Swype is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information and information supplied by you that may belong to a third party.

This privacy policy describes how we collect and use personal information about you or your interested parties while you engage with Swype either as an employee, customer or supplier.  This policy reflects the companies privacy standards of handling information from supply, protection levels through to potential disposal.  This policy is written in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Applicability

This policy applies to all employees, workers, contractors and their interested parties.

What is the purpose of this document?

Swype is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we record, protect and use personal information about you, your company and your interested parties. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of how we intend to manage the information we use, protect and retain information that can be classed as identifiers to individuals which has the potential to be compromised.

This policy applies to past and present employees, contractors, suppliers, customers and their interested parties. This policy does not form part of any contract of employment any commercial agreement or other contract to provide services. We may update this policy at any time.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you and your interested parties must be:

  1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
  2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
  3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
  4. Accurate and kept up to date.
  5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
  6. Maintained with the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data being secure
  7. Processed on accordance with the rights of the data subject.
  8. not be shared unless otherwise instructed or authorised.

The kind of information we hold about you and your interested parties

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).

There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.
  • Date of birth.
  • Gender.
  • Marital status and dependants.
  • Next of kin and emergency contact information.
  • National Insurance number.
  • Bank account details, payroll records and tax status information.
  • Salary, annual leave, pension and benefits information.
  • Location of employment or workplace.
  • Copy of driving licence.
  • Copy of passport
  • Recruitment information (including copies of right to work documentation, references and other information included in a CV or cover letter or as part of the application process).
  • Employment records (including job titles, work history, working hours, training records and professional memberships).
  • Performance information.
  • Disciplinary and grievance information.
  • CCTV footage and other information obtained through electronic means such as swipe card records.
  • Information about your use of our information and communications systems.
  • Photographs.

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

  • Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation and political opinions.
  • Trade union membership.
  • Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
  • Genetic information and biometric data.
  • Information about criminal convictions and offences.

How is your personal information collected?

Recruitment: We typically collect personal information about employees, workers and contactors through the application and recruitment process, either directly from candidates or sometimes from an employment agency or background check provider. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies.

Customers: We collection information for order processing purposes and this may be through our business partners, via the website service offering for end users or as a result of our marketing processes and direct contact through enquiry.  The information passed onto Swype will be protected from unlawful use from outside sources and also will only be accessible by those that have been the authorisation to do so by Swype.

How we will use information about you

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

  1. Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
  2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
  3. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  4. We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
  5. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
  6. Where it is needed in the public interest [or for official purposes].

Situations in which we will use your personal information

In some cases, we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

  • Deciding about your recruitment or appointment.
  • Determining the terms on which you work for us
  • Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK.
  • Paying you and, if you are an employee, deducting tax and National Insurance contributions.
  • Liaising with your pension provider.
  • Administering the contract we have entered into with you.
  • Business management and planning, including accounting and auditing.
  • Conducting performance reviews, managing performance and determining performance requirements.
  • Making decisions about salary reviews and compensation.
  • Assessing qualifications for a particular job or task, including decisions about promotions.
  • Gathering evidence for possible grievance or disciplinary hearings.
  • Making decisions about your continued employment or engagement.
  • Making arrangements for the termination of our working relationship.
  • Education, training and development requirements.
  • Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other interested parties, including accidents at work.
  • Ascertaining your fitness to work.
  • Managing sickness absence.
  • Complying with health and safety obligations.
  • To prevent fraud.
  • To monitor your use of our information and communication systems to ensure compliance with our IT policies.
  • To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution
  • To conduct data analytics studies to review and better understand employee retention and attrition rates.
  • Equal opportunities monitoring.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you, or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations.  In the event of any failure of providing relevant information, the justification for terminating the contract will be notified to you in writing.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information 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 we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so. We may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

“Special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

  1. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
  2. Where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our data protection policy.
  3. Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring, and in line with our data protection policy.
  4. Where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

Our obligations as an employer

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

  • We will use information relating to leaves of absence, which may include sickness absence or family related leaves, to comply with employment and other laws.
  • We will use information about your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to provide appropriate workplace adjustments, to monitor and manage sickness absence and to administer benefits.
  • We will use information about your race or national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of national security or fraudulent activity. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your contract or commercial contract with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.

Information about criminal convictions

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our policy.

Data sharing

We may have to share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We may share your personal information or that of your interested parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

“Third parties” includes third-party service providers. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: finance department, software providers for our business activities, logistic business and IT service providers.

We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Data security

Swype have measures available to protect the security of your information received where and when it is deemed necessary. Receipt of data, preferably and in your best interests should not be sent via email, but by secure methods such as FTP2 or encrypted with passwords.  Alternatively any new data must be checked by account managers for accuracy and must also be submitted via secure method, either including password protection or encrypted files. Incorrectly set data will be erased and customers notified to resend correctly.

Data which is unnecessary for the purpose of the service or product should NOT be submitted, only data required to process order will be required and this may done on a project by project basis.

Any printed data must be used to perform work related tasks and destroyed securely once orders have been completed.

  • Paper files will be kept in a locked drawer or filing cabinet.
  • Employees will make sure paper and printouts are not left where unauthorised people could see them.
  • Data printouts will be shredded and disposed of securely.
  • Electronically stored data must be protected from unauthorised access, accidental deletion or misuse
  • Electronic data must be reviewed after a set amount of time, please refer to our ‘Timescale Policy’.
  • Server and computers containing data are protected by an approved security software and a firewall.
  • Data will be backed up frequently.
  • Data will not be saved directly to personal laptop or smart devices.
  • Data will be stored on designated drives and servers.
  • Servers containing personal data will be sited in a secure location, away from general office space.
  • Removal of data is organised upon request.

On any occasion Swype works as a sub processor all the above rules will be applied.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes and those of your interested parties during your working relationship with us. Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  • Request erasure of your personal information or that of your interested parties. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information 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 information (or that of your interested parties)where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  • Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object or to unsubscribe from mailing list where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
    Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

No fee usually required

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

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information (and that of your interested parties) for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the data protection officer at Swype.  Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Changes to this privacy policy

We reserve the right to update this privacy policy at any time.  Any updates will be document control and made available to you upon request. For any substantial changes, we may contact you directly to notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

Tim Scott
Managing Director

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