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Temps Privacy Policy

Please read through our Privacy policy for temporary workers below.

1.    What is the purpose of this document?

1.1    Allen Associates (Oxford) Limited is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

1.2    This privacy policy describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act.

1.3    Allen Associates (Oxford) Limited is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy policy.

1.4    This policy applies to current and former employees, workers, volunteers and contractors (“you”, “your”).  This policy does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this policy at any time.

1.5    It is important that you read this policy, together with any other privacy policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

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

2.1    used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;

2.2    collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;

2.3    relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;

2.4    accurate and kept up to date;

2.5    kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about; and

2.6    kept securely.

3.    The kind of information we hold about you

3.1    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).

3.2    There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

3.3    We will collect, store, and use personal information about you which may include the following categories:

a)    personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses;
b)    work contact details;
c)    date of birth;
d)    gender;
e)    marital status
f)    national insurance number;
g)    bank account details, payroll records and tax status information;
h)    salary, bonus, annual leave, pension and benefits information;
i)    start date and termination date;
j)    location of employment or workplace;
k)    requests for flexible working or variation of contract;
l)    right to work documentation which may include photographic ID such as a passport, birth certificate, resident permit or a copy of a visa. The exact documentation that we require is based on government guidance and will depend upon your individual circumstances. We will provide you with details of the documents needed at the time we carry out the checks;
m)    recruitment information (including copies of application forms, covering letters, references, interview notes and opinions taken during and following interviews and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process including applications for alternative roles whilst employed);
n)    employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, training records including the results of training you undertake whilst working for us, contracts, contract variations and professional memberships;
o)    details of your professional qualifications and education history;
p)    compensation history;
q)    performance information including appraisals, client/candidate feedback, feedback from colleagues;
r)    disciplinary, conduct and grievance information;
s)    information about your use of our information and communications systems including details of where and when you login in to our systems, your use of the internet, email and other applications;
t)    details of your time and attendance records;
u)    information in applications you make for other positions within our organisation;
v)    leaver interview information;
w)    details in references about you that we provide to others.

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

a)    information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions;
b)    information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records;
c)    genetic information and biometric data and
d)    information about criminal convictions and offences will be collected should you decide that you wish to be put forward for a temporary role with one of our client’s requiring this information.

4.    How is your personal information collected?

4.1    We typically collect personal information about employees, workers and contractors through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or other sources available including the internet. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, the Disclosure Barring Service, former educational/professional institutions you have attended and information available on social media.

4.2    We will collect additional personal information throughout the period of you working for us. This will usually be directly from you but may be from third parties such as medical practitioners, pension administrators, insurance benefit administrators, other employees, consultants and other professionals we may engage to advise the business, clients and customers, communication systems, remote access systems, telephones, voicemails, mobile phone records, data-loss prevention tools, the Disclosure Barring Service.

5.    How we will use information about you

5.1    We will only collect your personal information where we have a lawful basis for doing so. Under the General Data Protection Regulation, there are six lawful bases as follows:
a)    where you have given us your consent;
b)    to decide whether to enter a contract with you or to perform that contract with you;
c)    to comply with a legal obligation;
d)    where processing your data is in your vital interests where we may be required to provide information to protect your life (e.g. to a medical professional if you become seriously unwell or injured whilst at work);
e)    where processing is necessary to perform a public task; and
f)    where we have a legitimate interest to process your information provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

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

5.3    Our primary lawful bases for the data we process in relation to our temporary workers are to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligations.

5.4    We will also process your personal data where we or a third party has a legitimate interest to do so which may include:

a)    to enable us to deal with and defend any dispute or legal proceedings;
b)    to establish whether you are suitable to work with our clients;
c)    to establish whether you are suitable for an internal role or promotion you have applied for;
d)    to enable us to monitor our business performance and protect our business interests;
e)    to enable us to market our business services.

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

a)    where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests). For example, where you are seriously unwell or have an accident at work and we provide a hospital with personal information about you.
b)    where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes. For example, this may involve assisting with a police investigation.

5.6    The situations in which we will process your personal information in accordance with the lawful bases set out above may include:
a)    making a decision about your recruitment or appointment;
b)    determining the terms on which you work for us;
c)    checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK;
d)    paying you and, if you are an employee, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions;
e)    providing benefits to you which may include:
5.6.e.1    Sick Pay;
5.6.e.2    Pension;
f)    liaising with your pension provider;
g)    administering the contract we have entered into with you;
h)    business management and planning, including accounting and auditing;
i)    conducting performance reviews, managing performance, determining performance requirements and creating performance development plans;
j)    making decisions about pay reviews and compensation;
k)    assessing qualifications for a particular job or task;
l)    gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings;
m)    making decisions about your continued employment or engagement;
n)    making decisions about your suitability to take up roles with our clients;
o)    making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship;
p)    education, training and development requirements;
q)    dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, workers and contractors including accidents at work;
r)    ascertaining your fitness to work and carry out your role;
s)    managing sickness absence;
t)    complying with health and safety obligations;
u)    enabling us to market our services, attract interest in our events including those hosted with other professional services firms; and
v)    complying with our regulatory and legal obligations such as to HMRC.


5.7    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), we may not be able to put you forward for roles with our clients or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our staff).

5.8    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.

5.9    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.

6.    How we use your special category data

6.1    “Special category data” requires higher levels of protection.

6.2    We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

a)    in limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent;
b)    where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our data protection policy;
c)    where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring, and in line with our data protection policy.
d)    where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards; and/or
e)    where it is necessary for establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.

6.3    Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is 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. For example, if you became seriously unwell or had an accident at work we may need to provide a hospital with medical information we are aware of.

6.4    We will use your special category data in the following ways:
a)    we will use information relating to leave of absence, which may include sickness absence or family related leave, to comply with employment and other laws;
b)    we will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits;
c)    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;
d)    we may obtain your biometric data as part of our recruitment process so as to comply with right to work checks and our legal obligations in respect of safeguarding. We may require further data during the course of your employment for example, where you have a work visa which may need renewal in order to continue to have the right to work;
e)    we may use all special categories of data to defend legal claims.

6.5    We do not need your consent if we 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. For example, to ensure we provide you with a safe place of work or to consider making reasonable adjustments. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain special category 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. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.

7.    Information about criminal convictions

7.1    We envisage that we will collect information about criminal convictions or your criminal records history in accordance with our Criminal Records Policy.

7.2    We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so.

7.3    Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of our relationship with you or we may be notified of such information directly by you in the course of working for us.  We will use information about criminal convictions to establish whether you are suitable to work for our clients.

7.4    Checks regarding criminal convictions will be performed by a third party based upon the information provided to us.  Currently the checks are performed by the Disclosure Barring Service.

7.5    We will only collect information about criminal convictions where we have a lawful basis for doing so. For example, this may be obligations in respect of safeguarding to ensure you are suitable to work for our clients.

8.    Data sharing

8.1    We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

8.2    "Third parties" includes third-party service providers (including contractors, designated agents, training course providers, our software providers and external consultants) and other entities within our group. The activities are carried out by third-party service providers include:

a)    payroll;
b)    benefits provision and administration (including pensions);
c)    insurance;
d)    staff training;
e)    our IT communication and software systems; and
f)    occupational health and
g)    our clients.

8.3    Further:
a)    we may also collect information from a job board if you have applied to work with us via their website;
b)    insurance brokers are sometimes involved in finding and liaising with third party benefit providers; and
c)    benefit brokers are sometimes involved in finding and liaising with third party benefit providers.

8.4    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.

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

8.6    We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

9.    Transferring information outside of the EU

9.1    We may need to transfer the personal information we collect about you outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).

9.2    These transfers are subject to special rules under European and UK data protection law.

9.3    The following countries to which we may transfer personal information have been assessed by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection for personal information:

a)    The United States of America where companies have adopted the EU-US Privacy shield.

9.4    Except for the countries listed above, other non-EEA countries do not have the same data protection laws as the United Kingdom and the EEA. Our standard practice is to use standard data protection contract clauses that have been approved by the European Commission if we transfer your information outside of the EEA.

9.5    Due to the nature of our business, very limited personal information about you such as your name and work contact details may be transferred to clients outside of the EU in connection with your work. In these circumstances, we may be unable to put the security measures in place mentioned above and the Country where your data is shared may not have an appropriate adequacy decision by the European Commission in place.

10.    Data Security

10.1    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 from Eleanor Bromage.

10.2    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.

11.    Data retention

11.1    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 retention policy which is available in our staff handbook.

11.2    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.

11.3    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.

12.    Rights of access, correction, erasure and restriction

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

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

a)    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.
b)    Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
c)    Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
d)    Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
e)    Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
f)    Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

12.3    If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact Eleanor Bromage in writing.

12.4    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.

12.5    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.

13.    Right to withdraw consent

13.1    In the limited circumstances 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 contact Eleanor Bromage. 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, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
14.    Responsibility for compliance

14.1    Our Data Protection Lead, Eleanor Bromage, is responsible for overseeing our compliance with this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy or how we handle your personal information, please contact Eleanor Bromage. 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. See www.ico.org.uk

15.    Changes to this privacy policy

15.1    We reserve the right to update this privacy policy at any time, and we will notify you 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 policy, please contact the Data Protection Lead.