Personal data
‘Personal data’ is any information that relates to a living, identifiable person. This data can include your name, contact details, and other information we gather as part of our relationship with you.
It can also include ‘special categories’ of data, which is information about a person’s race or ethnic origin, religious, political or other beliefs, physical or mental health, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, sex life or sexual orientation. The collection and use of these types of data is subject to strict controls. Similarly, information about criminal convictions and offences is also limited in the way it can be processed.
BMS is committed to protecting your personal data, whether it is ‘special categories’ or not, and we only process data if we need to for a specific purpose, as explained below.
We collect your personal data mostly through our contact with you, and the data is usually provided by you, but in some instances we may receive data about you from other people/organisations. We will explain when this might happen in this Notice.
Your data and how and why we process it
In general terms, we process your data in order to enter into an employment, work or volunteer agreement with you, to meet our obligations under that agreement. Depending on your relationship with BMS the agreement may provide you with an allowance (workers) or to administer benefits and entitlements (workers and volunteers).
In some cases we need to process data to comply with our legal obligations, for example we are required to check your entitlement to work in the UK or overseas, to deduct tax and other amounts required by HMRC, to comply with health and safety law and to enable you to take periods of leave to which you are entitled. For certain positions it is necessary to carry out criminal records checks.
In other cases we have a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the employment, work, volunteer relationship. This is needed for a number of essential purposes including to:
- Administer recruitment, selection and promotion processes;
- Maintain accurate and up-to-date employment, worker and volunteer records and contact details (including details of who to contact in the event of an emergency), and records of worker/volunteer contractual and statutory rights;
- Operate and keep a record of disciplinary and grievance processes, to support reasonable levels of conduct within the placement;
- Operate and keep a record of worker/volunteer performance and related processes, to plan for career development, and for succession planning and team management purposes;
- Operate and keep a record of absence and absence management procedures, to allow effective workforce management and ensure that you receive the allowances or other benefits to which you are entitled;
- Obtain occupational health advice, to ensure that we comply with duties in relation to individuals with disabilities, meet our obligations under health and safety law, and ensure that you receive the pay or other benefits to which you are entitled;
- Operate and keep a record of other types of leave (including the equivalent of maternity, paternity, adoption, parental and shared parental leave), to allow effective management of our teams, to ensure that we comply with duties in relation to leave entitlement, and to ensure that you are receiving the allowances (workers) or other benefits to which you are entitled;
- Ensure effective general HR and business administration;
- Provide references on request for current or former employees;
- Respond to and defend against legal claims; and
- Maintain and promote equality in the workplace.
Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, is processed to carry out employment law obligations (such as those in relation to employees with disabilities, long-term ill health issues and for health and safety purposes) as well as to ensure that a medical condition can be managed in resource poor overseas environments and/or meets the requirements of our overseas partners. Where a role has an occupational requirement for an individual to be a committed Christina, we will also hold data related to your religion and beliefs as we have a legitimate interest to do so. We will use this information to seek suitable placements for your overseas service.
Where BMS processes other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. Data that BMS uses for these purposes is collected with the express consent of employees, which can be withdrawn at any time. You are entirely free to decide whether or not to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.
At times, we may further process data which we have already collected. We will only do this if the new purpose for processing it further is compatible with the original purpose that the data was collected for.
The table below lists the specific information that BMS may hold on you:
Data held |
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Personal data received from third parties
This is a list of your personal data that we may receive from other people or organisations. The list is not exhaustive but covers the type of documents we may need to hold on record.
Data | Source |
Personal references | Appointed referees |
Tax coding | HMRC |
Payroll deductions such as student loans, court orders or other statutory deductions | HMRC |
Health clearance certificates and reports | Independent Travel Health clearance specialists |
Secondment agreements and partner reports | Overseas partner |
Church visit evaluation | UK supporting churches |
Who we share your data with
For some processing purposes we share your data with third parties. The list is not exhaustive but covers the type of documents we may need to share with third parties. This is a list of the information we may share with external recipients, and for what purpose:
Recipients of your data | Purpose for sharing |
HMRC | Payment of tax / NI |
BMS Pension Trustee | Payment of pension contribution |
Life assurance provider | Arrangement of life cover |
BMS auditor | Statutory audit |
Access Consortium | Payroll calculations |
Partner mission agencies | Where a worker/volunteer may be seconded |
Travel Agents/Flight bookers | To enable your travel |
Embassy and consulates | To acquire your visa |
Overseas partners that you may work for | To ensure a successful secondment |
Travel Health Clearance specialists | To ensure you are fit to travel/work overseas |
Third party recruitment/training/debriefing individuals | To provide effective recruitment, training and debriefing processes |
Individual and church supporters | To raise prayer and funding support and facilitate hospitality |
Criminal check agency | To obtain clearance for you to work with vulnerable individuals in certain roles |
Certain pieces of information (see 4.3.5 and the Archiving personnel files guidelines) will be sent to the BMS archives. It is not available to the public until 30 years after date of known death (or 70 years after end of service if date of death is not known).
How we store your data
Your personal data may be held temporarily in hard copy and then in electronic formats.
Electronic data, including emails, is stored on our servers or our service provider’s servers, which are located and backed up in the UK/European Union. Your personnel file is securely and confidentially stored using an electronic HR system with limited access.
How long we keep your data
Information about how long we process your data for can be found in the appendix below. Some retention periods are based on legal requirements while others take into account practical needs to keep the data.
Once the applicable retention period expires, unless we are legally required to keep the data longer, or there are important and justifiable reasons why we should keep it, we will securely delete the data.
Your rights as a data subject
As a data subject, you have the following rights in relation to your personal data processed by us:
- To be informed about how your data is handled;
- To gain access to your personal data;
- To have errors or inaccuracies in your data changed;
- To have your personal data erased, in limited circumstances;
- To object to the processing of your personal data for marketing purposes or when the processing is based on the public interest or other legitimate interests;
- To restrict the processing of your personal data, in limited circumstances;
- To obtain a copy of some of your data in a commonly used electronic form, in limited circumstances;
- Rights around how you are affected by any profiling or automated decisions.
Withdrawing consent
If we are relying on your consent to process your data, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting dataprotection@bmsworldmission.org
Exercising your rights, queries and complaints
If you wish to see your file please send your request by email (dfwm@bmsworldmission.org) to arrange a time when you will be given access. This will be arranged within four weeks of the request.
Complaints to the Information Commissioner
You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the way in which we process your personal data. You can make a complaint on the ICO’s website https://ico.org.uk