Privacy policy

“Alaska Black” is a trading name of Mercer Ritchie Limited, Associated Recruitment Limited, and Alaska Black Limited. In this Privacy Policy, references to “Alaska Black” are to Mercer Ritchie Limited, Associated Recruitment Limited and Alaska Black Limited.

Alaska Black is committed to ensuring your privacy is protected. This Privacy Policy sets out details of the information that we may collect from you and how we may use that information. Please take your time to read this Privacy Policy carefully. When using our website, this Privacy Policy should be read alongside the website terms and conditions.

1. About us

In this Privacy Policy references to “we” or “us” or “Alaska Black” are to Alaska Black Limited.

We are the data controller of any personal information you provide to us. This means that we are responsible for complying with data protection laws. This Privacy Policy describes what personal information we may collect from you, why we use your personal information and more generally the practices we maintain and ways in which we use and protect your personal information.

We have appointed a data protection officer to oversee our handling of personal information. If you have any questions about how we collect, store or use your information, you can contact our data protection officer using the details set out in section 13. Contacting us.

2. How the recruitment market works

We collect information from you normally by receiving a copy cv you have submitted to us. Alternatively we may have received your cv from specialist websites such as job boards. We use this information to decide if you have relevant skills required for vacancies we may be recruiting for from time to time. If we believe you may have the skills our clients require, we may contact you by telephone, email or other means as agreed.

This Privacy Policy is designed to help you understand how we as a recruitment business process your data.

3. Who do we collect information about?

We collect information about:

• Previous, current and prospective candidates
• Previous, current and prospective clients
• Alaska Black website users
• Business contacts and other suppliers

4. When do we collect personal information?

We collect information about you:

• When you apply for a job vacancy via websites and advertisements.
• Whenever you use the Alaska Black website
• If you respond to a customer survey, questionnaire or marketing campaign
• If you contact us for any other reason

When you are referred to us through our “refer a friend” scheme

5. What personal information do we collect and use?

The personal information that we collect will depend on your relationship with us. We will collect different information depending on whether you are a candidate or prospective employer.

Please note, in certain circumstances we may request and/or receive ‘sensitive’ data, also known as ‘special categories’ of personal information about you. For example we may need access to details of any unspent criminal convictions for the purposes of preventing, detecting and investigating fraud.

If you provide personal information to us about other individuals (for example, through our “refer a friend scheme”) you agree: (a) to inform the individual about the content of this Privacy Policy; and (b) to obtain any consent where we indicate that it is required for the processing of that individual’s personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Please refer to the relevant section below for detailed information regarding the types of personal information we are likely to collect and use about you.

Personal information:

• General information such as your name, address, employers address and employment history, contact details, eligibility to work in the EU and current driving license.
• Information about your job including job title, employment history, education history and professional accreditations.
• Information relating to your career aspirations and including salary expectations and work preferences.
• Financial information such as your bank details for contract employees.
• Information noted during our telephone calls
• Your marketing preferences

Sensitive personal information:

• Information relating to criminal history (including offences and alleged offences and any caution, court sentence or criminal conviction) which are required to provide in certain circumstances

6. How do we collect your information?

We collect personal information from a number of different sources, including:

• Directly from your cv provided by you.
• From other third parties websites including job boards.
• From other third parties who provide search services
• Through publicly available sources such as internet search engines and social media sites
• Through customer surveys and responses to various marketing campaigns

7. What are our purposes for using your personal information?

We may process your personal information for a number of different purposes. For each purpose we must have a legal ground for such processing. When the information that we process is classed as sensitive personal information, we must have an additional legal ground for such processing.

Generally we will rely on the following legal grounds:

• “Legitimate interest”-Where the processing is necessary for our provision of recruitment services to you.
• Where we have an appropriate business need such as maintaining our business records or developing and improving our services where such business need does not harm your interests
• Where we have a legal or regulatory obligation to use such personal information
• Where the use is necessary to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights
• Where you have provided your consent to our use of your personal information

You will find details of our legal grounds of our processing purposes below.

• To set you up as a candidate or client.

Legal grounds:

This processing is necessary for providing and administering career consultancy services.

8. Who do we share your information with?

We will only share your data with client companies “prospective employers” with your specific agreement.

• Disclosures to third parties

For contract staff, we may also disclose your information to the third parties listed below for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. These might include:

payroll provision partners.

the police and other third parties or law enforcement agencies where reasonably necessary for the prevention or detection of crime

our third party service providers such as IT suppliers, actuaries, auditors, lawyers, payment processing agencies, document management providers and tax advisers

HMRC and other bodies legally permitted to seek such information

third parties who undertake analysis for the purposes of product improvement

selected third parties in connection with the sale, transfer or disposal of our business. We will ensure that such third parties have the appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to safeguard your data

9. What marketing activities do we carry out?

• Marketing activities

Email marketing

We may use your personal information to provide you with information by email about opportunities or services that may be of interest to you or to send eNewsletters. You have the option to opt out at any time.

If you wish to unsubscribe from emails sent by us, you may do so at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section 13 to update your contact preferences. In such circumstances, we will continue to send you service related (non-marketing) communications where necessary.

SMS marketing

We may also use your personal information to provide you with information by text message about our new opportunities or services which may be of interest to you.

You can stop receiving text messages sent by us at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section 13 to update your contact preferences. In such circumstances, we will continue to send you service related (non-marketing) communications where necessary.

Telephone marketing

We may also use your personal information to call you regarding opportunities and services you have expressed an interest in or we believe may be of interest to you. You can opt out of receiving these calls at any point.

You can stop receiving telephone calls from us at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section 13 to update your contact preferences. In such circumstances, we will continue to send you service related (non-marketing) communications where necessary.

• If you have been referred to us through our “refer a friend” scheme

We will only use your personal information to contact you about our opportunities or services or those of our partners which may be of interest to you, if your referring friend has provided us with your consent indicating that you are happy for us to contact you using one of the methods set out above. You have the option to opt out at any time (please see above).

10. How long do we keep personal information for?

We will only keep your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the relevant purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and in order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. In particular, for so long as there is any possibility that either you or we may wish to you to be considered for future career opportunities, or where we are required to keep your personal data due to legal or regulatory reasons. If you would like further information regarding the periods for which your personal information will be stored, please see section 13 below for our contact details.

11. Your rights

Under data protection law you have certain legal rights in relation to the personal information that we hold about you. You may exercise these rights at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section 13.

Please note:

• in some cases we may not be able to comply with your request (e.g. we might not be able to delete your data) for reasons such as our own obligations to comply with other legal or regulatory requirements. However, we will always respond to any request you make and if we can’t comply with your request, we will tell you why
• in some circumstances exercising some of these rights (including the right to erasure, the right to restriction of processing and the right to withdraw consent) will mean we are unable to continue providing you with career or candidate advice.

Your rights include:

• The right to access your personal information

You are entitled to a copy of the personal information we hold about you. There will not usually be a charge for dealing with these requests. Your information will usually be provided to you in writing, unless otherwise requested, or where you have made the request by electronic means, in which case the information will be provided to you by electronic means where possible.

• The right to rectification

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and complete. However, if you do not believe this is the case, you can ask us to update or amend it.

• The right to erasure (also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’)

In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information. Examples would include where the data is no longer required for the original purpose, consent has been withdrawn and there are no overriding grounds for continuing the processing, or for compliance with the national law.

• The right to restriction or suspension of processing

In certain circumstances, such as a question over its accuracy, you are entitled to ask us to stop using your personal information or to suspend its use.

• The right to data portability

In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask that we transfer any personal information that you have provided to us to another third party of your choice.

• The right to object to marketing

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time.

• The right to object to processing

For certain uses of your personal information, we will ask for your consent. This consent can take the form of an action or affirmative instruction. Where we do this, you have the right to withdraw your consent to further use of your personal information. In other circumstances we may process your data using “Legitimate Interest”, and again you have the right to withdraw this right of processing, unless it is necessary in connection with our legal rights. Please note that in the event that you withdraw your permission for us to use all of your personal data, we will be unable to continue providing you with career opportunity information.

The right to lodge a complaint with the ICO

We would hope that you will always raise any issues with us first, and that we will be able to resolve them to your satisfaction. However, if this isn’t possible then you have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you believe that any use of your personal information by us is in breach of applicable data protection laws and regulations.

Please see below for contact details of the ICO:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745 (national rate)

Email: casework@ico.org.uk

Making a complaint will not affect any other legal rights or remedies that you have.

12. How we protect your information

We use a range of organisational and technical security measures to protect your information.

We restrict access to your information as appropriate within Alaska Black to only those who need to know that information for the purposes set out above.

Firewalls are used to block unauthorised traffic to the servers and the actual servers are located in a secure location which can only be accessed by authorised personnel. Our internal procedures cover the storage, access and disclosure of your information.

No personal data is stored locally, all data is stored on a password protected cloud based server.

All confidential files are stored as encrypted files.

13. Contacting us

If you have any questions about how we collect, store or use your personal information, you may contact our data protection officer at:

Data Protection Officer
Alaska Black Ltd
Ground Floor, 2 Holly Tree House,
Northminster Business Park
Upper Poppleton
York

Email: info@alaska.black

14. Updates to this Privacy Policy

From time to time we will make changes to this Privacy Policy, for example, as the result of government regulation, new technologies, or other developments in data protection laws or privacy generally. You should check our website periodically to view the most up-to-date Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy was last updated on 21 April 2018.