Recruitment Privacy Notice

Our Recruitment Privacy Notice

We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after our application and recruitment processes. It applies to all current and former job applicants and potential candidates for employment.

In this Privacy Notice, references to we, us, or our mean Screwfix Spares Limited, a limited company registered in England (company number: 03593012), whose registered office is Trade House, Mead Avenue, Yeovil, Somerset, BA22 8RT, United Kingdom (Screwfix).

We are a "data controller" with regard to the personal information we hold about you by virtue of your involvement in our recruitment processes. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection law to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This privacy notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services offered to candidates hired by us. It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using this information.

Data protection principles

We comply with data protection law, meaning that the personal information we hold about you must be:

used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you, and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
relevant to the purposes for which we use it;
accurate and kept up to date;
kept only as long as necessary for the purposes for which we use it;
kept securely.

The kind of information we hold about you

Personal information means any information about an individual who can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

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

Contact details, such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses;
employment records, including job titles, work history and professional memberships;
education history, including achievements and test results;
copies of right to work documentation;
compensation history;
assessment performance information;
references;
photographs and images from recorded assessments or from on-site CCTV footage.
results of pre-employment screening checks, such as credit history or information on professional or other social networks and websites.

We may also collect, store, and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information, which require a higher level of protection:

information about your race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation;
Information about your health, including any medical condition, health, and sickness records;

We may also capture information about any criminal convictions and offences, as explained further in the “Information about criminal convictions and offences” section below.

How is your personal information collected?

We usually collect personal information directly from you when you apply for a role with us, such as information included in CVs, application forms, online and telephone interviews, application videos or cover letters.

We may also collect personal information about you from an employment agency, jobcentre, recruitment consultant or background check provider; and sometimes collect additional information from professional or other social networks and websites, and third parties including former employers, credit reference agencies or other background check agencies.

When and how we will use your personal information

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:

Legal Obligations – where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
Legitimate Interests – 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.
Pre-Contract Steps – where it is necessary in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract of employment, or other contract to provide services, with you.
Where we need to protect your vital interests (or someone else’s interests).
Consent – in limited circumstances, with your consent.

The purposes for which we will process your personal information are listed below, along with the key legal basis for each processing.

Identifying candidates for potential employment, as well as for future roles that may become available. (Legitimate Interests)
Planning about your recruitment or appointment. (Legitimate Interests)
Determining the terms on which you work for us. (Legitimate Interests)
Checking you are legally entitled to work in the UK. (Legal Obligations)
To prevent fraud. (Legitimate Interests)
Conducting pre-employment screening checks. (Legitimate Interests)
Equal opportunities monitoring. (Legal Obligations)
Complying with legal or regulatory obligations placed on us regarding our hiring, such as those relating to candidates with disabilities. (Legal Obligations)
Dealing with legal disputes involving you and protecting our legal rights to the extent authorised or permitted by law. (Legitimate Interests)
Complying with health and safety obligations. (Legal Obligations)
Recordkeeping in relation to our recruitment processes. (Legitimate Interests)
Sharing your details with other companies in the Kingfisher group, where we or they believe you may be suitable for a current or future role with them, and where you have indicated that you would like your details to be shared with other group companies for this purpose. (Legitimate Interests)
Keeping in touch with you about jobs, news, events, and information about Kingfisher that we believe may be of interest to you. (Consent)

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

In addition, we require a further legal basis if the information is in a “special category” of personal information. See the “When and how we use particularly sensitive personal information” section below for more detail.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain personal information when requested, which is necessary for us to consider your application (such as evidence of qualifications or work history), we will not be able to process your application successfully. For example, if we require references for a role and you fail to provide us with relevant details, we will not be able to take your application further.

When and how we use particularly sensitive personal information

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing, and using this type of personal information. We have in place an appropriate policy, documents, and safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

Employment Rights and Obligations – where we need to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment.
Explicit Consent – in limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.
Other – less commonly:
Where it is needed in relation to legal claims.
Where it is needed to protect your vital interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent.
Where you have already made the information public.

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways and on the basis of the legal grounds specified.

We will use information about your disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment process, such as to enable you to take online assessments and attend interviews. (Employment Rights and Obligations)

We will use information about your race or ethnic origin to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting. (Employment Rights and Obligations)

Do we need your consent?

We use your personal information on the basis of your consent in the circumstances described in this notice. In limited circumstances, we may also approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive information. 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 any contract you may enter into with us that you agree to a request for consent from us.

You can withdraw your consent at any time – please see the “Right to withdraw consent” section below for more detail.

Information about criminal convictions and offences

We may collect information about your criminal convictions history if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our legal obligations or exercise rights in connection with employment and provided we do so in line with Kingfisher’s Data Protection Policy.

Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your vital interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.

Automated decision-making

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a significant decision without human intervention. We are allowed to use automated decision- making in the following circumstances:

Where we have notified you of the decision and given you 1 month to request a reconsideration or to request that we take a new decision that is not based solely on automated processing.
Where it is necessary to perform the contract with you and appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.
In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent and where appropriate measures are in place to safeguard your rights.

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

Sharing your personal information with third parties

We will share your personal information with third parties for the purposes of processing your application. Third parties include:

Other entities within the Kingfisher group – specifically Screwfix Direct Limited, B&Q Limited and Kingfisher Plc, please see www.kingfisher.com for a list of the Kingfisher group entities with whom we may share your information in this way.
Third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) who provide candidate recruitment, interview, and assessment services to us, or undertake background screening or pre-employment checks on our behalf.
Former employers, for the purposes of obtaining references from you.

All our third-party service providers and other entities in the group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We may also share your details with other companies in the Kingfisher group, where we or they believe you may be suitable for a current or future role with them, and where you have indicated that you would like your details to be shared with other group companies for this purpose.

Transferring your personal information outside the EU

Data may be transferred outside the UK/EU. Where we transfer your personal information outside the UK/EU, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as standard contractual clauses approved by the relevant authorities or transfers to countries with adequacy decisions.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. For details of these measures, please contact us using the “How to contact us” section below.

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

How long we will use your personal information for

If your application with us is unsuccessful, we will hold your personal information for a period of 24 months after we have communicated that decision to you. We retain your personal information for that period so that we can show, in the event of a legal claim, that we have not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that we have conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. After this period, we will securely destroy your personal information in accordance with the Kingfisher Record Keeping and Document Retention Policy and Standard.

If we wish to retain your personal information on file, on the basis that a further opportunity may arise in future and we may wish to consider you for that, we will write to you separately, seeking your consent to retain your personal information for a fixed period on that basis.

If your application with us is successful, the personal information gathered during the recruitment process will be transferred to your Personnel file and retained during your working relationship with us. The periods for which your personal information will be held will be communicated to you in our privacy notice for employees, workers, and contractors.

Your rights regarding your personal information

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

your right of access; you have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
your right to rectification; you have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete personal information you think is incomplete.
your right to erasure; you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
your right to restriction of processing; you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
your right to object to processing; you have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
your right to data portability; you have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
your right to withdraw consent; where we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
your right to complain; if you’re unhappy with how your personal information has been handled whether in response to a request (e.g. access, erasure, objection etc.) or more generally, you have the right to raise a complaint with us. If you remain dissatisfied, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection authority in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

We aim to respond to all requests within one calendar month. Proof of identity may be required before we can process your request.

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 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 us using the details in the “How to contact us” section below.

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another basis for doing so in law.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, or if you would like to exercise any of the rights set out in the “Your rights regarding your personal information” section above, please contact us using your preferred method of the following:

Email: recruitment@screwfixspares.com
Post: Data Protection Officer, Screwfix Direct Limited, Trade House, Mead Avenue, Yeovil BA22 8RT, United Kingdom.
Telephone: 0121 766 2206

Updates to this notice

We may update this notice in response to regulatory changes or changes to business practices from time to time and review it, at least annually. The latest version of this notice will be posted on our Digital Services. Last updated June 2026.

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