This RCSA Template was prepared by Andrew C. Wood in 2014 and reviewed in 2017 and March 2021.
RCSA Guidance Notes are prepared by RCSA Business Solutions service providers to assist RCSA Members on operational matters within the recruitment and staffing industry.Further Guidance Notes are available to RCSA Members at www.rcsa.com.au
Version control: AU-PO-03-0321
Privacy Collection Notification for Candidates & Job Applicants and Reference Checking
Disclaimer
This document is a template only and does not purport to be an exhaustive statement of all the obligations of a Member in relation to employment or privacy law. Persons using this template should delete, amend and add relevant information to meet the company specific obligations, requirements and practices. This template is provided as a guide only to the sort of document that you might produce, without Andrew Wood or RCSA assuming any liability whether for negligence or otherwise for the giving of advice. Members are encouraged to obtain advice from an appropriate source upon completion of a final draft of the document.
Usage Notes [NB: These usage notes would not form part of the APP:5 Collection Notification that you would produce for your own organisation. They are simply included as a guide to how you might use this document]
This document is a template. That is to say, it is a guide only to the type of Collection Notification that you might produce for your own organisation. You will not be able to use it without modification and without inclusion of detailed information that is specific to your organisation and its privacy handling practices.
In some cases you may need the assistance of compliance and information technology professionals to complete necessary parts.
The Australian Privacy Principles and Guidelines suggest that it differs from the Privacy Policy (which should be available at all times) in that the information in your Collection Notification must be specific to the context and transaction in which information is being collected.
In some cases, you might also be acting as a contracted service provider to a government body. It is possible that your privacy obligations could be set by State legislation other than the Privacy Act 1988 (Cwth).
This template has been designed for use with candidates and job applicants to notify them about the various matters (what information you collect, how you use it etc). We have also included the sort of things you might say to a referee from whom you were collecting personal information. They need to receive your collection notifications too if you are collecting their personal information – e.g., name, identity verification, position and authority to give a reference, relationship to and experience of working with your candidate etc.
You might also have to develop collection notifications for your clients. If you are collecting their personal information for client relationship management purposes, they should also get a collection notification. Think about it. For example, if you are a nursing agency and you have been asked to place a nurse or carer in a domestic setting to care for an elderly or sick relative, you will likely collect a lot of personal and sensitive information about your client and their relative. They will need a collection notification. You wouldn’t give them the one that you would use for your candidates/ job applicants. That wouldn’t make sense!
You are therefore likely to develop several different collection notifications to cover the different situations in which you collect personal information. You cannot rely on a single document to cover all circumstances. You should seek advice about what to include to make sure that your collection notifications are properly adapted to the circumstances in which they are to be used.
You will also see that this document contains some active hyperlinks to information to the OAIC website. Those are included to help you to understand your privacy obligations. If you choose to incorporate them into your final document you should include notices that inform the reader that they are leaving your website. You might include statements that indicate that you do not warrant the accuracy of any information on an outside website and you should check with the OAIC first to see that it is agreeable to the linking of your privacy policy in that way.
It will be important for you to understand clearly how your information systems work. If you are using recruitment software, it will be important for you to know how it operates and what stands behind it - where information that it uses comes from; and where it goes to. That is especially important because you will have obligations with regard to ensuring the privacy of information that may be disclosed to an overseas recipient.
If you have any questions about the document you should ask RCSA or seek professional assistance.
Privacy Collection Notification for Candidates & Job Applicants
We will need to collect personal information about you, your work performance, your work experience and qualifications, aptitude test results and other information in connection with your possible work placements.
We typically collect personal information when you register with us or apply for a job through us, when we conduct candidate screening and assessment, and when we receive reports of your performance from employers with whom we have placed you. If you only browse our website, we do not collect information that identifies you personally, though we may collect information related to your visit to our website.
See our Privacy Policy for more information.
Who will be collecting your personal and sensitive information
Your personal information will be collected by Engineering People Pty Ltd for its own use and on behalf of other members of the Engineering People Pty Ltd Group. who might require access to your personal and sensitive information in connection with your work placements.
Your personal information will be held by Engineering People Pty Ltd, unit 20, 49 Norcal Road NUNAWADING VIC 3131.
Some of your personal information may be held on portable devices such as mobile phones, laptop computers or in diaries operated and held by our staff members, or in the Cloud when we are using cloud storage or cloud-based services.
How to contact us
If you wish to contact us about your personal information you should contact Engineering People Pty Ltd, Unit 20, 49 Norcal Road NUNAWADING VIC 3131 or call on 03 90188970. during normal office hours which are 0800 to 1630 M-F.
You may also contact us through our website www.engineeringpeople.com.au
Personal information about you that we collect from others
We collect personal information about you from other people including referees, previous employers, professional registration authorities or educational institutions, who may be in a position to provide us with information that we may use to assess your suitability to be placed in or continue in positions that you may be offered.
If we reasonably believe that your being in, or remaining in, a position might present a risk to your health and safety or to that of others for whose health or safety we are responsible, we may collect relevant personal information (including health information) that will allow us to manage that risk.
We may also collect personal information about your work performance from employers with whom we have placed you. We would use the information to manage our post-placement obligations, including managing any candidate replacement guarantee which we might be required to honour.
Legal requirements for personal information
Some laws such as taxation law, immigration law, laws regulating employment agencies, laws relating to national security, laws relating to professional or trade registration, labour hire licensing laws, public health laws, and laws for the protection of certain classes of people (such as children or the elderly) may require that we collect certain types of information (including criminal history and evidence of your right to work) from you that is relevant to the position/s for which you may be applying.
The following Australian laws require or authorise our collection of personal information from you:
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• Migration Act 1958 (C’th) and Migration Regulations 1994 (C’th);
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• Private Employment Agents (Code of Conduct) Regulation 2005 (Qld);
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• Public Health Orders.
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• There may be cases where our duties require us to obtain and disclose certain types of personal information relevant to specific jobs. When requesting information of this type we will tell you whether the supply of that information by you is mandatory or voluntary.
If you do not give us all or part of the information we need
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• we may be limited in our ability to locate suitable work for you;
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• we may be limited in our ability to place you in work;
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• we might decline to represent you in your search for work or put you forward for particular positions.
Your personal information will be used in connection with:
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• verification of your identity and right to work in Australia;
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• our assessment of your suitability for registration with us;
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• the necessary validation (including from appropriate third party sources) of your resume, C.V., nominated references, or stated qualifications, experience, training or abilities. Where we require third party validation we will tell you how we propose to obtain it;
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• your actual or possible work placement;
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• your performance appraisals;
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• any test or assessment (including medical tests and assessments) that you might be required to undergo;
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• our assessment of your ongoing performance and prospects;
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• our identification of your training needs;
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• suggestions we may make to you, whilst you remain registered with us, for further training in connection with work of the type that you are seeking through us;
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• any workplace rehabilitation in which you and we are involved;
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• our management of any complaint, investigation or inquiry in which you are involved;
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• any insurance claim or proposal that requires disclosure of your personal or sensitive information;
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• any reference that we may give concerning your work;
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• our statutory compliance obligations;
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• payroll functions;
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• determining what (if any) fees may be payable by our clients in respect of your actual or potential work placements.
Your personal information may be disclosed to…
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• potential and actual employers and clients of Engineering People Pty Ltd, unit 20, 49 Norcal Road NUNAWADING VIC 3131.
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• referees;
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• a person who seeks a reference about you;
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• other members of Engineering People Pty Ltd.
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• our insurers;
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• a professional association or registration body that has a proper interest in the disclosure of your personal and sensitive information;
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• a Workers Compensation body;
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• our contractors and suppliers – e.g. our payroll services providers, I.T. contractors, internet service suppliers and database designers, some of whom may be off shore;
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• a parent, guardian, holder of an enduring power of attorney (or like authority) or next of kin whom we may contact in any case in which consent is required or notification is to be given and where it is not practicable to obtain it from or give it directly to you;
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• any person with a lawful entitlement to obtain the information;
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• Victorian & Queensland state And the Federal Government with regard to visa status, working rights and visa requirements.
Disclosure of your personal information to overseas recipients
Background Checking
If we need to conduct background screening with overseas based organisations, we are likely to disclose some of your personal information to overseas recipients. For example, if you have worked with an overseas employer, we might need to disclose your name, identifying details and the type of work you are seeking to your previous employer to the extent necessary to enable us to undertake suitable reference checking.
The countries in which the overseas recipient to whom would be likely to disclose your personal information, in those circumstances, are likely to be those where the organisation is based.
Other Cases
We ARE NOT likely to disclose your personal information to overseas recipients. The countries in which the overseas recipient to whom we are likely to disclose your personal information are likely to be located are as follows:
Our Privacy Policy contains information about how you may access personal information that is held by us and seek correction of that information.
Electronic Transactions
We conduct transactions electronically as well as in hard copy and by face to face measures. It is important that you understand that there are risks associated with the use of electronic technologies and the use of the internet and you should take all appropriate steps to protect your personal information. Please see our Privacy Policy for further information.