Privacy notice for appointments to Advisory Committees, the Science Council and associated subgroups

The Food Standards Agency will be what is known as the ‘Controller’ of the personal data provided to us.

Why we need it

We need to collect this information for recruiting new members to our Advisory Committees, Science Council and other associated subgroups, and in carrying out the day-to-day business of running them.  

This may include your name, contact details, employment history, qualifications, CV and other background information relevant to your application including sift and interview assessments, declarations of interest, and political activity and also include other information gathered by the FSA from you, or made public by you, as part of our pre-appointment checks.

Our legal basis for receiving and using this information is that FSA has both a legal obligation, and public task, to collect this data to ensure that high quality candidates are identified via robust recruitment processes. We also process your data on the legal basis that it is necessary prior to entering into a contract/terms of appointment to carry out pre-appointment checks. We may process special category data, as defined by UK GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act 2018, which comes to light as part of this process or where it is of substantial public interest in order to carry out our functions.

We will also ask you to consider providing us with Diversity data. This involves collecting special category data including but not limited to gender, ethnicity, and disability. Completing the Diversity Monitoring form is voluntary, and you are free to select the 'Prefer not to say' option if you wish for any of the questions. As with all the information you provide in the form, any information you provide will be treated as strictly confidential. It will be detached from your application and will not be used in the selection process. No information will be published or used in any way which allows any individual to be identified.

We seek to collect this information on the basis that it is necessary for the purposes of identifying or keeping under review the existence or absence of equality of opportunity or treatment between groups of people with a view to enabling such equality to be promoted or maintained. It is not carried out for the purposes of measures or decisions with respect to your application.

Whether you are successful in your application or not, as an expert in your field, we would like your support on an ad hoc basis in the appraisal of project proposals and evaluation of final reports. We will ask you as part of the recruitment process if you consent to us maintaining your details on our Register of Specialists for this purpose and in accordance with our Privacy notice for FSA Register of Specialists.

How and where we store your data and who we may share it with

For more information, please see the How and where we store your data and who we may share it with section in our Personal Information Charter.

We may share your application data with external consultants who assist us in the recruitment of members and where we do so we will ensure that the necessary safeguards are in place for your information in accordance with UK GDPR. 

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary to carry out these functions, and in line with our retention policy. This means that this information will be retained for 18 months if you have applied to become a member of our Advisory Committees, Science Council or other associated subgroups,  and have been unsuccessful, and 12 months beyond the end date of your most recent appointment term if you have been appointed onto it. We will retain the personal information of co-opted members of subgroups for 12 months after the group has been disbanded. 

International transfers

For more information on international transfers, please see the International transfers section in our Personal Information Charter.

EU citizens

For more information on EU Citizens Privacy Notice, please see the EU citizens section in our Personal Information Charter.

Your rights

For more information on your rights, please see the Your rights section in our Personal Information Charter.

Contact us

If you have any queries concerning this Privacy Notice, your personal information or any questions on our use of the information, please email our Data Protection Officer in the FSA, who is the Information Management and Security Team Leader using the address below.