Job Applicants Privacy Notice

PRIVACY NOTICE FOR JOB APPLICANTS AT BDO UAE

Introduction

Your choice and consent

Information we collect

▪ Information we collect directly from you

▪ Information we collect from other sources

How we use your personal information and the basis on which we use it?

Your rights over your personal information

Information sharing

Information security

Acknowledgement & consent to use of personal data

Introduction

This Privacy Notice describes how BDO Chartered Accountants & Advisors, UAE (“BDO UAE”) handles personal data you submit when applying for a job. Please read this document carefully to understand how BDO UAE uses and protects the information you provide. Throughout this Privacy Notice we use the term “processing” to cover all activities involving your personal information, including collecting, handling, storing, sharing, accessing, using, transferring and disposing of the information.

Your choice and consent

Providing your application data is voluntary. However, if you decline to submit requested candidate data, our ability to consider you as a candidate may be limited.

By submitting your application data, you:

declare that you have read, understood and accepted this Privacy Notice;
are granting your consent to the holding and processing of your data in accordance with this notice;
are declaring that the information given in the application is complete and true to the best of your knowledge, and understand that incorrect statements could lead to your application being rejected;
are authorizing BDO UAE to verify statements contained in this application and to make any necessary reference checks.

BDO UAE reserves the right to modify this policy by posting changes to the careers page on our website (www.bdo.ae/en-gb/careers/). If you submit your data following the effective date of a modified policy, your information will be handled in accordance with the policy in effect at that time. We recommend that you check the Privacy Notice on our website each time you send BDO UAE an application or additional candidate data.

Information we collect

We may collect your personal information from a variety of sources, including information we collect from you directly (e.g. when you apply for a job, during your employment, following termination of employment, etc.), and information we collect about you from other sources (where permitted by law).

Certain personal information is required as a consequence of the contractual relationship we would have with you when we employ you, to enable us to carry out our contractual obligations to you. Failure to provide this information may prevent or delay the fulfilment of these obligations.

Information we collect directly from you

This Privacy Notice covers any candidate data you submit to BDO UAE for the recruiting process. This may include but is not limited to the following information:

your name, contact details and candidate status (including family details);
information included in your CV or cover letter, such as job history, academic background, skills and competencies, personal interests, languages spoken, questionnaire results;
job preferences and type of employment sought, willingness to relocate;
current and historic salary details together with salary expectations;
assessment: CV, psychometric tests (such as a situational judgement test, ability or personality test), interview (face to face, telephone or video), behavioral assessments (such as a role play, group exercise or presentation), medical assessment details, technical assessments;
names and contact details for references. Please note that it is your responsibility to obtain consent from your references prior to providing us with personal information about them.

Information we collect from other sources

The following are examples of the categories of information we may collect from other sources. These sources include former employers, recruitment agencies, and referrals, amongst others:

personal details (e.g. name, age, date of birth);
contact details (e.g. phone number, email address, postal address);
personal information, educational and career background (e.g. references from former employers, information from recruiters, other BDO Member firms where employees are on secondment, etc.), other background checks and employment medical verification, as required under local laws and regulations;
information from professional bodies where the employee is undertaking training or is a member (e.g. ACCA, ICAI, IIA, amongst others, details of any disciplinary actions, soft skills and other training needs, etc.);
other information about you and your family (e.g. gender, marital status, family status);
employment administration data (e.g. tax payment details, where applicable).
information from government sources (e.g. visa details, past employment history, immigration records, etc.).

For the avoidance of doubt, BDO UAE does not wish to receive any confidential or proprietary information which you have received from your previous employers.

How we use your personal information and the basis on which we use it?

The personal data you provide in your application and as part of the recruitment process will only be held and processed to facilitate the selection process and in connection with any subsequent employment. Your personal data may be used to assess your application for employment at BDO UAE, to verify your information, to conduct reference checks, to communicate with you and to inform you of further career opportunities.

We will have a legal basis to process your personal information. In most cases the legal basis will be one of the following:

Contractual obligations:

to fulfil our contractual obligations to you, for example to ensure that your salary is paid correctly, and to ensure you have appropriate access to our premises.

Legal and regulatory obligations:

In order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations in relation to anti-money laundering and sanctions restrictions, we will screen your name against global sanctions lists. The screening will simply involve searching our internal and third-party databases to ensure you are not on a sanctioned list. We are not able to employ anyone on a sanctions list.
In addition, in order to comply with our legal obligations relating to anti-bribery and corruption, we will also perform searches and ask questions to assess whether there is a potential bribery or corruption risk to the role based on your personal and political associations. If there is a risk, we will look to assess what additional internal controls we need to put in place to reduce that risk.
Given the nature of our business, we have legal and regulatory obligations to ensure that the people we employ can be relied upon to handle client money and information responsibly. We therefore ask questions about any prior civil or criminal proceedings you may have been subject to and may also conduct criminal record checks.

Legitimate interests:

to meet our legitimate interests, for example to ensure that we can provide you with any services, for example HR services from us, and that our records are kept up to date and accurate; etc. When we process your personal information to meet our legitimate interests we put in place robust safeguards to ensure that your privacy is protected and to ensure that our legitimate interests are not overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.

In the event of your application resulting in the offer and your acceptance of a position at BDO UAE, the data collected will become part of your employment record and will be used for employment purposes.

Your rights over your personal information

Please let us know if any of the personal information that we hold about you changes so that we can correct and update the information on our systems. It is your responsibility to keep your personal information up to date so that accurate application records can be maintained.

You can view, delete, correct or update the personal information you provide to us by sending an email to the HR Recruitment team.

To exercise any of the above rights, please contact the HR Recruitment team.

Information sharing

In general, we do not share your personal information with third parties (other than service providers acting on our behalf) unless we have a lawful basis for doing so.

Only selected employees of BDO UAE - such as management team members, potential future line managers or HR staff - and selected third parties who support us with the recruitment process will have access to your personal data.

The recruitment process will involve:

assessing and progressing your application;
assessing your suitability (skills, strengths, behaviors for the role);
activities needed to complete the on-boarding and screening process should your application be successful.

To enable these processes your personal information may be shared internally, but the information shared is limited to what is required by each individual to perform their role in the recruitment process.

Your personal information may be shared internally with the following people, as a minimum but not limited to:

employees in HR who have responsibility for certain HR processes (for example recruitment, assessment, pre-employment screening);
those employees who would have managerial responsibility for you or are acting on their behalf;
employees in Legal, Conduct, Risk, HR, Regulatory and Fraud with responsibility for investigating issues of non-compliance with laws and regulations, policies and contractual requirements;
employees in IT and system owners who manage user access;
audit and Investigations employees in relation to specific audits/investigations; and
administrators / security managers for facilities / premises.

Except as set out in this policy or as required by local law (e.g. for processing of employment visa, conducting background checks using third party solutions, etc.), your personal data will not be supplied to any third party without your explicit authorization.

Information security

We have implemented generally accepted standards of technology and operational security to protect personal information from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. We require all employees and principals to keep personal information confidential and only authorized personnel have access to this information.

Your personal data shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for the recruitment process. In addition to using your data for the position for which you have applied, BDO UAE may retain and use your application data to consider you for other positions, for a maximum period of 24 months. Therefore, unsuccessful application data will be deleted after the period of 24 months from completion of the hiring process.

If after this period, we feel it necessary to retain your records, we will write to you. The request to retain your records will set out the reasons why we wish to hold the information for a longer time period. If you do not want to be considered for other positions, BDO UAE will delete all your data. If we do not receive a response within 4 weeks, we will delete your records.

If your application has been successful and you are hired, the corresponding application data may be used in connection with your employment consistent with data protection policies.

Contact us

If you have questions or concerns regarding the way in which your personal information has been used, please contact the Talent & Culture team or the Data Privacy Champion. We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about privacy.

Changes to privacy notice

You may request a copy of this privacy notice from us using the contact details set out above. We may modify or update this privacy notice from time to time. You will be able to see when we last updated the privacy notice because we will include a revision date. Changes and additions to this privacy notice are effective from the date on which they are posted. Please review this privacy notice from time to time to check whether we have made any changes to the way in which we use your personal information.

Last modified 30 April 2025