Privacy Statement for Applicants

Concern Worldwide and its subsidiaries (specifically, Concern Worldwide (UK), Concern Worldwide (Northern Ireland) and Concern Charity Trading) (“Concern”, “we”, “our”, “us”) are committed to processing the personal data of its applicants in a fair, lawful, and transparent manner. The integrity and security of your data is important to the organisation and Concern is committed to complying with all applicable data protection legislation including the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 and the UK GDPR as incorporated into United Kingdom law pursuant to Section 3 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (together the “GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act(s) 2018, with the UK Acts amended and updated by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. 

This privacy statement (“Statement”) applies to applicants (“Applicants”, “you”, “your”) applying for roles with Concern (includes those applying for full-time, part-time, temporary, permanent, consultant, volunteer or Board roles). 

The purpose of the Statement is to explain how Concern intends to use the personal data (“Data”) you provide to us in the course of your application or which we otherwise collect or receive about you, how and why we use it, who will have access to it and your rights in relation to it. When we process your personal data as part of a job or volunteer application or to be part of our Board, the Concern entity that is processing your application acts as the Data Controller of your Data. If it is not clear to you which Concern entity this is, please email dpo@concern.net.  

If you are successful in applying for a role at Concern, prior to commencing your role you will be provided with our Employee Privacy Statement which outlines the way in which we use the Data of our employees, directors, volunteers and consultants.

Concern commits itself to adhering to the principles of data protection as laid down by the GDPR when processing Applicant Data.  

This means that your Data will be: 

• Processed lawfully, fairly and transparently; 
• Collected for a specified, explicit and legitimate purpose; 
• Adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary; 
• Accurate and kept up to date; 
• Kept in a form which permits identification for no longer than necessary; and 
• Subject to appropriate security. Concern employs technological and physical resources to protect your Data from unauthorised access, deletion, corruption or alteration.

The Data we collect is the information necessary to assess an application for a role, such as the Applicant’s name and address and work history. This may include sensitive Data as defined by the GDPR. Further details are provided below.  

Concern collects Data about its Applicants through the recruitment process, including the following categories of information: 

If we make you an offer, your Basic Information and Application Information is needed to enter into a contract of employment/engagement with us. We cannot complete your contract without it. 

Concern obtains personal information about you from a number of sources, including: 

• from you, when you provide us with your Data, for example when you fill out application form(s) on your applicant profile (or otherwise), apply for roles, provide us with your contact details or provide us with any further information in connection with your application; 
• through creating our own internal records, including Interview Records;  
• from third parties, for example where they provide us with certain of your Application Information (e.g. references/ counter terrorism checks/ garda vetting checks), social media such as LinkedIn, job portals, recruitment agencies, Company Registration Office/ Companies House or any other information relating to your application.

Concern Worldwide is unequivocally opposed to all forms of criminality, violence and terrorism and strongly condemns and prohibits support of any kind to individuals or organisations involved/associated with such activities.  It is important that Concern has effective, integrated and proportionate measures in place to ensure that its resources are used only for purposes that are consistent with its mission and that it avoids inadvertently lending support or allowing its resources to be diverted to individuals or organisations engaged in any form of criminality, violence or terrorism.  Concern’s policies and processes in this space are drawn from: Financial Action Task Force recommendation 8, national and European legislation as it relates to money laundering and terrorist financing, international sanctions and the guidance of regulators.  

Concern will carry out checks for certain categories of employees to ensure that names do not appear on watch lists of suspected terrorists maintained by international organisations. These include: 

• The European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation EC No. 2580/2001 applies). 
• The US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons). 
• The United Nations (Consolidated List). 

 In some circumstances, an offer of employment or a voluntary role with Concern will only be made once a clearance check against these lists has been conducted. Any such checks will be carried out in full compliance with the appropriate data protection legislation.  

Please be aware that Concern will not proceed with your application should your name appear on any of the aforementioned lists. 

For additional information please consult our website or contact careers@concern.net    

Concern is required by law to ensure access to children and vulnerable adults is only given to individuals who have undergone sufficient checks including police background checks. 

In addition, Concern may determine that certain roles or assignments have been designated as having safeguarding, financial and/or other reputational risks, and if so, the following additional considerations apply. 

• Concern may ask you before offering you a role/assignment that involves access to children or vulnerable adults to declare whether or not you have any legal impediment which would prevent you engaging with children or vulnerable adults.  
• Where appropriate, you may be asked to undergo police checking (in England and Wales this is called a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and in Northern Ireland an Access NI check is carried out) or source a similar police check from your country of normal domicile before commencing this assignment.  

Where possible and with your agreement, Concern may be able to assist or undertake this for you. 

The legal impediments which may prevent Concern from engaging you in such an assignment are: 

• Offences against the person including but not limited to murder, manslaughter, assault, harassment, etc. 
• Offences of a sexual nature including but not limited to rape or sexual assault etc. 
• Offences involving financial abuses including but not limited to fraud, bribery, extortion, theft etc. 

Any disclosures made to Concern in this respect will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. If you are unsure or want to discuss any concern you have in relation to this, please talk to us. False declarations made by  you in relation to any of the matters discussed or disclosed in this regard may result in termination of your contract (if offered) at a later stage. 

In the UK, at the offer stage Concern in some cases as described above will carry out a Basic DBS / Access NI check. 

Having a criminal record will not necessarily debar you from working with Concern Worldwide. This will depend on the nature of the position, together with the circumstances and background of your offences.  

 The Secure Handling Use Storage and Retention of Disclosure Information 

https://www.concern.org.uk/jobs/recruiting-people-criminal-records  

Access NI privacy policy here 

Access NI Code of Conduct here 

DBS privacy policy here 

We retain your Concern applicant profile for 13 months to demonstrate fairness in hiring. It is then deleted automatically, or retained if you have consented to Concern retaining your Application Information so that you can be considered for subsequent vacancies. You may request that Concern deletes your profile at any time both within your profile or by contacting your recruitment point of contact or dpo@concern.net.  (Any deletion is subject to the 13 months). 

Your Basic Information, Application Information, Interview Records and Sensitive Data may be shared internally between Concern’s offices, subsidiaries and affiliates to consider your application and for the purpose of administering your application /reference checking / candidate vetting etc. This means that your data may be shared outside of the EEA or UK. 

Concern relies on the European Commission’s adequacy decisions and/or the UK adequacy regulations on certain countries to transfer your Personal Information from the EEA [to the UK, and from the UK. Please find a list of the European Commission’s adequacy decisions here. Please find a list of the UK adequacy regulations here.  For data transfers from the EEA to countries or international organisations which have not been determined to be adequate, we utilise Standard Contractual Clauses which have been approved by the European Commission. For data transfers from the UK, we utilise the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, as appropriate, which have been approved by the UK Parliament.  For more information on the appropriate safeguards that are in place for the data transfers we carry out, or to obtain a copy of our Standard Contractual Clauses or International Data Transfer Agreement/Addendum, please contact us at dpo@concern.net. 

Concern will not use your Data for any purpose other than assessing your suitability for filling a vacancy with Concern.

You have rights under data protection law, regarding how Concern collects and uses your Data. You can exercise these rights at any time by contacting us via email at preferences@concern.net or in writing at: The Data Protection Officer, Concern Worldwide, 52/55 Lower Camden Street, Dublin 2, Ireland. 

• You have the right to access Data we hold which relates to you, and related information including how we acquired such Data where it wasn’t provided by you, and the purposes for which it is being used. 
• You have the right to have inaccurate Data rectified. If you discover that we hold inaccurate Data about you, you have a right to instruct us to correct that information. 
• In certain circumstances, you have the right of erasure. This means that you can request that Concern removes any and all references to you from our records and systems. We will comply with all such requests in a timely manner, as required by the GDPR, unless a permissible exemption to erasure applies, for example a legal obligation that requires us to retain your Data.    
• You have the right, at all times, to object to marketing communications including opting out of being contacted for future roles. When we receive an objection from you, such as by unsubscribing from electronic marketing communications or opting out of postal marketing, Concern will stop sending marketing communications to that number, email or postal address.    
• You may also have the right to object to our processing of your Data, where that processing is based on our legitimate interests, unless we have compelling grounds or otherwise need your Data for legal reasons. 
• Where we process your Data based on your consent, such as to contact you for subsequent vacancies you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time with effect for the future. The withdrawal of your consent does not affect the use of your information before the withdrawal. 
• You also have the right to request that we restrict our processing of your Data, and a right to Data portability, i.e. the right to have your Data transmitted to you or another party in a portable format, which may be applicable in certain circumstances. 

If you feel Concern Worldwide (UK) has infringed any of its obligations under data protection law while processing your Data or failed to deal with your request in relation to your Data appropriately, please let us know and we will do everything we can to rectify the situation. 

Our Complaints Policy provides effective ways to raise a complaint with us and ensures that in response we take appropriate and timely action. You can send your complaint to the Supporter Care Manager through the following channels: 

• Using our online contact form
• By phone – Freephone 0800 032 4001 
• By post – marked ‘Private & Confidential’ to: Supporter Care Manager, Concern Worldwide (UK), 17 Frederick Street, Belfast, BT1 2LW  

Please be sure to include sufficient details to assist us with investigating the complaint, such as your name, phone number and/or email address so that we can contact you, details of the infringement and approximate date if known. 

You can expect your complaint to be acknowledged within 2 working days, other than in exceptional circumstances, and to hear further from us within 30 days of receipt of your complaint.

If you feel your personal data has been processed inappropriately, please let us know and we will do everything we can to rectify the situation. You can email our DPO at dpo@concern.net.

If you feel your data protection rights and freedoms have been infringed, and you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, you can also lodge a complaint with the appropriate supervisory authority.  

 For UK Applicants you can contact the Information Commission (IC) in writing at The Information Commission, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow SK9 5AF, UK, online at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ or by calling 003 123 1113. 

 For EU applicants you can complain to the Irish Data Protection Commission, in writing at the Data Protection Commission, 6 Pembroke Row, Dublin 2, DO2 X963, Ireland, online at How can I contact the DPC? | Data Protection Commissioner or by phone at (01) 765 01 00 or 1800 437 437 another EU supervisory authority.