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Privacy Policy

Sewell is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice 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 Regulations 2018 (GDPR). It applies to all employees, workers and contractors.

As a company we operate many systems and manage a wide array of information. Within this, Sewell will be recognised under GDPR legislation as a ‘data controller’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. This notice applies to current and former employees, workers and contractors, and does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time. It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice 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.

Personal data protection principles

The company adheres to the principles relating to processing of Personal Data, as set out in the GDPR which require Personal Data to be:

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

The kind of information we hold about you

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). There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection. We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
  • Date of birth, Gender, Marital status and dependants, National Insurance number
  • Next of kin and emergency contact information
  • Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information
  • Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information, including compensation
  • Start date
  • Location of employment or workplace
  • Copy of driving licence
  • Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process)
  • Performance information including disciplinary and grievance information
  • CCTV footage and subsequent voice recordings
  • Photographs
  • Job history (i.e. on case studies or bid profiles)

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

  • Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions
  • Trade union membership
  • Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records
  • Genetic information and biometric data
  • Information about criminal convictions and offences

How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information about employees, workers and contractors through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, criminal record background checks and supply chain/subcontractors.

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

How we will use information about you

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:

  • Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you
  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation
  • When measuring basis HR and people statistics (all information published internally and/or externally in these circumstances will be anonymised)
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests
  • Your data may be shared within the Sewell Group of companies or across divisions to support legal requirements on the business as a collective and to support statistical information.
  • If you have a Sewell on the go loyalty card, we may access and process your data when managing potential fraudulent activities or to investigate acts of theft.
  • We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
  • Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests)
  • Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We need all the categories of information in the list above to allow us to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties (for example in contract bid renewals such as cleaning), provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

  • Making a decision about recruitment and assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions • Determining the terms on which you work for us and administering the contract we have entered into with you
  • Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK
  • Paying you and, if you are an employee, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions
  • Providing benefits to you, such as milestone and length of service gifts, flexible benefits within Sewell Select, i.e. Bike2Work or Health Cash Plan (full benefits may change depending on business needs, for current benefits please see current Sewell Select booklets/flyers)
  • Liaising with your pension provider
  • Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing • Conducting performance reviews, managing performance and determining performance requirements
  • Making decisions about salary reviews 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
  • Managing sickness absence, capability and ascertaining your fitness to work
  • Complying with health and safety obligations
  • To prevent fraud
  • To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies
  • 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 retention, engagement and demographics Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

This information may be processed as an individual division or as a Group of companies, resulting in other divisions within the Sewell Group of companies viewing this 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 ensure the health and safety of our workers).

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.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information ‘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 in the following circumstances:

  • In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
  • Where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our policies and procedures
  • Where it is needed in the public interest, such as equality and diversity reporting
  • Where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards

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.

Our obligations as an employer

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

  • For procedures and decision making in relation to absence, which may include sickness absence or family-related leave, and subsequently to comply with employment, laws and for payroll purposes
  • When discussion and managing 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
  • When calculating and reporting company diversity and demographics, specifically on characteristics race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation • When liaising with third parties such as trade unions, professional advisers or historic employers if previously TUPE transferred to Sewell

This information may be processed as an individual division or as a Group of companies, resulting in other divisions within the Sewell Group of companies viewing this information.

Do we need your consent?

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. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like to process.

Information about criminal convictions

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 policies and procedures.

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 will hold information linked with criminal background checks to meet the needs of the business, such as DBS disclosure numbers for safeguarding when visiting and/or working on health and/or education sites.

Data sharing

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and other entities in the Group, for example when processing payroll and completing year-end returns. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law, however, it is very unlikely that your data would be transferred outside of the EU. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

Data security

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. We have mapped our systems and the data involved in these, more information can be found from speaking to the Technology Team. 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.

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. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

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 employment document retention and erasure guidelines.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

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

  • Request access to your personal information. This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you
  • 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.
  • 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).
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Request the transfer of your personal information to another party. 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 the People Team.

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.

Right to withdraw consent

In the 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 the Sewell People Team or a Director. 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.

Changes to this privacy notice

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.