Privacy notice
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Privacy notice

Teach in Herts - Privacy Notice

Teach in Herts is a recruitment website, owned by Herts for Learning Ltd, t/a HFL Education (HFL), that provides an online platform for Hertfordshire schools, settings and trusts (‘educational settings) to advertise their staff vacancies.

This Privacy Notice demonstrates HFL’s firm commitment to data protection. This statement (together with the General Terms of Website Use) sets out the ways that HFL ('the Company, 'we', 'us' or 'our') gathers and disseminates information for the www.teachinherts.com website and what you can do if you have questions about Personal Data.

For the purposes of data protection laws the Company is the joint controller with educational settings of personal data stored on the website.

The Company does not approve or endorse the educational settings that hold an account with us. Individuals applying for vacancies advertised by educational settings on the Teach in Herts website should refer to the relevant educational setting’s privacy notice. HFL is not responsible for the content uploaded by educational settings to the website or for their data protection practices. As such, you are advised to check the educational settings’ individual privacy notices for their terms and conditions.

We evaluate the websites that we provide links to, but we do not give approval or endorsement of those websites and we are not responsible for their content or privacy practices. As such, links to other websites are not covered by this Privacy Notice and individuals are advised to check the privacy policies of those other sites for their terms and conditions.

This document sets out the types of Personal Data (meaning information about an individual from which that individual can be personally identified) we handle, the purposes of handling those Personal Data and any recipients of it.

1. OUR DETAILS

We are: Herts for Learning Limited, trading as HFL Education
Address: Robertson House, Six Hills Way, Stevenage, SG1 2FQ
Information Commissioner's Office Registration Number: ZA154308
Our Data Protection Officer is: Lynette Dexter, Company Secretary
Email address for the Data Protection Officer:
dp.foi@hfleducation.org

2. WHY WE COLLECT PERSONAL DATA

We collect and hold personal information relating to the educational settings for which we advertise vacancies, prospective employees, employees and others.

We may share Personal Data with the recruiting educational settings as necessary under our legal duties or otherwise in accordance with our duties/obligations as a Company.

The Personal Data we are provided with is provided to us on a voluntary basis. Below are set out the reasons why we collect and process Personal Data, as well as the legal basis on which we carry out this processing:

  • to assess the quality of our services: we will process Personal Data so that we may reflect on our own practices to help us improve and provide the highest quality service.
  • to assist with the continuing development of recruitment and retention policies and practices: to enable us and recruiting educational settings to better recruitment and retention policies and practices, we will process Personal Data of those who have used this website.
  • to contact you: we will process Personal Data to contact you to send you news about products, services and offers that we think may be of interest to you. If you do not want to be kept informed in this way by email, please let us know. You can do this by following the options set out in the "Choice/ opt-out" heading below.
  • to develop our understanding of the workforce and how employees are deployed: to help us create a fully informed, comprehensive picture of the make-up of the workforce and how each employee is utilised as a member of the workforce, we will process Personal Data of those employed to teach or otherwise engaged to work for educational settings who use this website.

3. LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING PERSONAL DATA

The lawful basis for us to collect/process this Personal Data is that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the Data Subject is party (whether this be the recruiting educational setting or the prospective employee).

We also process Personal Data where processing is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the Data Subject.

To help us ensure that our policies and working practices are inclusive and non-discriminatory, candidates are asked to complete an anonymous Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form which includes special categories of personal data including:

  • Age
  • Disability
  • Ethnic origin
  • Sexual orientation
  • Gender identity
  • Religious beliefs
  • Marital status

This information is provided voluntarily by candidates under the legal basis of consent and will only be used to monitor compliance with the law and best practice in terms of equal opportunity and non-discrimination. This document is kept separate from the data subject’s application form and the information provided is treated in the strictest confidence and is not taken into consideration during selection procedures.

4. COOKIES

The www.teachinherts.com website uses cookies, which are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. They cannot be used to get information from your computer about you or read any personal material kept by you on your computer.

The cookie is used to make the link between you and the information you have provided to the website. The creation of a cookie on your computer does not give the website any access to other information such as your email address.

The law states that we can store cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site. For all other types of cookies, we need your permission.

A list of the cookies we use on the site is available on our cookie page. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but parts of the site will not work. 

5. CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU

We may collect the following types of Personal Data (please note this list does not include every type of Personal Data and may be updated from time to time):

  • name and contact details;
  • date of birth;
  • national insurance number;
  • information in connection with education (and the curriculum of the school);
  • employees' qualifications and contractual information, such as:
    • right to work information;
    • employee position and/or role;
    • salary;
    • employment start date;
    • remuneration details (including national insurance and other financial details).
    • anonymised special categories of personal data (as detailed in Section 3 of this Notice).

6. WHO WILL HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Your Personal Data will be shared with educational settings as set out in this Privacy Notice. 

Personal Data will be accessible by members of HFL staff, and where necessary directors.

We will not share information with third parties without consent unless we are required to do so by law or our policies. We will disclose Personal Data to third parties:

  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your Personal Data in order to comply with any legal obligation;
  • in order to enforce any agreements with you;
  • in order to perform contracts with third party suppliers for purposes listed in Section 2 (above), to protect the rights, property, or safety of the Company, the recruiting educational settings, their pupils or others. This includes exchanging information with other organisations for the purposes of child welfare.

This may include our Local Authority, the Department for Education (DfE), the Police and other organisations where necessary.

Certain data collection obligations are placed on us by the DfE (e.g. via the school census).

7. HOW PERSONAL DATA WILL BE PROCESSED

Personal Data may be processed by HFL in a variety of ways; this will include but is not limited to:

  • contact and/or marketing purposes;
  • to improve our services.

8. WHERE WE STORE PERSONAL DATA AND HOW WE KEEP PERSONAL DATA SECURE

Educational settings keep paper copies of Personal Data relating to successful applicants, who they employ. Paper copies of Personal Data relating to unsuccessful applicants is securely disposed of by the educational setting after the recruitment process concludes. HFL does not keep any paper copies of Personal Data.

Electronic copies of Personal Data are kept securely, and information will only be processed where we are satisfied that it is reasonably secure.

All information you provide to us is stored on secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. You must not share your password with anyone.

When sharing Personal Data to third parties (for example, software providers) it is possible that this Personal Data could be stored in a location outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your Personal Data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy notice. In particular, any transfer of your Personal Data made by us to a location outside of the EEA will be governed by clauses in a written contract in order to keep these secure. More particularly, this site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. All instances of unauthorised attempted access to our site are logged and investigated. Where necessary, HFL will inform law enforcement agencies or other relevant organisations regarding misconduct. HFL store your email addresses securely. Your details will not be passed to any organisation beyond HFL, other than the educational establishment(s) which you submit a job application in respect of, without your explicit permission.

9. RETENTION PERIODS

HFL will only retain Personal Data processed by us for as long as is considered necessary to achieve the purposes for which it was originally collected. As a general rule, Personal Data will be kept in accordance with guidance from the IRMS. Personal data may be held for longer periods where extended retention periods are required by law and/or in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights. Once the retention period concludes Personal Data is securely and safely destroyed / deleted.

10. YOUR DATA RIGHTS

The General Data Protection Regulation and associated law gives you rights in relation to Personal Data held about you. These are:

Right to be informed: you have the right to be informed about the collection and use of your data. This notice contains information in relation to the collection of your Personal Data, however, if we collect additional data for other purposes, we will inform you about this.

Right of Access: if your Personal Data is held by the Company, you are entitled to access your Personal Data (unless an exception applies) by submitting a written request. We will aim to respond to that request within one month. If responding to your request will take longer than a month, or we consider that an exception applies, then we will let you know. You are entitled to access the Personal Data described in Section 5.

Right of Rectification: you have the right to require us to rectify any inaccurate Personal Data we hold about you. You also have the right to have incomplete Personal Data we hold about you completed. If you have any concerns about the accuracy of Personal Data that we hold then please contact us.

Right to Restriction: you have the right to restrict the manner in which we can process Personal Data where:

  • the accuracy of the Personal Data is being contested by you;
  • the processing of your Personal Data is unlawful, but you do not want the relevant Personal Data to be erased; or
  • we no longer need to process your Personal Data for the agreed purposes, but you want to preserve your Personal Data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Where any exercise by you of your right to restriction determines that our processing of particular Personal Data are to be restricted, we will then only process the relevant Personal Data in accordance with your consent and, in addition, for storage purposes and for the purpose of legal claims.

Right to Erasure: you have the right to require we erase your Personal Data which we are processing where one of the following grounds applies:

  • the processing is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which your Personal Data were collected or otherwise processed;
  • our processing of your Personal Data is based on your consent, you have subsequently withdrawn that consent and there is no other legal ground we can use to process your Personal Data;
  • the Personal Data have been unlawfully processed; and
  • the erasure is required for compliance with a law to which we are subject.

Right to Data Portability: you have the right to receive your Personal Data in a format that can be transferred. We will normally supply Personal Data in the form of PDF files via e-mail. If you want to receive your Personal Data which you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, please contact us via the details in Section 1 of this Notice.

Right to Object: you have the right to object to the processing of your Personal Data where one of the following grounds apply:

  • the processing is based on legitimate interests or the performance of a
  • task in the public interest;
  • the processing is for direct marketing; or
  • the processing is for the purposes of scientific/ historical research and statistics.

You can find out more about the way these rights work from the website of the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

11. OPTING OUT

If you no longer with to receive communications from HFL you can:

  • Submit your request via the form on the Teach in Herts website help page
  • Send an email to teachinherts@hfleducation.org identifying yourself and asking that we remove you from our contact lists
  • Telephone Teach in Herts on 01438 544468

To change or modify information previously provided, you can:

  • Submit your request using via the form on the Teach in Herts website help page and provide the correct information
  • Send an email to teachinherts@hfleducation.org clearly identifying yourself and asking that we correct or update our database
  • Telephone Teach in Herts on 01438 544468

Alternatively, if you wish to write to us, letters should be sent to:

Teach in Herts Service

HFL Education
Robertson House
Six Hills Way
Stevenage
Hertfordshire
SG1 2FQ

12. SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST (requesting your Personal Data)

You are entitled to request details of Personal Data that we hold about you and you can access that Personal Data by making a Subject Access Request (SAR).

A SAR is a written or verbal request for personal information (known as personal data) held about you by an organisation. Data protection legislation gives individuals the right to know what information is held about them. However, this right is subject to certain exemptions as set out in the Data Protection Act 2018.

To submit a SAR to HFL we recommend that you email a written request to our Data Protection Officer at dp.foi@hfleducation.org. To help us respond quickly and effectively to your request, please include information regarding your relationship with us, along with a comprehensive list of what personal data you want to access and any details, relevant dates, or search criteria that will help us identify the information that you want.

Please be aware that confidential employment references are exempt from disclosure under an SAR. The provisions of the UK General Data Protection Regulation do not apply to personal data consisting of a reference given in confidence for the purposes of employment of the data subject (Ref: Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 2, Section 24 a).

13. MAKING A COMPLAINT

If you are unhappy with the way we have dealt with any of your data protection concerns, you can make a complaint to the ICO, the supervisory authority for data protection issues in England and Wales. We would recommend that you complain to us in the first instance, but if you wish to contact the ICO you can do so on the details below. The ICO is a wholly independent regulator established in order to enforce data protection law.


ICO websiteMake a complaint | ICO
ICO helpline: 0303 123 1113
ICO postal address:

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

14. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

Any changes we make to this notice in the future will be posted on our website and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes.

This Privacy Notice was last updated on 13th December 2023.