Last updated: 01/02/21
Astellas Pharma Europe Ltd ("Astellas") respects your right to privacy. This Privacy Notice explains who we are and how we process the personal information collected from you, or that you provide to us, in connection with our recruitment processes in Astellas and how you can exercise your privacy rights. Please note that this Privacy Notice only applies to the personal information of job applicants, potential candidates for roles at Astellas and our recruiting programs; it does not apply to our employees, contractors or clients, or other personal information that we collect for other purposes. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, then please contact us using the contact details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Notice.
What does Astellas do?
Astellas Pharma is a global pharmaceutical business, whose ultimate parent company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Our mission is to improve the lives of patients in the following key areas: transplantation, urology, oncology and anti-infectives. For more information about Astellas, please see the "About" section of our Website at https://www.astellas.com/eu/about/.
What personal information does Astellas collect and why?
The personal information that we may collect about you broadly falls into the following categories:
Information that you provide voluntarily when you apply for a role
You may provide to Astellas (or to a third party recruitment agency working for or on behalf of Astellas) certain personal information about yourself in the context of applying for a role in our organisation. The types of personal information we may process include:
Types of personal information
- Personal information allowing your identification: title, surname, first name, date and place of birth
- Personal information provided by you to contact you and to allow practical organisation of the recruitment, onboarding and contract processes: street, postcode, place, country, telephone and fax number, email address, links to social media accounts, etc
- Personal information provided by you to allow the verification of your eligibility for a role in Astellas: nationality, visa/immigration status, education and training (diplomas awarded), professional experience and employment history (job title, length, company name, company type, main tasks and responsibilities), linguistic and job related skills and competencies, any publications you have made, your participation in any professional and/or scientific associations
- Personal information included in any motivation or cover letter that you may have drafted to express your interest for a role in Astellas and in any CV or Resume that you may submit to us
- In case of any eligibility, admission, personality tests & profiles that we may ask you to participate: results of written and oral tests that you may be asked to undertake for a role in Astellas including notes from interviews that may be conducted with you during the recruitment process
As a general rule, during the recruitment process, we try not to collect or process any of the following information that reveals your racial or ethnic origin, religious, political or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of unique identification, or information concerning your health or sex life ("Sensitive Personal Information"), unless authorised by law or where necessary to comply with applicable laws.
However, in some circumstances, we may need to collect, or request on a voluntary basis, some Sensitive Personal Information for legitimate recruitment-related purposes: for example, information about your racial/ethnic origin, gender and disabilities for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring, to comply with anti- discrimination laws and for government reporting obligations; or information about your physical or mental condition to consider accommodations for the recruitment process and/or subsequent job role. You may provide, on a voluntary basis, other Sensitive Personal Information during the recruitment process.
In addition, to the extent permitted by applicable law, we may undertake criminal background checks for applicants to certain roles which shall involve the processing of criminal convictions or offences information.
If we ask you to provide any other personal information not described above, then the personal information we will ask you to provide, and the reasons why we ask you to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we collect your personal information.
Information that we collect automatically
If we ask you to submit a job application via an electronic or online platform, we may also collect certain information automatically from your device. In some countries, including countries in the European Economic Area, this information may be considered personal information under applicable data protection laws.
Specifically, the information we collect automatically may include information like your IP address, device type, unique device identification numbers, browser-type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city-level location) and other technical information. We may also collect information about how your device has interacted with our website, including the pages accessed and links clicked.
Collecting this information enables us to better understand the visitors who come to such platform or tool or website, where they come from, and what content on them is of interest to them. We use this information for our internal analytics purposes and to improve the quality and relevance of those tools to our visitors.
Some of this information may be collected using cookies and similar tracking technology, as explained further under the heading “Cookies and similar tracking technology” below.
Information that we obtain from third party sources
We may receive personal information about you from third party sources such as professional recruiting firms, your references, prior employers, our employees with whom you have interviewed, and employment background check providers. Please note that if you provide any personal information concerning any other person, such as individuals you provide as references, you are responsible for ensuring that you have their consent to provide this information to us.
We may work with vendors who provide us with the facility to link the data you provide to us, with other publicly available information about you that you have published on the job related networks such as as LinkedIn.
We may receive your personal information from a third party such as a recruitment agency who recommend you as a candidate for a specific job opening or for our business more generally.
The types of information we collect from third parties include information about your professional experience and your performance in previous roles and we use the information we receive from these third parties to validate your previous experiences and assist in ensuring the accuracy of the information we retain about you.
In general, we will use the personal information we collect from you only for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice or for purposes that we explain to you at the time we collect your personal information. However, we may also use your personal information for other purposes that are not incompatible with the purposes we have disclosed to you (such as archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes) if and where this is permitted by applicable data protection laws.
How do we use your personal information?
We use personal information held about you for the following purposes:
- To evaluate your application in respect of a role for which you have applied and reach a recruitment decision;
- To evaluate your application in respect of other roles or future roles;
- To communicate with you in relation to our recruitment process;
- To enhance any information that we receive from you with information obtained from third party providers according to the above;
- To verify the data you submit and carry out reference checks and/or to conduct criminal background checks as permitted by applicable law;
- To find appropriate candidates to fill our job posts;
- To document our recruitment processes; and
- To protect our legal rights and ensure compliance with legal requirements.
Legal basis for processing personal information (EEA visitors only)
If you are a visitor from the European Economic Area, our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.
In principle, we rely on legitimate interest as the lawful basis on which we process your personal information. Our legitimate interest is the recruitment of personnel for our business.
We will normally collect personal information from you because processing will be necessary in order to take steps at your request to evaluate your submission for a role in Astellas prior to potentially entering into an contract with you, to comply with applicable immigration and/or employment laws and regulations and in our legitimate interests. We may also collect your information where we have your consent to do so or to protect the rights and interests of Astellas, our employees, applicants and others, as required and permitted by applicable law.
Although we aim to minimize the amount of Sensitive Personal Information that we process, we may process such Sensitive Personal Information in certain circumstances, when we are required to do so by law (e.g. equal opportunity monitoring) or we are performing a criminal background check or during the recruitment phase. If we are not already permitted by applicable laws to process your Sensitive Personal Information for the purposes it is required, then we will obtain your consent to our use of your Sensitive Personal Information. Where we ask for your consent, you have the right to decline to provide your consent and/or (if provided) to withdraw your consent at any time.
If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
Who does Astellas share my personal information with?
We may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients:
to our group companies and to third party services providers and partners who provide data processing services to us, or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Notice or notified to you when we collect your personal information. In general, we use third party services providers who may assist us in recruiting talent, administering and evaluating pre-employment screening and testing, and improving our recruiting practices. For example:
- recruitment or executive search agencies involved in your recruitment
- background checking or other screening providers and relevant local criminal records checking agencies
- data storage, shared services and recruitment platform providers, IT developers and support providers and providers of hosting services in relation to our careers website
- third parties who provide support and advice including in relation to legal, financial, audit, management consultancy, insurance, health and safety, security and intel and whistleblowing / reporting issues
In addition, your personal information may be also processed by recruiters and interviewers working in the country where the position for which you are applying is based, as well as by recruiters and interviewers working in different countries within Astellas global organization. Individuals performing administrative functions and IT personnel within Astellas may also have a limited access to your personal information to perform their jobs. A list of our current group companies is available here;
- to any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
- to a potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, joint venture, assignment, transfer, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the other party it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice;
- to any other person with your consent to the disclosure.
Cookies and similar tracking technology
If you are asked to submit a job application via an electronic or online platform, we may use cookies and similar tracking technology (collectively, “Cookies”) to collect and use personal information about you. For further information about the types of Cookies we use, why, and how you can control Cookies, please see our Cookie Notice [https://www.astellas.com/eu/cookies-policy/].]
How does Astellas keep my personal information secure?
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information that we collect and process about you. The measures we use are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal information. Specific measures we use include indicatively the following: (a) only authorised personnel will have access to your personal information and your application, (b) access is protected via passwords.
International data transfers
Your personal information may be transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the country in which you are resident. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country and, in some cases, may not be as protective.
Our group companies and third party service providers and partners operate around the world. This means that when we collect your personal information we may process it in any of these countries.
However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice. These include implementing the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers of personal information between our group companies, which require all group companies to protect personal information they process from the EEA in accordance with European Union data protection law.
Our Standard Contractual Clauses can be provided on request. We have implemented similar appropriate safeguards with our third party service providers and partners and further details can be provided upon request.
Data retention
If you accept an offer of a role with us, any relevant personal information collected before you start your role will become part of your file and will be retained in accordance with specific country requirements. If we do not hire you, we may continue to retain and use your personal information for a period of time (which may vary depending on the country) for system administration purposes, to consider you for potential future roles. In principle, if you do not succeed in your application, we will delete your personal information in accordance with the table below, unless you ask us to retain the information longer or to delete it earlier.
EU & UK | 6 months from application |
Portugal | 5 years from creation of profile |
Other Countries | 1 year from creation of profile |
Your data protection rights
You have the following data protection rights:
- If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
- In addition, if you are a resident of the European Union, you can object to processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. Again, you can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
- Similarly, if we have collected and process your sensitive personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
- You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority. (Contact details for data protection authorities in the European Economic Area are available here.)
We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
Updates to this Privacy Notice
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Notice changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.
You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the top of this Privacy Notice.
How to contact us
To exercise any of your privacy rights, please submit your query here. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, you can also contact our data protection officer using the following details: [email protected].
The data controller of your personal information is Astellas Pharma Europe Ltd which is registered with the Information Commissioners Office with registration number Z9277276
MAT-GB-NON-2024-00086 April 2024