Recruitment Privacy Notice

1.              Introduction

We respect the privacy rights of individuals and are committed to handling personal information responsibly and in accordance with applicable law. It is important that you read all of this Notice carefully as it sets out how Fieldfisher LLP ("the Company", "we" or "us") handles your personal information when you apply for a job or other role with us and the rights you have in connection with that information. The term "applicants" is used in this Notice to refer to anyone who applies for a job role, a placement scheme, vacation scheme, or who otherwise seeks to carry out work with or for us (whether on a permanent or non-permanent basis).

If you are in any doubt, or have any comments or questions about this Notice, please contact us using the contact details set out at Section 8 below.

2.              Types of personal information we collect when you apply

Information that we collect automatically

You can visit the recruitment section of our website https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/careers ("Website") and search for jobs without providing personal information. However, we do collect certain information automatically from your device when you visit our Website.  For further information, please see the privacy notice that applies to the use of our Website  www.fieldfisher.com/en/privacy-notice

Personal Information collected from you

The types of personal information we collect and process when you apply for a role with Fieldfisher LLP  includes (but is not limited to):

• Identification data and contact details – including your name, address, email address, phone number and other contact information, gender, date of birth, nationality/ies, national identifiers (such as national ID/passport, social security number(s)).
• Employment history – such as previous employers and job titles/positions.
• Background information – such as academic/professional qualifications, job qualifications, education, details included in your CV/résumé (which might include details of any memberships or interests constituting sensitive personal information), transcripts and employment references.
• Details of your nominated referees (including their name, contact details, employer and job role).
• Details of your immigration/visa status.
  
• Previous applications/roles (information relating to previous applications you have made to the Fieldfisher Group and/or any previous employment history with Fieldfisher).
  
• Professional information (for fee earners) – information regarding your professional history, including but not limited to, date of admission; in which jurisdiction did you qualify; have any complaints been made against you to a regulatory body.
  
• Criminal offence information – whether you have any criminal convictions
  
• Other information you voluntarily provide throughout the process, including through assessment centres / exercises and interviews.

We may need to collect, or request, some Sensitive Personal Information for legitimate recruitment-related purposes: for example, information about your racial/ethnic origin, gender and disabilities for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring, to comply with anti-discrimination laws and for government reporting obligations; or information about your physical or mental condition to consider accommodations for the recruitment process and/or subsequent job role.  For the most part, the provision of this information will be entirely voluntary, however, Fieldfisher operates a number of programmes designed for underrepresented student groups where the processing of the information is required.  We will make this clear at the relevant time and provide a separate privacy notice to explain this processing. You may provide, on a voluntary basis, other Sensitive Personal Information during the recruitment process.

Personal information collected from other sources:

• References provided by referees.
• Other background information provided or confirmed by academic institutions and training or certification providers.
  
• Criminal records data obtained through criminal records checks.
  
• Information provided by background checking agencies and other external database holders (for example credit reference agencies and professional / other sanctions registries).
  
• Information provided by recruitment or executive search agencies.
  
• Information collected from publically available sources, including any social media platforms you use or other information available online.

(in each case, where permissible and in accordance with applicable law).

3.              Purposes for processing personal information

We collect and use this personal information primarily for recruitment purposes – in particular, to determine your qualifications for employment and to reach a hiring decision. This includes assessing your skills, qualifications and background for a particular role, verifying your information, carrying out reference checks or background checks (where applicable) and to generally manage the hiring process and communicate with you about it. 

If you are accepted for a role at Fieldfisher LLP, the information collected during the recruitment process will form part of your ongoing staff member record and will be processed in accordance with our Employee Privacy Notice.

If you are not successful, we may still keep your application for up to 21 months to allow us to consider you for other suitable openings within Fieldfisher LLP in the future unless you request that we delete your application. Applications for those who are unsuccessful are deleted within 21 months after the submission date.

4.              Who we share your personal information with and transfers abroad

We take care to allow access to personal information only to those who require such access to perform their tasks and duties, and to third parties who have a legitimate purpose for accessing it. Whenever we permit a third party to access personal information, we will implement appropriate measures to ensure the information is used in a manner consistent with this Notice and that the security and confidentiality of the information is maintained.

Transfers to other group companies

We will share your personal information with other members of the Company's Group around the world in order to administer our recruitment processes and store data.

Transfers to third party service providers

We may make certain personal information available to third parties who provide services relating to the recruitment process to us, including:

• recruitment or executive search agencies involved in your recruitment, e.g. Networx; Reed; NIJobs, Cappfinity.
• background checking or other screening providers and relevant local criminal records checking agencies, e.g. Credence
  
• data storage, shared services and recruitment platform providers, IT developers and support providers and providers of hosting services in relation to our careers website
  
• third parties working in collaboration with Fieldfisher for the provision of programmes designed for underrepresented student groups
  

We may also disclose personal information to third parties on other lawful grounds, including:

• Where you have provided your consent;
• To comply with our legal obligations, including where necessary to abide by law, regulation or contract, or to respond to a court order, administrative or judicial process, including, but not limited to, a subpoena, government audit or search warrant;
• In response to lawful requests by public authorities (including for tax, immigration, health and safety, national security or law enforcement purposes);
  
• As necessary to establish, exercise or defend against potential, threatened or actual legal claims;
  
• Where necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person; and/or
  
• In connection with the sale, assignment or other transfer of all or part of our business.
  

In some cases, the sharing described above may result in your personal information being transferred internationally, including from the European Economic Area to a country outside it. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country (and, in some cases, may not be as protective).

Specifically, our partnerships, and third party service providers operate around the world.  This means that when we collect your personal information we may process it in any of these countries. However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Notice. The safeguards we have taken include implementing the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers of personal information to our non-EEA members operating under the Fieldfisher brand, which requires our non-EEA members to protect personal information they process from the EEA in accordance with European Union data protection laws. Our Standard Contractual Clauses can be provided on request. 

We have also implemented similar appropriate safeguards with our third party service providers and partners and further details can be provided upon request. The transfer of personal data to third party service providers outside of the UK and the EEA takes place on the basis of data protection adequacy decisions by the UK or the European Commission or via the implementation of EU data protection standard contractual clauses. 

5.              Legal basis for processing personal information

 Our legal basis for processing your personal information as part of the recruitment process is:

• our legitimate interests (as summarised above in Section 3) (which are not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly taking into consideration the safeguards that we put in place, for example, those outlined in Section 4  above);
• to comply with applicable immigration and/or employment laws and regulations;
  
• to take steps prior to entering an employment contract with you, where you are considered for employment;
  
• in circumstances where you have made the data public;
  
• where we have your consent to do so. Where we have requested your consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time;
  
• to protect the rights and interests of Fieldfisher LLP, our employees, applicants and others, as required and permitted by applicable law.

If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information). 

If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided in Section 8 below.      

6.              Data retention periods

Personal information will be stored in accordance with applicable laws and kept as long as needed to carry out the purposes described in this Notice or as otherwise required by applicable law. Generally this means your personal information will be retained:

• in accordance with the retention periods set out in Fieldfisher's Staff Privacy Notice (where you become our employee); or
• for a period of 21 months after the submission date of your application unless you request that we delete your application prior to this point.
  
  

7.              Your data privacy rights

You have the following data protection rights:

If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time by sending an email to data.protection@fieldfisher.com;

You can object to the processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. You can exercise these rights by contacting us by email at data.protection@fieldfisher.com;

You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the marketing e-mails we send you.  To opt-out of other forms of marketing (such as postal marketing or telemarketing), then please email data.protection@fieldfisher.com;  

Similarly, if we have collected and process your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent; and

You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority. (Contact details for data protection authorities in the European Economic Area, Switzerland and certain non-European countries (including the US and Canada) are available here.)

We respond to all requests received from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

8.              Updates to this Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, which will be consistent with the significance of the changes we make.  We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.

You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the end of this Privacy Notice. 

9.              Contact details

Please address any questions or requests relating to this Notice to data.protection@fieldfisher.com or alternatively, you can raise any concerns with your line manager or local HR department.

Last Update: December 2021