Who we are

Our website address is https://boutiquehrpartners.co.uk

Privacy notice

At Boutique HR Limited, we take the privacy of our clients seriously. Boutique HR Limited is a third-party “data controller”. Boutique HR will process data on your behalf in relation to you and your employees’ personal data. This document explains how and why you and your employees’ personal data will be used; namely for the purposes of dealing with employment issues, and how long it will usually be retained for. It provides you with certain information that must be provided under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)/by the Data Protection Act 2018.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection laws and principles, which means that the data we process on behalf of the data controller will 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

What information do we collect?

In connection with your instructions, we will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you and your employees:

• the information you provide to us in relation to your employees
• information provided directly from employees
• names, titles, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, gender, employment history, qualifications etc
• any information provided to us either by the employer or directly from their employees during the course of working with you including that information provided by other sources (eg ex-employers, occupational health)

We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information during the course of working with you:

• information about employee race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions
• information about employee health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records
• information about employee criminal convictions and offences

How do we collect the personal data?

We collect personal information about employees from the following sources:

• you, as the employer
• directly from the employee
• employment solicitors
• occupational health provider, medical advisors/payroll provider
• recruiters
• reports from your company’s HRIS database

How will we use the information?

We will use the personal information we collect about you and your employees to:

• enable us to act on your behalf and provide employment advice to you
• comply with legal or statutory requirements

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide information when requested, which is necessary for us to carry out our services we may not be able to continue to act for you.

How will we use particularly sensitive personal information?

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways in the course of working with you, if appropriate:

• we will use any information about an employee’s disability status to enable us to advise you
• we will use any information about sickness or mental health to advise you and/or the employee on possible reasonable adjustments to their working hours, environment or roles
• we will use information about an employee’s race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or sexual orientation to enable us to work with you on equality issues

Information about criminal convictions

We do not envisage that we will ordinarily process information about criminal convictions of your employees unless raised by you or another party in the course of working with you or if raised during the recruitment process.

However, we will collect information about their criminal convictions history if we think it will be relevant to your employment matter.

Why we might share your personal information with third parties?

We may share the personal information of your employees with third-party service providers who help us deliver our services.

We will only share the personal information of your employees with third parties for the purposes of furthering your instructions: for example, we may send your details to an employment solicitor to obtain their opinion on your matter. We may need to share with a barrister or ACAS conciliator if they are involved in any Employment Tribunal proceedings. We may also need to share information with an occupational health professional or obtain a medical opinion. All our third-party service providers and other entities 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 may also share your information with legal or regulatory authorities if required by law. We will only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We would always notify you prior to sharing any employee information with third parties.

Data security

We take appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is kept secure and protected from unauthorised access or disclosure. We have implemented safeguards such as encryption, access controls, and staff training to protect your information.

In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need-to-know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

How long will you use my information for?

We will retain your personal information up to a period of 1 year (or longer where appropriate to do so or where you give us permission to do so) after completing your matter so as to comply with relevant legislation in order to deal with matters arising concerning that information/your case and in order to deal with further issues on your employment matter. We also retain it in order to deal with complaints and appeals. We may be unable to work for you if you do not consent to us retaining your personal information during that 1 year period. By signing the acknowledgment declaration at the end of this privacy notice, you consent to us retaining your personal information during the 1 year period.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Employee rights in connection with personal information held by Boutique HR Partners Ltd

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

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

If employees want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of their personal information, object to the processing of their personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of their personal information to another party, please contact us in writing.

Right to withdraw consent

Boutique HR Partners is a third party data processor and therefore acts on behalf of you the employer and data controller. You have the right to withdraw your consent for processing your employees’ data for the purposes outlined above at any time.

To withdraw your consent, please contact us. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your employees’ data and, subject to our retention policy, we will dispose of all your employee data securely.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting an updated version on our website.