA under a variety of legislation and acts that include data protection requirements - specifically including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), of Switzerland under the Data Protection Act (DPA) and the Data Protection Ordinance (DPO), and the data protection requirements of residents and citizens of other countries. This privacy notice complies with the requirements of GDPR, UKDPA, CCPA, DPA and DPO and is applicable globally but may be supplemented by additional information on our privacy practices that may be provided as required by applicable laws and regulations via notices provided at the time of data collection. Together, these are referred to as “Data Protection Legislation”.

This notice applies to individuals who are or have been job applicants. That is:

• Individuals who directly apply or respond to a job advertisement placed by RQM+ in the media including but not limited to LinkedIn, Job Board, local media.
• Individuals who apply directly or respond to a job advertisement placed by an Agency hired by RQM+ to search for candidates.
• Individuals who submit resumes/CVs to platforms such but not limited to Monster, CV Library, Career Builder, Total Jobs etc which RQM+ have legally obtained from such platforms.
• Individuals who have speculatively or voluntarily provided their resume/CV to RQM+.

DATA CONTROLLER DETAILS

RQM+ is a data controller, meaning that it determines the processes to be used when using your personal data. RQM+ has appointed Data Protection Officers who are responsible for ensuring your data is stored and processed in accordance with this privacy notice. Data Protection Officers can be contacted at dpo@rqmplus.com. 

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 your potential employment 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 consented to (as appropriate), lost or destroyed.

TYPES OF DATA WE PROCESS

We may hold many types of data about you depending on the length of our dialogues together regarding job opportunities:

• your personal details including your name, address, date of birth, email address, phone numbers
• your photograph
• gender
• marital status
• information included on your resume/CV/application including qualifications, references, education history and employment history
• information about your current level of remuneration, including benefit entitlements and your future expectations
• information about selection decisions for your application including shortlisting, interview notes, personality profiles and other selection activity performance data
• documentation relating to your right to work in the countries you are being considered to work in
• non-disclosure agreement

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR DATA

We collect data about you in a variety of ways including the information you would normally include in a CV or a job application cover letter, from your LinkedIn and/or job board profile or notes made by our recruiting officers during a recruitment interview and other selection activities. Further information will be collected directly from you when you complete forms at the start of your employment, for example, your bank and next of kin details. Other details may be collected directly from you in the form of official documentation such as your driving licence, passport, or other right to work evidence.

In some cases, we will collect data about you from third parties, such as employment or recruitment agencies, former employers when gathering references, credit reference agencies or background checks where appropriate.

Personal data is kept in electronic recruitment files and/or within RQM+ CRM, Applicant Tracking and IT systems.

WHY WE PROCESS YOUR DATA

The laws on data protection allows us to process your data. Data Protection Legislation allows us to process your data for certain reasons only:

• where we have your consent to do so
• 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

All of the processing carried out by us falls into one of the permitted reasons. Generally, we will rely on the first four reasons set out above to process your data as a candidate.

We need to process data to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract with you. We may also need to process your data to enter into a contract with you.

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

• carrying out checks in relation to your right to work in the countries you are being considered to work in
• making reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates

We also collect data so that we can carry out activities which are in the legitimate interests of RQM+. We have set these out below:

• ensuring confidentiality
• making decisions about who to offer employment to
• making decisions about salary and other benefits
• assessing training needs
• keeping in touch with you for future employment opportunities
• dealing with legal claims made against us

If you are unsuccessful in obtaining employment, as we operate in such a specific sector, we will hold your data to make contact with you in case other suitable job vacancies arise in RQM+ for which we think you may wish to apply. You may at any time contact us and ask us to stop doing this.

Special categories of data

Special categories of data are data relating to your:

• health
• disabilities
• gender expression
• sexual orientation
• race
• ethnic origin
• political opinion
• religion
• trade union membership and
• 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 have given explicit consent to the processing
• we must process the data in order to carry out our legal obligations
• we must process data for reasons of substantial public interest
• you have already made the data public

We will use your special category data:

to consider reasonable adjustments for disclosed disabilities in relation to our application, selection and offer processes

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 (article 9 GDPR). 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.

IF YOU DO NOT PROVIDE YOUR DATA TO US

One of the reasons for processing your data is to allow us to carry out an effective recruitment process. Whilst you are under no obligation to provide us with your data, we may not be able to process, or continue with (as appropriate), your application in the absence of this information.

SHARING YOUR DATA

Your data will be shared with colleagues within RQM+ where it is necessary for them to undertake their duties with regard to recruitment. This includes, for example, Company managers, Recruiters, Resourcing, HR, those in the department where the vacancy is who are responsible for screening your application and interviewing you. Your data may also be shared externally with our clients for the purpose of assessing your suitability for a role, RQM+ IT contractors where you require access to our systems and our HR/recruitment consultants who may support us in our recruitment and selection processes.

In some cases, we will collect data about you from third parties, such as employment or recruitment agencies.

Your data will be shared with third parties if you are successful in your job application. In these circumstances, we will share your data in order to obtain references, personality profiling, to obtain a criminal records check, background checks or credit check as appropriate as part of the recruitment process.

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

RQM+ does not and will not sell your data or any personal data to any third party for any reason.

As a globally operating organisation RQM+ may be required to transfer personal data to countries between the USA, EEA, UK and also outside of those countries/jurisdictions. We have put the following measures in place to ensure that your data is transferred securely and that the bodies who receive the data that we have transferred process it in a way required by Data Protection Legislation:

• Using IT systems with data security assurance to access data from overseas
• Utilizing portals and other methods for transferring data securely
• Using encryption if sending high risk data by email
• Data protection training for overseas data processors
• Procedures for storing and processing data to Data Protection Legislation standards

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. E.g., backing up our servers, firewalls, access control for personal information, using password protected documents and encryption when transferring sensitive data, ensuring our IT systems that process personal information are secure to Data Protection Legislation requirements.

Where we share your data with third parties, we provide written instructions to them to ensure that your data is held securely and in line with Data Protection Legislation requirements. Third parties must implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of your data.

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 and this will depend on whether or not you are successful in obtaining employment/work with us.

If your application is not successful, we will keep your data for the purpose of contacting you for future work opportunities for a period of 5 years once the recruitment exercise ends. At the end of this period, we will delete or destroy your data, unless you grant us specific consent to our processing of your data for a further period.

If your application is successful, your data will be kept and transferred to the systems we administer for employees, workers and sub-contractors. We have a separate privacy notice for employees, workers and sub-contractors, which will be provided to you.

AUTOMATED DECISION MAKING

No decision will be made about you 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

Data Protection Legislation gives citizens and residents in certain jurisdictions rights in relation to the data we hold. Although these rights may not be rights to citizens and residents in some countries and jurisdictions where Data Protection Legislation is limited, RQM+ extends these privileges to all. These are:

the right to be informed. This means that we must inform you what data we hold, how we use your data, data that may be disclosed and this is the purpose of this privacy notice

the right of access. You have the right to access the data that we hold on you. To do so, you should make a subject access request or in California, a consumer request

the right for any inaccuracies to be corrected. If any data that we hold about you 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 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. Under certain circumstances we may not be able to delete your data and where this is the case, we will confirm the reasons to you

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 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 legal rights

You will not be discriminated against if you exercise any of your rights as detailed above including:

Not considering you for employment or sub-contractor opportunities with RQM+

Excluding you from general communications provided to candidates

Where you have provided consent to our use of your 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 your 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 Controller listed above.

MAKING A COMPLAINT

If you think your data protection rights have been breached in any way by us, you should contact our Data Protection Officer at dpo@rqmplus.com. If you think your data protection rights under GDPR or UKDPA have been breached in any way by us, you are able to make a complaint to a supervisory authority. In the UK, the supervisory authority is the Information Commissioner (ICO) – ico@org.uk 

ABOUT RQM+

RQM+ as referred to in this document includes the following companies:

• RQM+ Corporation
• Regulatory and Quality Solutions, doing business as RQM+ R&Q
• Regulatory and Quality Solutions West, doing business as RQM+ West
• Maetrics LLC, doing business as RQM+ Maetrics
• Maetrics Limited, trading as RQM+
• Maetrics GmbH, trading as RQM+
• RQM+ (Germany) GmbH, trading as RQM+

Updated December 2023