Speed read:
The lawfulness of certain types of data processing is in question when the employer does not issue a suitable privacy notice.
Data regarding disqualification by association should no longer be collected.
Schools process some safeguarding data for a long time (until age 65 or 10 years whichever is longer).
Application forms should be amended and privacy notices need to be drawn to applicants’ attention at the time data is collected.
Disqualification by association
As you will know, from 31/08/18 Schools with children up to 8 years of age should no longer require applicants to answer disqualification by association questions.
This will mean that any application forms or packs that include disqualification by association questions will need to be amended.
Also, privacy notices that include personal data and processing purposes linked to this will also have to be amended.
Data Protection in 2018
All schools are legally obligated to retain and otherwise process some safeguarding information (e.g. allegations, etc). The data protection laws (as amended) don’t change this.
However, we can see a challenge to the lawfulness of certain types of data processing (e.g. internal investigations, disciplinary, dismissal and referencing) where the individual has not been issued with a privacy notice that covers these types of processing.
Also, there are some common pitfalls associated with GDPR – the most obvious of which is to rely on ‘consent’ for data processing of employees and applicants’ data. If you rely on consent, you have to stop processing if the individual withdraws consent!
The solution?
Needless to say, all future recruitment processes and those that are underway at present are affected by these changes.
GDPArmour and SDC HR have teamed up to produce a easy to use application form template.
It only asks for information that can be justified under the data protection laws and it contains a fully compliant privacy notice (i.e. covering all data collected during the recruitment process and related process purposes).
We hope that this will be a useful resource for Schools in a post 25 May ’18 (GDPR) and 31 August ’18 (demise of disqualification by association) world!
If you would like to have a look at the form, it is linked here.
If you would like us to provide the form as a Microsoft word document please answer the ‘fit for purpose’ questions here (it takes 2 minutes: promise).
We ask for a contribution to our costs of providing this (£85) but will waive this if it is prohibitive for your organisation.
We can amend the form to suit your requirements if you need this.