Privacy / GDPR

Catfoss Recruitment Limited

Registered Offices: Tickton Hall, Tickton, Beverley, East Yorkshire HU17 9RX

Registered in England No. 6838322

GDPR Privacy notice for candidates (contract and permanent positions)

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your relationship with us.

1.1 We are a “data controller”. We are responsible for deciding how we store and use personal information about you, and for explaining this to you.

1.2 This notice applies to all candidates (contract and permanent placements) and to clients, suppliers and service providers to our business.

2 What personal information are we using?

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

2.1 For both permanent role candidates and contract candidates, we will collect, hold and use the following categories of personal information about you during the recruitment process:

2.1.1 your name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses.

2.1.2 your current position and notice period;

2.1.3 salary information (current and desired);

2.1.4 your references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the recruitment application process

2.1.5 Particulars of the sort of roles you are interested in (job titles, industries, main roles & responsibilities) including location and relocation information;

2.1.6 your right to work in the UK;

2.1.7 whether you hold a full UK driving license.

2.1.8 whether you have current or past Security Clearance (if applicable)

2.2 For both permanent role candidates and contract placement candidates, we may collect, store and use the following categories of personal information about you at a later stage in the recruitment process (such as at interview stage, offer stage or if successful in gaining a contract placement):

2.2.1 your date and place of birth;

2.2.2 next of kin and emergency contact information;

2.2.3 your National Insurance number;

2.2.4 work history and employment records;

2.2.5 your right to work documents (for example a passport number or Immigration Status Document as prescribed in the Home Office’s right to work checklist, which can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checklist);

2.2.6 bank account details, payroll records and tax status information;

2.2.7 a copy of your passport;

2.2.8 a copy of your driving licence and any driving penalties issued against it;

2.3 For clients, suppliers and service providers we will collect, store and use the following categories of personal information:

2.3.1 your name, title and business contact information including addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses; and

2.3.2 we will perform due diligence in the form of credit checks on companies whereby contract credit funding is required, and verification of the company registration number.

3 Particularly sensitive personal information?

We may also collect the following special categories of particularly sensitive personal information as part of the recruitment process based on prospective employers criteria

(a) information about your health, including any medical condition or disability;

(b) your nationality including whether you have dual nationality; (for purposes of right to work in UK) and

(c) information about criminal convictions and offences.

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

3.1.1 We use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace with our clients (prospective employers) and to assess your fitness to work and make any reasonable adjustments for the purpose of attending interviews.

3.1.3 We use information about any spent or unspent criminal convictions and offences to assess your suitability for certain positions. Please note that this may affect our decision to put you forward for a position with a client (employer).

4 How are we collecting your personal information?

4.1 We will collect personal information from you directly when you apply for employment vacancies advertised directly on our website and when you contact us directly by phone, email or letter.

4.2 We will collect information throughout the recruitment process, either directly from you or from, job boards (i.e. your CV & contact details) and Social Platforms such as Linkedin or referrals.

5 For what purpose will we use your personal information?

5.1 We will use your personal information to provide you with our recruitment services. To do this, we will process your personal information in the following circumstances:

5.1.1 to provide our recruitment services to you. Our services consist of locating work for persons registered on our database of candidates and candidates whose personal information (CV & contact details resides on job boards, commercial cv databases or Social Platforms such as Linkedin who you have provided your personal information to and introducing such candidates to our clients (employers) with a view to engagement by a client;

5.1.2 to contact you to provide support in relation to your work;

5.1.3 to contact you about jobs that we think you may be suitable for or interested in; and

5.1.4 to manage our relationship with you.

5.1 We will also use your personal information to:

5.1.1 check you are legally entitled to work in the UK;

6 What are the legal bases for us to use your personal information?

6.1 We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to do so. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

6.1.1 where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you; (recruitment services)

6.1.2 where we need to comply with a legal obligation; and

6.1.3 where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) to ensure the professional and proficient running of our business as a recruitment agency. We are allowed to do this as long as our activities do not disproportionately intrude your privacy.

7 Who are we going to share your personal information with and what will they do with it?

7.1 Unless this would be unfair to you, we have a legitimate concern in the proficient operation of our business. To do this, we will share your personal data with:

7.1.1 our clients as prospective employers;

7.1.2 any agency or service company with which you are contracted to work;

7.1.3 the Department of Employment;

7.1.4 to HMRC and any other government bodies as required by law;

7.1.5 any other potential employers that you have agreed we may contact on your behalf; and

7.1.6 if we have previously placed you in a contract or permanent post, we may provide a reference (without your prior consent) to any future employer we subsequently place you with.

7.2 If you object to our sharing or continuing to use your personal data with any specific recruiter or potential employer please contact us at

7.3 We may share your data with third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents), and other businesses that provide certain services on our behalf. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: IT support, mailing services and invoice factoring services.

7.4 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.

8 If you fail to provide personal information

8.1 In order for us to provide our service, you are contractually required to provide the personal information set out in 2.1 and 2.2 of this notice. If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as introducing you to our clients or providing employment services & assistance).

Your duty to inform us of changes

8.2 It is important that the personal information we hold about you is correct and current. Please keep us informed if any of your personal information changes during your working relationship with us by email to

9 Change of purpose

9.1 We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, to offer and perform recruitment services to you.

9.2 Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.

10 Automated Decision-Making

10.1 We do not make automated decisions based on your personal information.

11 Where will we store your personal information?

11.1 Any personal information that you submit to us will be held on secure servers, based within the European Economic Area (EEA).

11.2 We may transfer information about you outside the EEA if it is necessary for a specific job opportunity / placement and only with your consent.

12 Data Security

12.1 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. 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.

13 How long will we use your personal information for?

13.1 We will keep your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for (Recruitment Services), including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

13.2 For permanent role candidates and contract candidates that we do not place, we will keep your personal information in our database for 5 years from our last communication with you, unless you tell us otherwise, to consider you for future opportunities, plus up to 12 months for our internal processes to securely review and delete inactive records, in accordance with our internal Data Retention Policy.

13.3 For all permanent and contract candidates that we place, we will keep your personal information in our database for 7 years from the start date of this placement (for financial reporting), unless you tell us otherwise, to consider you for future opportunities, plus up to 12 months for our internal processes to securely review and delete inactive records, in accordance with our internal data retention policy.

13.4 You have the opportunity to upload your CV and/or cover letter on our website or directly by email. You can update this information via our website or by contacting us at

We will routinely remove CVs and cover letters that have not been updated for more than 2 years to ensure that the information we hold in our database is accurate.  We may also delete cv’s and or cover letters whereby your personal contact details are no longer valid or operational.

14 Your rights in relation to our processing of your personal information

14.1 You have the right to be informed about what we are doing with your personal information. This privacy notice sets out how we use it. If we change what we are doing we will provide you with an updated version of this notice.

14.2 You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information.

14.3 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.

14.4 If the personal information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date you can ask us to correct it.

14.5 You have the right to ask us to delete the information that we hold about you where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. If you ask us to delete your personal information we will not be able to provide our recruitment services to you.

14.6 You have the right to ask us to restrict how we use your personal information for a period of time if you claim that it is inaccurate and we want to verify the position, or if our processing is unlawful but you do not want us to erase your personal information, or for some other limited circumstances. 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. If you ask us to restrict our use of your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with our recruitment services.

14.7 You can also ask us to send another organisation information that you have provided to us in a format that can be read by computer.

14.8 Where we rely on consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent.

14.9 If you want to exercise any of your rights set out at 14.1 to 14.8, please contact

14.10 We may 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).

15 Changes to privacy notice

15.1 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 may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

15.2 If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact

16 Complaints Procedure

16.1 If you consider that we have not acted properly when using your personal information you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office: ico.org.uk.