Compliance with data protection regulations is very important to us. In the following, if you contact us or apply for a job, we would like to inform you about the processing of your personal data by Continental Search Alliance (CSA) and the rights to which you are entitled under data protection.
All information applies both to applications for positions advertised by us on behalf of customers and to unsolicited applications. This information also includes personal data in the context of proactive contact on our part.
Proactive contact is made with the purpose of attracting potential applicants, interested parties and/or customers.
Please read all the information carefully before sending us your application or contacting us or confirming contact requests via social media.
1. Who we are and what this policy is
Welcome to CSA and its Partners in countries throughout Europe and Asia. We are an alliance of Recruitment firms and support many of the world’s most respected companies and organizations. We provide a variety of services to these clients and other parties, including, but not limited to executive search and recruitment. For additional information on our Services please visit
https://www.continental-search.com. Our Partners provide these services from 12 offices in various countries.
We respect the privacy of our clients, candidates and other users of our Services and are committed to protecting your personal data and information according to the applicable laws. This privacy policy (''Policy'') explains how, to what extent and for what purposes we are collecting and subsequently processing personal data and information.
CSA takes its responsibility for the processing of your personal data and information very seriously, whether provided to us on our website, via email, via social networking sites, in person or otherwise.
2. Who is responsible for processing my data and who is the data protection officer?
The person responsible for data processing is any of the locally based Partners of Continental Search Alliance (CSA) as listed at
https://www.continental-search.com, as the case may be.
3. What personal data do we process and where does it come from?
As part of an application process or a contact confirmation, after receipt of your application or activation of your contact details, we process the data that you have given us or one of our consultants m/f and that we use for the purpose of carrying out an application process with one of our customers or contacting you with the aim of opening an application process with one of our customers.
These are in particular:
- Your master data (in particular surname, first name, name suffixes and date of birth),
- your contact details (address, e-mail, telephone number),
- Your information provided to prove your qualifications and the
- Documents you have sent to us for this purpose and their content (e.g. letter of application, curriculum vitae, certificates, proof of activity, references, residence permit, work permit).
You are not obliged to provide us with the aforementioned data. Please note, however, that it is very likely that we will not be able to consider your application without your master data, without your contact details or without proof of qualification.
In addition, we process such personal data that we have obtained in a permissible manner from publicly accessible sources or personal contacts (e.g. from professional social networks) for the purpose of establishing contact or after receipt of your application for the purpose of carrying out the application process.
4. Are special categories of personal data processed?
In principle, we do not process special categories of personal data within the meaning of Art. 9 DS-GVO as part of the application process.
For this reason, we expressly ask you not to provide us with any data that reveals your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or ideological beliefs or any trade union membership. Please also refrain from providing us with genetic or biometric data relating to your person, as well as data relating to your health, your sex life or your sexual orientation.
If you nevertheless voluntarily provide us with special categories of personal data as part of your application or when contacting us (e.g. provide information about an existing severe disability or attach a photo to your application that e.g. shows glasses and thus a visual impairment), we will understand your message as yours Consent that we may process the relevant data after receipt of your application for the purpose of carrying out the application process within the legally permissible framework. We expressly point out that this consent is voluntary and has no effect on your chances in the application process. You can also revoke your consent to us or our data protection officer at any time without giving reasons, without affecting the legality of the processing carried out on the basis of the consent up to the revocation.
5. Who receives or has access to your personal data?
Only those people within our Partners offices who need your data for the decision to establish an employment relationship and the subsequent implementation of the decision made will have access to your personal data. This may also include any of our partners, with whom we process your data jointly.
- When contacting you to ask our customers about your interest in career prospects and job offers. Contact is made with the greatest possible confidentiality, usually by telephone or e-mail.
- In the case of an application for a job offer or an unsolicited application, your data is used for an internal evaluation in order to assess your qualification for a job offer/mandate with one of our customers.
- After you have informed us of your express interest in one of the job offers / mandates with one of our customers in a personal conversation or telephone call, they will then receive customers known to you by name, access to your personal data. The mutually and mutually agreed objective is the establishment of an employment relationship and the subsequent implementation of the decision made with the customers who are known to you by name
- You will be informed verbally or/and in most cases also in writing by e-mail that your data will be passed on
No other people will have access to your data.
6. On what legal basis is your data processed?
We process your personal data as part of the application process or to establish contact with the aim of establishing an application process or a business partnership only insofar as this is permitted by an applicable legal regulation, i.e. in particular in compliance with the provisions of the GDPR
6.1 The primary - but not exclusive - legal basis for data processing by our company is Ar. 6 paragraph 1 a, b and f; possibly in connection with Article 88 GDPR.
6.2 If, as part of your application or the initiation of a business relationship, you have informed us of special categories of personal data within the meaning of Art consent given to data sharing. With regard to any severe disability/equality that you may have notified, data processing is also carried out to fulfill our legal obligations under labor law, social security law and social protection. The relevant standards are Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR, Article 9 (2) (a) and (b) GDPR and, if applicable, Article 88 GDPR.
7. Will your data be transferred to a third country, i.e. to a country outside the EU or the EEA?
Since we work with international Partners and Customers, it may occasionally happen that your data as an applicant is also transmitted to Partners and customers in third countries. You will be informed of this transfer beforehand. This means that before the transmission you will receive information about the potential recipient and to which third country the transmission is to take place. If this third country does not have an adequate level of data protection, you will be informed of this in advance.
8. Do only automated individual decisions or profiling measures take place?
No. We do not use purely automated processing processes to bring about a decision - including profiling - on the establishment of an employment relationship. Our decisions about establishing an employment relationship are made by people.
9. How long will my personal data be stored?
In principle, we delete your personal data if the processing purpose no longer applies, provided there are no legal obligations to the contrary (e.g. obligations to provide evidence and storage due to tax and occupational safety laws and contractual obligations with our customers).
If your application or our contact with you leads to you establishing an employment relationship with one of our customers, we will store your data for as long as we need it for the lawful and proper establishment, implementation and termination of the employment relationship during the probationary period. We then delete your data, provided there are no legal obligations to the contrary (e.g. obligations to provide evidence and storage due to tax and occupational safety laws and contractual obligations with our customers).
If, on the other hand, your application or our contact does not lead to the establishment of an employment relationship, but to a rejection (either by you or by us), we will store your data for as long as is necessary to defend against any claims resulting from the rejection of the application Rule for six months from the given refusal.
In the event of a rejection or a lack of interest (either from you or from us), we will ask you in writing whether you agree to a longer storage of your data, in particular your application documents, with the aim of sending you further job offers from our customers that are of interest to you from time to time submit to. If you give us a declaration of consent, we will store your data for two years, unless you request early deletion from us.
10. What rights can I assert regarding the processing of my personal data?
According to the GDPR, you can assert a number of data subject rights against us. To assert these rights, you can contact us using the contact details provided in Section 1. Your rights under the GDPR include in particular:
Right to information: You can request information about the data we have stored about you. This information concerns, among other things, the categories of data we process, the purposes for which we process them, the origin of the data if we have not collected it directly from you, and, if applicable, the recipients to whom we have transmitted your data. You can obtain a free copy of your data that is the subject of the agreement from us. If you are interested in additional copies, we reserve the right to charge you for the additional copies.
Right to correction and deletion: You can request us to correct incorrect or complete incomplete personal data concerning you. In addition, you can also request the deletion of your data. This may be the case, for example, if
- the data are no longer necessary for the purposes for which we collected or otherwise processed them;
- you revoke your consent, which is the basis for the data processing, and we have no other legal basis for the processing;
- you object to the processing of your data and there are no overriding legitimate reasons for the processing, or you object to data processing for direct marketing purposes;
- we have processed the data unlawfully; if the processing is not necessary,
- to ensure compliance with a legal obligation that requires us to process your data, in particular with regard to statutory retention periods;
- to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
Right to restriction of processing: You may also have the right to restrict the processing of your data, i.e. to mark the stored personal data with the aim of restricting their future processing.
- you contest the accuracy of the data, for the period that we need to verify the accuracy of the data;
- the processing is unlawful and you refuse the deletion of your data and instead request the restriction of use;
- we no longer need your data, but you need them to assert, exercise or defend legal claims;
- you have lodged an objection to the processing, as long as it is not certain whether our legitimate interests in the processing outweigh yours.
Right to data transferability: Finally, you may also have the right to the data concerning you that you have made available to us being issued in a structured, common and machine-readable format. You can transmit this data to another person responsible without hindrance. In addition, you can request that we transmit your data directly to another person responsible, insofar as this is technically possible.
Right to object: You can object to the processing of your data at any time for reasons that arise from your particular situation, provided that the data processing is based on our legitimate interests or those of a third party. In this case, we will no longer process your data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for processing that outweigh your interests, rights and freedoms or the processing serves to assert, exercise or defend legal claims. Your right to revoke your consent to processing is possible at any time, regardless of this right to object.
Right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority: You have the right to complain to the data protection supervisory authority responsible for you about our processing of your personal data if you believe that this violates applicable data protection law.
The data protection supervisory authority responsible for any of our European Partner offices is the local Supervisory Authority of any country in which we operate as the case may be, and in general the European Data Protection Supervisor as per below:
European Data Protection Supervisor
Bruxelles Headquarter
Postal address: Rue Wiertz 60, B-1047 Brussels
Office address: Rue Montoyer 30, B-1000 Brussels
Telephone: +32 2 283 19 00
Strasbourg Office
Postal address: 1 Allée du printemps, Louise Weiss Building, 67070 Strasbourg (France)
Telephone: + 33 3 88 16 43 46
11. Amendments to This Policy
From time to time we may change our business activities and/or our policies and procedures with respect to the Processing of Personal Information. Where appropriate in these cases, we will, subject to applicable law, revise, supplement, or replace this Policy. When the Policy changes, we will post the substitute version and change the effective date listed at the beginning of the Policy.
When required by applicable law, however, we may provide you with advance notice of any changes to this Policy and with an opportunity to object to such changes. If you exercise your right to object, the changes will not become effective with respect to your Personal Information, but your ability to use our Services may be terminated or impaired. We will explicitly notify you of the consequences of the objection or non-objection to the extent and in the manner required by law.