Privacy policy

last updated 27/08/2019

techfolk is a recruitment business which provides work-finding services to its clients (prospective employers) and prospective applicants. We must process personal data (including sensitive personal data) so that it can provide these services – in doing so, techfolk acts as a data controller.

You may give your personal details to techfolk directly, such as on an application or registration form or via our website, or we may collect them from another source such as a jobs board. techfolk must have a legal basis for processing your personal data. For the purposes of providing you with work-finding services and/or information relating to roles relevant to you we will only use your personal data in accordance with this privacy statement. At all times we will comply with current data protection laws.

Contents:

1. Collection and use of personal data

a. Purpose of processing and legal basis

techfolk will collect your personal data (which may include sensitive personal data) and will process your personal data for the purposes of providing you with work-finding services. This includes for example, contacting you about job opportunities, assessing your suitability for those opportunities, updating our databases, putting you forward for job opportunities, arranging payments to you and developing and managing our services and relationship with you and our prospective employers (clients).

In some cases we may be required to use your data for the purpose of investigating, reporting and detecting crime and also to comply with laws that apply to us. We may also use your information during the course of internal audits to demonstrate our compliance with certain industry standards.

We must have a legal basis to process your personal data. The legal bases we rely upon to offer our work-finding services to you are:

• Your consent
• Where we have a legitimate interest
• To comply with a legal obligation that we have
• To fulfil a contractual obligation that we have with you

b. Legitimate interest

This is where techfolk has a legitimate reason to process your data provided it is reasonable and does not go against what you would reasonably expect from us.  Where techfolk has relied on a legitimate interest to process your personal data our legitimate interests is/are as follows:

• Managing our database and keeping prospective candidates’ records up to date;
• Providing work-finding services to you and our prospective employers;
• Contacting you to seek your consent where we need it;
• Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy

c. Statutory/contractual requirement

techfolk has certain legal and contractual requirements to collect personal data (e.g. to comply with the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, immigration and tax legislation, and in some circumstances safeguarding requirements.)  Our clients may also require this personal data, and/or we may need your data to enter into a contract with you. If you do not give us personal data we need to collect we may not be able to continue to provide work-finding services to you

d. Recipient/s of data

techfolk will process your personal data with the following recipients:

• Prospective employers (whom we may introduce or supply you to)
• Former employers whom we may seek references from
• Payroll service providers who manage payroll on our behalf or other payment intermediaries whom we may introduce you to
• Our IT and CRM providers

2. Information to be provided when data is collected not from the data subject

a. Categories of data: techfolk may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

• The information you have provided to us in your curriculum vitae and any covering letter
• The information you have provided on our application forms, including name, title, address, telephone number, personal email address, work email address, date of birth, gender, employment history and qualifications
• Employment records (including job titles, work history)

b. Source of the personal data: techfolk may have sourced your personal data from different methods and public sources including:

• Direct interaction where you may provide data by filling in forms on our site, by communicating with us by post, phone, email or otherwise and when you subscribe to our services, attend our events, participate in discussion boards or other social media activities, enter a survey and when you report a problem with our site.
• Job boards, including LinkedIn
• A former employer
• A referee whose details you previously provided to us
• Software providers who we use to support our services, for example TalentBin and recruitment aggregators

3. Overseas transfers

techfolk will not transfer the information you provide to us to countries outside the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) for the purposes of providing you with work-finding services. The EEA comprises the EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

4. Data retention

techfolk will retain your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purpose we collect it. Different laws may also require us to keep different data for different periods of time. For example, the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, require us to keep work-seeker records for at least one year from (a) the date of their creation or (b) after the date on which we last provide you with work-finding services.

We must also keep your payroll records, holiday pay, sick pay and pensions auto-enrolment records for as long as is legally required by HMRC and associated national minimum wage, social security and tax legislation. This is currently 3 to 6 years.

Where the Company has obtained your consent to process your personal data, we will do so for a period of 3 years. Upon expiry of that period the Company will seek further consent from you. Where consent is not granted the Company will cease to process your personal data.

5. Your rights

Please be aware that you have the following data protection rights:

• The right to be informed about the personal data the Company processes on you;
• The right of access to the personal data the Company processes on you;
• The right to rectification of your personal data;
• The right to erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances;
• The right to restrict processing of your personal data;
• The right to data portability in certain circumstances;
• The right to object to the processing of your personal data that was based on a public or legitimate interest;
• The right not to be subjected to automated decision making and profiling; and
• The right to withdraw consent at any time.

Where you have consented to techfolk processing your personal data or sensitive personal data you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us on [email protected]. Please note that if you withdraw your consent to further processing that does not affect any processing done prior to the withdrawal of that consent, or which is done according to another legal basis.

There may be circumstances where techfolk will still need to process your data for legal or official reasons. Where this is the case, we will tell you and we will restrict the data to only what is necessary for those specific reasons.

If you believe that any of your data that techfolk processes is incorrect or incomplete, please contact us using the details above and we will take reasonable steps to check its accuracy and correct it where necessary.

You can also contact us using the above details if you want us to restrict the type or amount of data we process for you, access your personal data or exercise any of the other rights listed above.

6. Cookies

We may set and access Cookies on your computer.  Cookies may be placed on your computer when you visit certain parts of our website. We use these to identify and track visitors, their usage of our website, their access preferences and for advertising.  Currently we do not have the technical ability to get your express permission to opt out of our cookies, so we encourage you to use your browser settings if you want to control these.

If you want to learn more about the general use of cookies, please visit Cookiepedia.

Strictly Necessary cookies

These are cookies that allow you to use different parts of our site. Without them different features that you have requested cannot be provided. These are usually set in response to an action performed by the user like clicking on a job advert or failing to enter the correct password to their account.

Functional cookies

These help us to make your experience within our site more personal. For instance, knowing if you have been on our website before so that messages for new visitors are not displayed to you.

First party cookies

These are cookies that are set by our website. And only we can read them.

Session cookies

These are stored while you browse our website and then deleted once you leave.

Persistent cookies

These are saved on your computer and won’t be deleted when you close the web page. We use these to provide functionality like keeping you logged in when you come back to the site.

Performance cookies

These help us to track how people are using our website. They help us to know what pages people are using most and how users navigate around the site, we use this information to make informed decision about how we can improve the user experience of our website.

The information we get using these cookies is completely anonymous and we will make no attempt to identify you or influence your experience of our website while you are on it.

If you use the “Do Not Track” browser setting, we currently don’t respond to DNT requests.

Third party cookies 

These are set by someone other than us, these can be things like Analytics and other embedded content.

Cookies we use (Non-Optional Cookies)

7. Log files

We might use IP addresses to analyse trends, administer the site, track users’ movements, and to gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.  IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

8. Links to external websites

techfolk’s website may contain links to other external websites. Please be aware that techfolk is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites.  When you leave our site we encourage you to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information.  This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by techfolk’s website.

9. Sale of business

If techfolk’s business is sold or integrated with another business your details may be disclosed to our advisers and any prospective purchasers and their advisers and will be passed on to the new owners of the business.

10. Data security

techfolk takes every precaution to protect our users’ information.

Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, consultants or accounts clerk) are granted access to your information.

techfolk uses all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal information. However, you should be aware that the use of email/ the Internet is not entirely secure and for this reason techfolk cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal information which is transferred from you or to you via email/ the Internet.

If you share a device with others we recommend that you do not select the “remember my details” function when that option is offered.

If you have any questions about the security at our website, you can email Vittoria Rubino: [email protected]

11. Changes to this privacy statement

We will update this privacy statement from time to time.  We will post any changes on the statement with revision dates.  If we make any material changes, we will notify you.

12. Complaints and queries

If you wish to complain about this Privacy Policy or any of the procedures set out in it please contact: Vittoria Rubino, Operations Manager, tel: 0117 3182447 email: [email protected]

You also have the right to raise concerns with Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113 or at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/, or any other relevant supervisory authority should your personal data be processed outside of the UK, if you believe that your data protection rights have not been adhered to.