Privacy Policy

Overview

Bigham’s are committed to protecting all data including personal information. This policy should be read alongside our Privacy notice to employees, which you can read at Appendix A, as well as our related policies (Data Classification, Data Retention and Disposal, Subject Access Request, Acceptable Use, Data Privacy Impact Assessment, Device Management, and Incident Response Plan).

We need to collect and use certain types of information about our people, clients and other individuals who are important in our day-to-day operations. In addition, we may be required by law to collect and use certain types of information to comply with statutory legal or regulatory obligations such as passing data to Local Authorities, or Government agencies such as HMRC, Department of Work and Pensions.

Any personal information must always be dealt with properly however it is collected, recorded, and used – whether on paper, in a computer, or recorded on other material. There are safeguards to ensure this is done correctly and compliant with our Privacy obligations, such as our compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018.

The lawful and proper treatment of personal information is vital to our successful operations, and in maintaining confidence and integrity. We ensure we treat personal information lawfully and correctly.

The growth in reported data breaches since 2014 has led to new legislation and regulatory compliance at both national and international levels. Including setting out safeguards to

observe fully the conditions regarding the fair collection and use of information,
meet legal obligations to specify the purposes for which information is used,
collect and process appropriate information, and only to the extent that it is needed to fulfil operational needs or to comply with any legal requirements,
ensure the quality of information used,
apply strict checks to determine the length of time information is held,
ensure that the rights of people about whom information is held, can be fully exercised under the Act (these include: the right to be informed that processing is being undertaken, the right of access to one’s personal information, the right to prevent processing in certain circumstances and the right to correct, rectify, block, or erase information which is regarded as wrong information),
take appropriate technical and organisational security measures to safeguard personal information,
provide individuals that request it, access to personal information held about them,
correct or erase any information on an individual that is inaccurate or misleading,
ensure we don’t use information for a purpose which is incompatible with the original purpose for which permission was given by the data subject,
that we obtain clear, express permission for handling and using ‘sensitive’ personal data such as race, ethnicity, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, state of health both physical and mental, sexual life, criminal convictions and sentences and allegations of criminal behaviour,
we treat people justly and fairly whatever their age, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity when dealing with requests for information,
we set out clear procedures for responding to requests for information,
we allocate such resources as may be required to ensure the effective operation of the Policy.

In addition, we will ensure that:

we have a Chief Information Security Officer who has responsibility for Security advisory and Data Protection,
that everyone managing and handling personal information understands that they are contractually responsible for following good data protection practice,
that everyone managing and handling personal information is appropriately trained to do so,
that everyone managing and handling personal information is appropriately supervised,
anybody wanting to make enquiries about handling personal information knows what to do,
queries about handling personal information are promptly and courteously dealt with,
methods of handling personal information are clearly described,
a regular review and audit are made of the way personal information is held, managed, and used,
methods of handling personal information are regularly assessed and evaluated,
performance with handling personal information is regularly assessed and evaluated,
a breach of the rules and procedures identified in this Policy may lead to disciplinary action being taken against the members of staff concerned.

Legislation

The Data Protection Act 2018 replaces and extends the 1984 and 1998 Acts and places legal obligations where we record and process personal information relating to living individuals. The Act requires that adequate controls exist to protect individuals from the consequences of poor-quality information and potential misuse of information held about them.

The Eight Data Protection Principles

The Act applies to every organisation that handles (processes) personal information such as names of living individuals (data subjects). The eight data protection principles are intended to make it clear to us what is required and why. They are:

Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully,
Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purpose(s), and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes,
Personal data shall be adequate, relevant, and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed,
Personal data shall be accurate and, whenever necessary, kept up to date,
Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes,
Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act,
Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data,
Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

The Act has guiding principles which we will follow.

Fair Obtaining and Processing

We will ensure that as far as practicable, all individuals whose details we process are aware of the way in which that information will be obtained, held, used, and disclosed. Whenever possible, individuals will be informed of the potential recipients of the information. Processing of personal information by will be fair and lawful.

Notification

We will not use or process personal information in any way that contravenes its notified purposes, or in any way that would constitute a breach of the Data Protection Act. When appropriate, we will consider notifying the Information Commissioner of any amendments to our notified purposes or of new purposes to be added to the Notification Register entry. Our registration number with the regulator is ZA389633 and can be viewed on the ICO’s website.

Information Quality and Integrity

We will endeavour to process personal information, which is accurate, current and is of good quality. Information we obtain will be adequate and not excessive for the purpose for which it is processed. In addition, we will keep data for no longer than is necessary for the purpose or purposes for which it was obtained.

Subject Access

We will respond positively to subject access requests, replying as quickly as possible, and in any event within 28 d40-day time limit. Whilst individuals have a general right of access to any of their own personal information, which is held, we will be mindful of those circumstances where an exemption may apply.

We will only disclose personal data to those recipients listed in the Notification Register, or whenever it is otherwise permitted by law to do so. We will always endeavour to seek the permission of the data subject, where it is required by law to do so.

Technical and Organisational Security

The Organisation has in place appropriate security measures as required by the Data Protection Act. Information systems are installed with adequate security controls and company employees who use these systems will be properly authorised to use them for company business.

Computer misuse

The Computer Misuse Act 1990 makes it an offence to gain unauthorised access to a computer, even if no damage is done and no files are deleted or changed. Anyone who accesses a computer without authorisation, say by guessing a password, faces a maximum six-month prison sentence, or a maximum fine of £2,000, or both.

If an individual gains unauthorised access with the intent to commit a further offence, for example access your bank account online to transfer money, they face five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine.

This Act also makes it an offence to purposefully change files on a computer with intent and without authorisation. This could include deleting files or even changing computer settings. Anyone who does so, even if there is no intent to defraud or do damage, faces a maximum prison sentence of five years and/or an unlimited fine.

Controlling access

We restrict access to data by ensuring only employees who need access to personal data to carry out their work, will have access. We take steps to prevent accidental loss or theft of personal data by using server backup processes and increased security at our offices.

Safeguarding data

Our business relies on computers to store data, so it was necessary to introduce the following electronic safeguards:

we have up-to-date antivirus software to protect against viruses damaging our data and computers,
we protect our computer networks with a variety of controls,
we have introduced housekeeping measures with regular backups, and we disable people’s accounts as they leave the business,
we have a clear strategy for managing all our technology and data tools and services.

E-mail and Internet privacy

The inappropriate use of e-mail and the Internet by employees, e.g., using the Internet for non-work purposes, can have significant consequences for us. This can be in terms of:

embarrassment/damage to our reputation,
loss of productivity,
increased risk of liability and legal action, e.g., for sexist or racist e-mails,
increased virus risk.

To avoid inappropriate usage, we have introduced security electronic safeguards. These include Firewall checks, filtering software that searches e-mails for specific words or phrases, normally obscene or discriminatory, and monitors which websites our employees are accessing as well as filtering which types of websites our employees can access.

Responsibilities

The Finance Director has overall responsibility for the administration and implementation of our Privacy and Security Policies. The Finance Director is supported in this regard by a Chief Information Security (CISO), who also functions as the Data Protection Officer (DPO). The CISO will update policies as necessary to reflect best practice in data management, security, and control and to ensure compliance with any changes or amendments made to laws, regulations and contracts that apply to us.

The Data Protection Policy will be reviewed at least annually.

Appendix A

Data Privacy Notice to staff.

Our privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your employment with us, in accordance with all relevant data protection law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act (DPA).

It applies to all employees, workers and contractors and is presented to joiners in inductions before they commence employment.

Bigham’s is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This notice applies to current and former employees, and candidates for new positions. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. This notice can be updated at any time, and we will inform you if this occurs

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice that is provided on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

1. Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way,
Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes,
Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes,
Accurate and kept up to date,
Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about,
Kept securely.

2. The kind of information we hold about you.

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). There are "special categories" of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses,
Dates of birth,
Title (which could imply marital status),
Gender,
Marital status and, where necessary for the provision of benefits, details of dependants,
Next of kin, emergency contact and death benefit nominee(s) information.
National Insurance number,
Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information,
Salary, annual leave, pension, and benefits information,
Start date, leaving date,
Location of employment or workplace,
Evidence of your right to work in the UK/immigration status (which could be a copy of passport, visa or other identity documents),
Recruitment information (including references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process),
Full employment records (including contract, terms and conditions, job titles, work history, working hours, promotion, absences, attendances, training records and professional memberships),
Compensation history,
Performance and appraisal information,
Disciplinary and grievance information,
Secondary employment and volunteering information,
CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means such as swipe card records,
Information about your use of our information and communications systems.
Photographs, videos,
Accident book, first aid records, injury at work and third-party accident information.

We may also collect, store, and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information:

Information about your race or ethnicity and sexual orientation
Information about your health, including any medical condition, health, and sickness records.

3. How is your personal information collected?

We collect personal information about employees, workers and contractors through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or referees, in which case, we will always check data we hold with you, to ensure it is accurate.

We will collect additional personal information in the course of job-related activities throughout the period of you working for us, e.g., your driving licence if needed for insurance purposes, medical information as absences occur or as required for fitness to work and health risk assessments

4. How we will use information about you

We need the categories of information in the list above to enable us to perform our role as employer and to enable us to comply with legal obligations.

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information where it is necessary for performing the contract, we have entered into with you, for example for pay and tax purposes, fitness for work medical assessments or where we need to comply with a legal obligation (such as data sharing requests from the police or UK Immigration Services).

There can be rare occasions where it becomes necessary to use your personal information to protect your interests (or someone else's interests).

The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

Deciding about your recruitment or appointment,
Determining the terms on which you work for us,
Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK,
Paying you and if you are an employee, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions,
Liaising with your pension provider, providing information about changes to your employment such as promotions, changing in working hours,
General administration of the contract we have entered into with you,
Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing,
Conducting performance reviews, managing performance, and determining performance requirements,
Making decisions about salary reviews and compensation,
Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions,
Gathering evidence and any other steps relating to possible grievance or disciplinary matters and associated hearings,
Making decisions about your continued employment or engagement,
Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship,
Education, training, and development requirements
Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other employees, workers, and contractors, including accidents at work,
Ascertaining your fitness to work, managing sickness absence ,
Complying with health and safety obligations,
To prevent fraud,
To monitor your business and personal use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our policies,
To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution,
Equality and diversity monitoring,

Some of the purposes will overlap and there can be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

5. If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we will not be able to fully perform the contract we have entered with you (such as paying you or providing a benefit), or we could be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our workers).

6. Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated or new purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. Please note that we will if necessary, process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

7. How we use particularly sensitive personal information

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We will, if necessary, process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

equal opportunities monitoring,
preventing or detecting unlawful acts,
Where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

In some circumstances, we will process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

8. Our obligations as an employer:

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

We will use information relating to leave of absence; this can include sickness absence or family related leave, to comply with employment and other laws.
We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits.
We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, or your sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.

9. Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations, or for one of the other reasons outlined in section 8 above. In limited circumstances, if the need arises, we will approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.

You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.

10, Information about criminal convictions

We will not normally collect information about criminal convictions or allegations of criminal behaviour. We will only collect this information where it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so.

Where appropriate, we will collect information about unspent criminal convictions or allegations of criminal natures as part of the recruitment process or if we are notified of such information directly by you in the course of you working for us.

We will only use information relating to criminal convictions or alleged criminal behaviour where the law allows us to do so and where criminal convictions are unspent. This can arise when it is necessary for us to comply with the law or for another reason where there is a substantial public interest in us doing so.

11. Data sharing

We will in some circumstances have to share your data with third parties, including third-party payroll and benefits service. We require third parties to keep your data secure and to treat it in accordance with the law.

12. Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you. This will, in some circumstances, involve sharing special categories of personal data.

13. Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: payroll, pension administration, benefits provision and administration, IT services.

The following third-party service providers process personal information about you for the following purposes:

Scottish Widow (Pension providers),
Balance Payroll (pay processing),
Towergate healthcare (provision of healthcare benefits),
Aviva (healthcare benefits),
Personal Group (benefits administration),
Impraise (performance management),
Office of National Statistics (for statistical purposes).

14. How secure is my information with third-party service providers?

All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

15. What about other third parties?

From time to time we may change third party service providers. This policy will be updated to reflect those changes and we will notify you should there be any changes to the use of your personal data or the way in which we these organisations use your data.

16. Data security

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request to DPC@bighams.com . Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so. Details of these measures can be obtained from the Data Protection Officer.

17. Data retention

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal information are showing in the table below:

Personal data	Retention period
Personal files (including but not limited to employment history, eligibility to work, attendance record, disciplinary and grievance record, performance appraisals)	6 years post termination
Accident (and associated attendance / absence and occ health):	3 years
Fire warden training records	6 years
H&S reps and training	5 years
National minimum wage (pay data)	3 years
Payroll data	6 years from end of relevant tax year
Records of tests and examinations of control systems and protective equipment under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH)	5 years
Statutory Maternity Pay records, calculations, certificates (Mat B1s) or other medical evidence (also shared parental, paternity and adoption pay records)	3 years
Working time records including overtime, annual holiday, jury service, time off for dependents, etc	2 years

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we will use such information without further notice to you.

Once you are no longer an employee, worker, or contractor of the company we will retain and securely destroy your personal information in accordance with the above data retention periods.

18. Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please write to people@bighams.com.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we are allowed under the law to charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we can refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We sometimes need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

19. Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact people@bighams.com.

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

20. Data protection officer

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact DPC@Bighams.com

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

21. Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We will also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact DPC@bighams.com