When you apply to work at the British Library we will collect information about you including your contact details, previous employment history, education and qualifications, and referee contact details. We will use this information to process your application (e.g. in pursuit of the performance of a contract with you). We will also collect details about your ethnicity, gender, orientation, nationality, and any disability you may have; we have a legal obligation to ensure that equality and diversity obligations are being met in relation to our recruitment processes.

Where we want to disclose your information to a third party, for example, to take up a reference or to carry out a background check for the purpose of pre-employment security vetting, we will not do so without informing you beforehand, unless the disclosure is required by law.

We may use various organisations to provide IT capabilities in support of our Services, and who may process your information on our behalf. These Data Processors will process your information only under contract to the Library, and may not use your information in any other way. In particular, we will use the following system to process your application:

• We use NGA Human Resources, from Northgate Information Solutions Ltd., to process recruitment applications. Northgate may process your information in the United States or elsewhere in the world, and uses EU Standard Contractual Clauses to protect your information. Northgate’s Privacy Policy can be found at https://www.ngahr.com/privacy-policies#NGA%20HR%20Privacy%20Notice. 

Personal information about unsuccessful candidates will be held for 12 months after the recruitment exercise has been completed. It will then be securely destroyed or deleted. We retain statistical information to help to inform and improve our recruitment activities; for the purpose of ethnic monitoring and to obtain workplace statistics on, for example, gender, race, disability and age. The information retained is anonymised so that no individuals may be identified from that data.

Alternatively, if you are successful in taking up employment with us, we will compile a file relating to your employment, beginning with your application information. This information will thereafter be managed in accordance with our Staff Privacy Policy.