Privacy Policy

Who are we?

Portman Square Partners provide executive search, consulting solutions and talent advisory services to clients looking to recruit talent for their businesses. We are headquartered in the UK with a registered address of 28 Caldecott Road, Great Easton, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 8TB

What does this policy cover?

This policy:

  • sets out the types of personal data that we collect about you

  • explains how and why we collect and use your personal data

  • explains how long we keep your personal data for

  • explains when, why and with who we will share your personal data;

  • sets out the legal basis we have for using your personal data;

  • explains the effect of refusing to provide the personal data requested;

  • explains the different rights and choices you have when it comes to your personal data; and

What personal information do we collect about you?

We collect the information necessary to identify available and relevant opportunities and any additional information needed to assess your eligibility through the different stages of the search process.
This information includes CVs, identification documents, educational records, work history, employment history and references and any other information that is provided by you throughout the course of the search.

We may also collect sensitive personal data about you, in the form of visa status, nationality, gender, and compensation details. We only collect sensitive personal data from you, and further process this data, where you have given your explicit consent.

Where do we collect personal data about you from?

The following are the different sources we may collect personal data about you from:

Directly from you: this is information you provide while searching for a new opportunity, or throughout the executive search, consulting solutions, and talent advisory process.

Through publicly available sources:

  • LinkedIn

  • Company websites

  • By Reference or word of mouth. For example, you may be recommended by a friend, a former employer, a former colleague, or even a present employer

  • Subscribing to a newsletter, filling out a form e - mail or entering information on our site

How and why do we use your information?

We use your personal data to match your skills, experience and education with a potential employer. We will initially collect basic information on you such as contact details, job role and experience and then pass this on to the client in search of personnel. If you are chosen by the client and go through to the next stage of the process, we will proceed in collecting more information about you at the interview stage and moving forward in the process.

How long do we keep your personal data for?

We only retain your information for as long as is necessary for us to fulfil those requirements outlined above, or to comply with our legal obligations. Please be advised that we may retain some of your information after you cease using our services if this is necessary to meet our legal obligations, for example retaining the information for tax and accounting purposes.

When determining the relevant retention periods, we will consider factors including:

  1. Our contractual obligations and rights in relation to the information involved;

  2. Legal obligation(s) under applicable law to retain data for a certain period of time;

  3. Our legitimate interest where we have carried out a balancing test (see legal basis below);

  4. Statute of limitations under applicable law(s);

  5. If you have made a request to have your information deleted; and

  6. Guidelines issued by relevant data protection authorities

Otherwise, we securely erase your information once this is no longer needed.

Portman Square Partners has set a six-year time frame for processing and holding data (beginning May 25th, 2018) as per the AESC official recommendation. If there has been no communication between a data subject and Portman Square Partners in more than said time frame, then all records associated with that data subject will be deleted from the database. Portman Square Partners plans to review the data retention policy, as well as the six-year retention period for non-communicated data subjects, one year after GDPR has come into effect (May 25th, 2019).

Who do we share your personal data with?

Portman Square Partners communicates your personal data to clients who wish to hire for a position that may be relevant to you. We may also use that personal data to inform you about key trends in the marketplace that can increase your awareness about your industry. We provide our services to organisations around the world. Personal data that is classified as non-sensitive is also available for viewing by any Portman Square Partners employee.

We will share information only as outlined within this privacy policy and wherever appropriate, try to limit disclosure to information in aggregated form, to avoid or limit identifying you personally.

We may also conduct checks on you to verify the information you have provided and where we do this we share your information with only the data protection officer.

We may also provide information to third party service providers who process information on our behalf to help run some of our internal business operations including email distribution, IT services and customer services, as well as the Finance & Operations team at Portman Square Partners. Where applicable, these 3rd parties will be based within the location relevant to their usage, with the exception of our key 3rd party providers such as IT services and database platform, which are based in the U.K.

What legal basis do we have for using your information?

For prospective candidates, referees and clients, our legitimate interest in your information is driven by the need to assess suitability for potential roles, to find potential candidates, to build insight into our relevant markets, and to contact clients and referees.

We carry out a ‘balancing test’ to ensure that our processing is necessary and that your fundamental rights of privacy are not outweighed by our legitimate interests before we go ahead with such processing. We keep a record of these balancing tests. You have a right to and can find out more about the information in these balancing tests by contacting us using the details below.

If you are shortlisted as a candidate, then this may involve the processing of more detailed personal data including sensitive data such as health information that you or others provide about you. We will always ask for your consent before recording sensitive data.

Do we transfer your data outside the EEA?

At present we do not transfer personal data outside the EEA

Keeping information secure

We invest significant resources to protect your personal information, from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. However, no internet-based site can be 100% secure and so we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our control.

What rights do you have in relation to the data we hold on you?

By law, you have rights when it comes to protecting your personal data. Further information and advice about your rights can be obtained from the data protection regulator in your country.

We will act on requests and provide a detailed report of your information free of charge and will ask that you submit these requests by emailing: dpo@portmansearch.com.

We usually act on requests and provide information free of charge, but may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative costs of providing the information for:

  • baseless or excessive/repeated requests, or

  • further copies of the same information.

Alternatively, we may be entitled to refuse to act on the request. Please consider your request responsibly before submitting it.

We will respond within 30 days of the request being sent to: dpo@portmansearch.com. If it will take longer to process your request, we will inform you accordingly.

Third-party disclosure

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information.

Third-party links

We do not include or offer third-party products or services on our website.

Updates

We keep this Policy under regular review and update it from time to time. Please review this policy periodically for changes.

How will we contact you?

We may contact you by phone, email or social media. If you prefer one contact means over another, please let us know.

How can you contact us?

If you are unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, or have further questions on the processing of your personal data, contact us here:

Data Protection Officer

Portman Square Partners

28 Caldecott Road

Leicestershire

LE16 8TB

dpo@portmansearch.com