Pop Science Data Privacy Notice and GDPR
The Company is a recruitment business which provides work-finding services to its clients and work-seekers. The Company must process personal data (including sensitive personal data) so that it can provide these services – in doing so, the Company acts as a data controller. We also organise events and provide content and news updates so that we can provide these services too and act as a data controller for these too.
You may give your personal details to the Company directly, such as on an application or registration form or via our website, or we may collect them from another source such as a jobs board. The Company must have a legal basis for processing your personal data. For the purposes of providing you with work-finding services and/or information and events relating to roles relevant to you we will only use your personal data in accordance with the terms of the following statement.
1. Collection and use of personal data
a. Purpose of processing and legal basis
The Company has collected your personal data (which may include sensitive personal data) and will process your personal data for the purposes of providing you with work-finding services, events and news and content. This includes for example, contacting you about job opportunities, assessing your suitability for those opportunities, updating our databases, putting you forward for job opportunities, arranging payments to you and developing and managing our services and relationship with you and our clients.
In some cases we may be required to use your data for the purpose of investigating, reporting and detecting crime and also to comply with laws that apply to us. We may also use your information during the course of internal audits to demonstrate our compliance with certain industry standards.
The legal bases we rely upon to offer these services to you are:
• Your consent
• Where we have a legitimate interest
• To comply with a legal obligation that we have
• To fulfil a contractual obligation that we have with you
b. Categories of data
The Company has collected the following personal data on you:
Personal data:
• Name/contact details
• Your CV and relevant work history
• Data needed to employ and pay workers or subcontractors e.g. PSC/ limited company information
Sensitive personal data:
• If we employ you or engage your services, we may hold some sensitive data around background checks for employees or contractors such as criminal records or disability data.
c. Legitimate interest
This is where the Company has a legitimate reason to process your data provided it is reasonable and does not go against what you would reasonably expect from us. Where the Company has relied on a legitimate interest to process your personal data our legitimate interests is/are as follows:
• Managing your database and keeping work-seeker records up to date;
• Contacting the individual to seek your consent where you need it;
• Providing work-finding services or events to the individual, including sending their information to your clients where they have demonstrated an interest in doing that particular type of work but;
• Contacting the individual with information about similar products or services that they have used from you recently. This could include jobs, events and news updates for the operational areas you are interested in.
d. Recipient/s of data
• The Company will process your personal data and/or sensitive personal data with the following recipients:
• Clients that you introduce or supply individuals to e.g. Pharmaceutical Companies, Technology Companies, Clinical Research Organisations and other companies who have come to us for recruitment and event services
• Candidates’ former or prospective new employers that you obtain or provide references to
• The Recruitment and Employment Confederation (and any other trade body that you are a member of who may have access to your candidates’ data)
• Any other third parties who carry out audits to ensure that we run business correctly or line with your
• Payroll service providers who manage your payroll on your behalf
• Any umbrella companies that you pass candidate data to
• Other recruitment agencies in the supply chain (e.g. master/neutral vendors and second tier suppliers);
• Your insurers
• Your legal advisers
• Social networks
• Your IT and CRM providers
• Any public information sources and third party organisations that you may use to carry out suitability checks on work-seekers e.g. Companies House, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), General Medical Council (GMC), DVLA, credit reference agencie
• Government, law enforcement agencies and other regulators e.g the Police, Home Office, HMRC, Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate (EASI), Local Authority Designated Officers (LADOs), GLAA,
• Trade unions;
• Any of your group companies; and
• Any other organisations an individual asks you to share their data with. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. You will need to examine your recruitment practices and identify any parties that you process personal data with.
2. Overseas Transfers
The Company may transfer only the information you provide to us to countries outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) for the purposes of providing you with work-finding services. We will take steps to ensure adequate protections are in place to ensure the security of your information. The EEA comprises the EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
3. Data retention
The Company will retain your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purpose we collect it. Different laws may also require us to keep different data for different periods of time.
The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, require us to keep work-seeker records for at least one year from (a) the date of their creation or (b) after the date on which we last provide you with work-finding services.
We must also keep your payroll records, holiday pay, sick pay and pensions auto-enrolment records for as long as is legally required by HMRC and associated national minimum wage, social security and tax legislation.
Where the Company has obtained your consent to process your personal/ sensitive personal data/specify which personal data, we will do so in line with our retention policy which is typically 6 years. Upon expiry of that period the Company will seek further consent from you. Where consent is not granted the Company will cease to process your personal data and any sensitive personal data.
4. Your rights
Please be aware that you have the following data protection rights:
• The right to be informed about the personal data the Company processes on you;
• The right of access to the personal data the Company processes on you;
• The right to rectification of your personal data;
• The right to erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances;
• The right to restrict processing of your personal data;
• The right to data portability in certain circumstances;
• The right to object to the processing of your personal data that was based on a public or legitimate interest;
• The right not to be subjected to automated decision making and profiling; and
• The right to withdraw consent at any time.
Where you have consented to the Company processing your personal data (and sensitive personal data) you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by contacting Gail Kniveton info@
There may be circumstances where the Company will still need to process your data for legal or official reasons. We will inform you if this is the case. Where this is the case, we will restrict the data to only what is necessary for the purpose of meeting those specific reasons.
If you believe that any of your data that the Company processes is incorrect or incomplete, please contact us using the details above and we will take reasonable steps to check its accuracy and correct it where necessary.
You can also contact us using the above details if you want us to restrict the type or amount of data we process for you, access your personal data or exercise any of the other rights listed above.
5. Automated decision-making
In some instances, our Company may use automated decision-making, including profiling, the Company will provide meaningful information about the logic involved, as well as the significance and the envisaged consequences of such processing for the individual.
6. Source of the personal data
We will let you know how our Company sourced your personal data/sensitive personal data by the following means:
• Our existing database, job boards, events
This information often comes from a publicly accessible source. We will confirm where we have sourced your data from.
7. Complaints or queries
If you wish to complain about this privacy notice or any of the procedures set out in it please contact: Gail Kniveton Data Protection Officer +442089850565 or info@
You also have the right to raise concerns with Information Commissioner’s Office on 0303 123 1113 or at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/, or any other relevant supervisory authority should your personal data be processed outside of the UK, if you believe that your data protection rights have not been adhered to.