Scottish Government respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit the NHSScotland Workforce Policies website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Scottish Government collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you submit a query to us through the website.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy / notice or fair processing policy / notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Controller

Scottish Government ("we", "us", "our") is the controller and responsible for your personal data. A controller is someone who decides why personal information is to be collected and how it will be used and treated.

We have appointed a data protection officer (“DPO”) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO using the details set out below.

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact our DPO in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: Scottish Government

Contact: Data Protection Officer

Email address: DataProtectionOfficer@gov.scot

Postal address: Victoria Quay, Commercial Street, Edinburgh, EH6 6QQ

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (“ICO”), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on 1 March 2020.
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data we hold about you changes.

Third-party links

This website includes links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect and/or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

2. The data we collect about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Query data includes the content of any query or feedback you submit to us, any identity data you provide (such as name and title) and contact data (such as your e-mail address).
• Technical Data includes client identifiers, online identifiers such as internet protocol (IP) address, cookie identifiers, technical information about your device and visits to our website.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use this website such as how you arrive at the website, how you browse the website and how long you spend on each page and what you click on when browsing our website.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for statistical purposes and to understand and analyse use of the website and to share high level information regarding use of the website. Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences. We ask you not to include these types of data in any enquiry / feedback you submit to us.

3. How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through the following:

• Direct interactions. You may give us Query Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you give us feedback or contact us.
• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical and Usage Data. We collect this personal data by using a third-party analytics provider (Google Ireland Limited / Google LLC) and a cloud-based hosting provider (Microsoft). Technologies used by these parties to collect this data include cookies, server logs, page tagging and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

4. How we use your personal data

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

• To perform a task to be carried out in the public interest.
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
• Where we have your consent.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so.

Note that we may process your personal data under more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer's hard drive. In addition to cookies, we also use other technologies to obtain certain information about you.
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our cookie policy.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 (How we use your personal data?) above.

• NHS Education for Scotland (“NES”) who is acting as our processor and who provides hosting for the website, technical support, manages web environment design, deployment, development and website maintenance activities as well as performs testing and quality assurance of the web site and associated applications. NES has appointed Google Ireland Limited / Google LLC and Microsoft as its sub-processors to provide analytics and hosting in connection with the website.
• Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers and auditors who provide professional services to us.
• Regulators, government departments and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances or with whom we are required to share personal data, in both cases to comply with a legal obligation.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

We may transfer data outside the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA) where our service providers (including Google) host, process or store data outside the UK or the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK or the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• Transferring your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: Adequacy of the protection of personal data in non-EU countries.
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
• Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: EU-US Privacy Shield.
  Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK or the EEA.

7. Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are set out in the table in paragraph 4 (How we use your personal data?) above.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see paragraph 9 (Your legal rights) below for further information.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for statistical purposes and to understand and analyse use of the website and to share anonymised information regarding use of the website, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. Please click on the links below to find out more about these rights:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request").
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with applicable law.
• Object to processing of your personal data if there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on specific grounds as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
• If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.
• Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
• Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
• You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party, in certain cases.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us. There are some exceptions to and conditions relating to the above rights that are permitted under data protection legislation. We may not always be able to comply with your request to exercise your rights for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.