Privacy Policy | Oakland Search

Introduction

OAKLAND SEARCH LTD (12297897) is committed to protecting the privacy of our candidates, clients and users of our website. We want to provide a safe and secure user experience.

This Privacy Notice tells you how Oakland Search collects information from you, how we protect it and how we use it, and covers all personal information which you provide when you use our offices or website.

Who we are

Oakland Search is a recruitment business which provides work-finding services to its clients and work-seekers. Oakland Search must process personal data (including sensitive personal data) so that it can provide these services, in doing so Oakland Search acts as a data controller.

You may give your personal details to Oakland Search directly, such as on an application or registration form or via our website, or we may collect them from another source such as jobs boards or LinkedIn. For the purposes of providing, you with work-finding services and/or information relating to roles relevant to you, we will only use your personal data in accordance with the terms of the following statement.

At a glance

This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who enquire about roles we advertise. The policy also explains how we use that information, the conditions under which we may disclose information to others and how we keep personal information secure.

The Data Protection Principles

We will comply with the EU GDPR, UK GDPR and the DPA 2018. Article 5 of the UK and EU GDPR contains the data protection principles, which require that Personal Data shall be:

● Processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.

● Collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.

● Adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary.

● Accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.

● Kept for no longer than is necessary for the purposes we have told you about.

● Kept securely.

Your privacy is a priority. We process all personal data in strict accordance with UK/EU GDPR and PECR requirements to ensure your information remains secure and protected.

At Oakland Search we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and are transparent in everything we do. We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.

Who is the controller of the data that you provide to us?

Oakland Search is registered as a data controller (ZA773013) in the United Kingdom for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR. We ensure that the data you supply to us is processed fairly and lawfully, and with skill and care and used only for the purposes set out in this policy.

Website visitors

This Privacy Notice covers any personal data which you may provide when dealing with Oakland Search or interacting with any of our Sites, whether or not you are registered.

By continuing to use our website, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy. Separate consent will be requested for non-essential cookies; please refer to our Cookie Policy [LINK] for further information.

Candidates:

The Company collect your personal data (which may include special category data) and will process your personal data for the purposes of providing you with work-finding services. The legal bases we rely upon to offer these services to you are:

• Consent

• Legitimate interest

• Legal obligation

• Contractual obligation

What type of data will we collect?

We will collect data about you, both personal data (such as your name and contact details) and sensitive personal data (such as information in your CV). Depending on the relevant circumstances and applicable laws and requirements.

In addition to direct applications, we actively source candidate information from the wider web, including professional networking sites, job boards, and other public sources. We use this data to identify potential matches for our clients’ vacancies; if your profile aligns with a specific role, a member of our team will contact you to discuss the opportunity. To ensure we provide a tailored experience, we also track service usage data, including the dates, times, and frequency of your interactions with our platform. This includes information on your interests and needs regarding future employment, which may be collected directly or inferredfrom your activity, such as jobs viewed or articles read on our website. Furthermore, we process details regarding your current remuneration, pensions, and benefits arrangements to better align opportunities with your requirements. Finally, for the safety and security of our staff and visitors, please be aware that CCTV footage may be captured if you physically attend our premises.

Lawful Basis for Collecting Data

The UK and EU GDPR, (our global standard of compliance) requires that a Controller must have a legal basis for processing Personal Data. More details are provided in the Record of Processing Activities (ROPA) but, in most instances, our legal bases for processing your personal information are:

(a) Your consent. We will obtain you consent by form completion and website cookies and you are able to withdraw your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting enquiries@oaklandsearch.io

(b) We have a contractual obligation.

(d) We have a vital interest.

(e) We need it to perform a public task.

(f) We have a legitimate interest.

In some cases, we may process special category data. This is afforded some extra protection due to its sensitive nature, and therefore, under UK and EU GDPR we are required to provide a lawful basis for processing, and a secondary condition under Article 9. More details can be found within our Record of Processing Activities, but the conditions we may rely on are:

(a) Explicit consent
(b) Employment, social security and social protection (if authorised by law)
(c) Vital interests
(d) Not-for-profit bodies
(e) Made public by the data subject
(f) Legal claims or judicial acts
(g) Reasons of substantial public interest (with a basis in law)
(h) Health or social care (with a basis in law)
(i) Public health (with a basis in law)
(j) Archiving, research and statistics (with a basis in law).

Recruitment

If you apply for a role or express interest in working as a contractor with us, we process your personal data to take steps to enter into a contract with you. This typically includes your name, contact information, CV, and cover letter.

Based on our legitimate interest in assessing your suitability for the role, we may also review publicly available professional profiles, such as LinkedIn or professional X accounts, prior to an interview. We will also contact the referees you have provided to verify your employment history.

If you disclose a disability or health condition, we process this special category data to fulfilour legal obligations under employment and equality laws (e.g., to provide reasonable adjustments). If your application is successful, we will require further information to onboard you. For a copy of our full Internal Staff Privacy Notice, please contactenquiries@oaklandsearch.io

How do we use your personal data?

The personal data and special category data will be stored, processed, used and disclosed by us in the following ways.

• Provision of services and account management:

• To provide our recruitment services to you and to facilitate the recruitment process

• To assess data about you against vacancies which we judge may be suitable for you

• To send your information to clients to apply for jobs or assess your eligibility for jobs

• To answer your questions and enquiries

• To pay you for employment-related goods and services

• To use your information on an anonymised basis to monitor compliance with our equal opportunities policy

• To carry out our obligations arising from contracts entered into between you and us

• From time to time we may seek your consent to process, use or disclose your information for any other purpose not listed above.

How do we share your personal data?

Oakland Search. may pass your information to our third-party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process products and send you mailings). These third parties may include:

• We use third-party service providers to provide a recruiting software system.

• We also share your personal data with other third-party service providers that may assist us in recruiting talent, administering and evaluating pre-employment screening and testing, and improving our recruiting practices.

• To third parties where we have retained them to provide services that we, you or our client have requested including references, qualifications, credit and criminal reference checking services.

• To third parties, regulatory or law enforcement agencies if we believe in good faith that we are required by law to disclose it in connection with the detection of crime, the collection of taxes or duties, in order to comply with any applicable law or order of a court of competent jurisdiction, or in connection with legal proceedings.

In the event of a sale, merger, reorganisation, or similar business transition, we may transfer your personal data to the relevant third party as part of our legitimate interests in developing our business. Any such recipient will be required to process your data in accordance with this Privacy Policy and only for the purposes for which it was originally collected. We will notify you via [email/website notice] if such a transfer occurs, providing you with clear information on the identity of the new controller and your right to object to the processing of your data by them.

How do we safeguard your personal data?

Data security is of great importance to Oakland Search and to protect your data we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and organisaitonal procedures to safeguard and secure data collected via this website. Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password, which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

How long do we keep your personal data for?

We will only keep your Personal Data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, which may include satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. The retention period depends on the type of Personal Data and the reason we are processing it. Further details of retention periods are set out in the data retention and disposal policy which can be found at the end of this document. [or provide link]

When calculating the appropriate retention period for your data, we consider the nature and sensitivity of the data, the purposes for which we are processing the data, and any applicable statutory retention periods. Using these criteria, we regularly review the Personal Data which we hold and the purposes for which it is held and processed.

When we determine that Personal Data can no longer be retained (or where we must comply you request us to delete your data in accordance with your right to do so) we ensure that this data is securely deleted or destroyed.

We rely on you to inform us of all changes to your Personal Data to ensure that it is up to date and we will update or delete your Personal Data accordingly.

The Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 require us to keep work-seeker records for at least one year from (a) the date of their creation or (b) after the date on which we last provide you with work-finding services.

We must also keep your payroll records, holiday pay, sick pay and pensions auto-enrolment records for as long as is legally required by HMRC and associated national minimum wage, social security and tax legislation.

Where the Company has obtained your consent to process your personal and sensitive personal data, we will do so in line with our retention policy (a copy of which is attached). Upon expiry of that period, the Company will seek further consent from you. Where consent is not granted the Company will cease to process your personal data and sensitive personal data.

How do we access/amend your personal data?

The accuracy of your information is important to us. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you.

In the meantime, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at enquiries@oaklandsearch.io

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact us on enquiries@oaklandsearch.io who will investigate the matter.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

How do we store and transfer your personal data?

The data we collect from you may be stored, processed in, and transferred to countries outside of the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area (EEA). This may occur if our servers or service providers are located internationally, or if we share information within our global group companies.

Where such transfers occur, we do not rely on your "agreement" to validate the transfer. Instead, we ensure your privacy rights are protected by using UK Government approved safeguards. This includes transferring data to countries with an adequacy decision or using Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA). These measures ensure that your personal data receives the same level of protection it would within the UK.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third-party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third-party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third-party site.

Your individual rights

Please be aware that you have the following data protection rights:

You have rights under the data protection legislation and, subject to certain legal exemptions, we must comply when you inform us that you wish to exercise these rights. There is no charge, unless your requests are manifestly unfounded or excessive. In such circumstances, we may make a reasonable charge or decline to act on your request. Before we action your request, we may ask you for proof of your identity. Once in receipt of this, we will process the request without undue delay and within one calendar month. In order to exercise your rights please contact: enquiries@oaklandsearch.io

Your rights in connection with personal information are set out below:

Subject Access Request - You have a right to receive a copy of all the Personal Data we hold about you.

Rectification - If any of the Personal Data we hold about you is incomplete or inaccurate, you have a right to have it corrected.

Erasure - This is also known as the “right to be forgotten”. You have a right to ask us to delete your Personal Data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. However, certain criteria apply and if we have a legitimate reason to continue processing your personal data, we will not be legally required to delete it.

Objection - You have a right to object where we are relying on legitimate interests as our legal basis for processing your Personal Data but, in certain circumstances we may be able to continue with the processing. For example, if we have compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms or your personal information is needed for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.However, you have an absolute right to object to us processing your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes.

Restriction - You have a right to ask us to restrict the processing of your Personal Data in certain circumstances. For example, you may require us to suspend processing information about you whilst checks are made to ensure it is accurate.

Portability - You have the right to ask us to transfer any Personal Data you have provided to us to another party, subject to certain criteria being satisfied. We will provide this Personal Data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

Right to withdraw consent - If you have given us your consent for the processing of your Personal Data, you can withdraw this at any time. Please note, the withdrawal has no effect on the legality of the data processing carried out in the past on the basis of your consent. To exercise your right to withdraw consent contact us at enquiries@oaklandsearch.io

The accuracy of your information is important to us. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. In the meantime, if you change your email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us at enquiries@oaklandsearch.io

Complaints or Queries

If you wish to discuss any data protection matters or contact us in order to exercise any of your rights referred to above, please contact enquiries@oaklandsearch.io

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Details can be found here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns

Changing and reviewing this Privacy Policy

Oakland Search reserve the right to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. Updates to this Privacy Notice will be published on our website. To ensure you are aware of when we make changes to this Privacy Notice, we will amend the revision date at the top of this page. Changes apply as soon as they are published on our website. We therefore recommend that you visit this page regularly to find out about any updates that may have been made.

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in March 2026