What personal information do we hold?
If you apply for a job or to volunteer with us, we ask you to complete an application on Cleveland Police’s website. All applications come with an equal opportunities monitoring form.
The OPCC may also conduct other, more informal application processes. For example, we may simply require you to send us a short personal statement.
We may ask for the following:
- Identity data: Name;
- Contact details: Address, email, telephone number;
- Medical data: Sickness absence, disabilities, or reasonable adjustments required;
- Equal opportunities data: Racial or ethnic origin, mental and physical health, political beliefs, religious beliefs, trade union affiliation, genetic data and data about your sexual life/orientation. (This information is not required and will not affect your application. We will not make information available to anyone outside the recruitment team in a way that will identify you. The information will be used to produce and monitor equal opportunities statistics.)
- Criminal offence data: Details of criminal convictions, arrests and cautions.
If your application is successful and you receive a conditional offer, you will need to be police vetted. The police vetting form has a separate Privacy Notice. This sets out how your personal data will be processed.
How do we collect personal information?
We collect information via your online application form or in the personal statement, which you provide in an email to the OPCC.
Why do we use your personal data?
We process information to assess your suitability for a role
What is the legal basis for our use of your personal information?
If you are applying for a job with the OPCC (excluding the Chief Constable role), we need to process your personal data to perform a contract or to take steps, at your request, before entering a contract.
When applying for a volunteering opportunity with the OPCC, we process your personal data as part of our legitimate interests.
If you are applying for the role of Chief Constable, we process your personal information as part of our duties as an official authority and/or in doing a task in the public interest.
The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 contains the PCC’s specific duty.
On what basis do we use special category data?
The OPCC may sometimes process data about you which is sensitive. This is known as special category data.
Special category data requires higher levels of protection. We need further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of information.
We rely on Article 9(2)(b) of the GDPR to process special category data. This may include information about health, religion or ethnic background.
The Article also outlines our obligations around employment as well as the safeguarding of your fundamental rights.
In addition, we rely on article 9(2)(h.) This relates to assessing your capacity to work as an OPCC employee.
Schedule 1 part 1(1) and (2)(a) and (b) of the DPA 2018 relates to processing your information for the purposes of employment, assessment of work capacity and preventative or occupational medicine.
On what basis do we use information about criminal convictions?
Information about criminal convictions requires higher levels of protection. We need to have a further justification for collecting, storing and using it.
We only process this type of data when we assess your application. This is because you will need to successfully undergo police vetting if you are offered a job. That is in order to get access to police information, equipment, infrastructure and personnel.
We rely on Schedule 1 part 1 (1) of the DPA 2018 when we process information about criminal convictions as part of your application.
This schedule relates to processing data for employment purposes and the assessing your capacity for work.
How do we handle your personal information?
We handle your personal information according to Part 2 of the UK Data Protection Act 2018. The Act applies the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards for the processing of data considered to be ‘general data’.
The OPCC holds your personal data securely on its computer systems or in physical files. It can be accessed by our staff, partners, contractors and volunteers when they need to do so for a lawful purpose.
We are committed to ensuring that the personal and sensitive information it holds about individuals is accurate, up to date, used only for the purpose intended and securely protected from inappropriate access.
The OPCC regularly reviews your personal information and assesses whether it is lawful for us to continue to retain it. We will securely destroy your information when it is no longer required for any purpose listed in this notice or there is no longer a lawful purpose for processing it.
The OPCC commits to ensuring that you can find out about your personal information, have access to it and the right to challenge its accuracy.
Who do we share your personal information with?
We may share your personal information with the following:
- Cleveland Police HR team (as the OPCC uses the services of the HR team for processing applications).
- Cleveland Police Vetting Unit (for processing the police vetting form).
In relation to the appointment of the Chief Constable and senior OPCC post holders, we may also share your personal information with the following parties:
- Home Secretary (Chief Constable only).
- Cleveland Police and Crime Panel (as they have a statutory role in relation to the review of senior appointments).
- College of Policing (if we use their services to aid the recruitment process).
- Independent interview panel members (as notified to you in advance).
How do we keep your personal information safe?
The OPCC takes the security of personal information very seriously.
We use a variety of security measures, including encryption and access controls. This helps us to protect the security, integrity and availability of information.
The OPCC works hard to maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect your information in line with the Act.
We restrict access to areas, where personal information is stored, to our own and partner agency staff. These areas can only be accessed by people holding the appropriate identification.
How long will you keep my personal information?
We manage records containing personal information according to the OPCC’s Retention Schedule.