Privacy Notice

Application handling updated: 7 October 2026. Website preference and regulator references updated: 24 October 2026.

1. Who we are

Global Recruitment Consulting Ltd, trading as Global Retail Recruitment, is an international retail executive-search and recruitment consultancy.

For the purposes of UK data-protection law, we are the controller of the personal information described in this notice.

Company number: 06612799
Registered office: 33–35 Daws Lane, London, England, NW7 4SD
Website: www.globalretailrecruitment.com
Privacy contact: Neil Oviatt
Email: director@globalretailrecruitment.com
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7101 9416

This notice explains how we collect, use, share and protect personal information relating to candidates, prospective candidates, clients, prospective clients, referees, website visitors and other professional contacts.

We process personal information under the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, as amended, including by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

2. Personal information we may collect

The information we collect depends on your relationship with us.

Candidates and prospective candidates

We may collect:

• Your name, address, email address and telephone number.

• Your CV, employment history, education, qualifications and professional memberships.

• Your current and previous job titles, responsibilities and achievements.

• Your salary, remuneration, benefits and future compensation expectations.

• Your location, nationality, languages, availability and willingness to relocate or travel.

• Information about your right to work.

• References and information supplied by referees.

• Interview notes, assessments and correspondence.

• Your career preferences and the types of opportunities that may interest you.

• Publicly available professional information, including information published on company websites, professional directories and platforms such as LinkedIn.

• Information needed to complete appropriate identity, employment, qualification or background checks.

• Any other information you choose to include in a CV, application, email, message or conversation with us.

Clients and prospective clients

We may collect:

• Your name, job title and organisation.

• Your business email address, telephone number and other professional contact details.

• Information about vacancies, assignments and recruitment requirements.

• Records of meetings, calls, correspondence and commercial discussions.

• Contract, invoicing and transaction information.

• Information about your organisation that is publicly available or supplied to us in connection with an assignment.

Website visitors

We may collect:

• Your IP address.

• Browser, device and operating-system information.

• Referring website and pages viewed.

• Approximate location derived from an IP address.

• Website interactions, including links or calls-to-action selected.

• Cookie-consent choices.

• Information submitted through website forms.

• Security, error and server-log information.

• Information stored or accessed using cookies, local storage and similar technologies.

3. How we obtain personal information

We may receive information:

• Directly from you, including through our website, email, telephone, video calls, meetings and professional networking.

• From clients, colleagues, referees and people who recommend or refer you.

• From job boards, recruitment databases and professional networking platforms.

• From publicly available sources, including company websites, press articles, professional profiles and industry publications.

• From organisations that provide identity, reference, qualification or background-checking services.

• From website, hosting, security and analytics providers.

Where we obtain your information from another source, we will provide you with appropriate privacy information within the period required by law, unless a legal exception applies.

Please do not provide another person’s information unless you are authorised to do so.

4. How and why we use personal information

We only use personal information when we have a lawful basis.

Recruitment and executive search

We use candidate information to:

• Identify and assess potential candidates.

• Discuss career opportunities.

• Match candidates with relevant assignments.

• Prepare candidate profiles and shortlists.

• Present agreed candidate information to prospective employers.

• Arrange interviews and manage recruitment processes.

• Obtain references and carry out appropriate checks.

• Support negotiations, offers and placements.

• Maintain professional relationships for future opportunities.

We normally rely on our legitimate interests in operating an executive-search and recruitment business. We may also rely on steps taken at your request before entering a contract, performance of a contract, compliance with a legal obligation or consent where consent is appropriate.

We will normally discuss an opportunity with you before submitting identifiable information or a CV to a prospective employer.

Client services

We use client and business-contact information to:

• Respond to enquiries.

• Discuss recruitment requirements.

• Deliver retained, exclusive or contingency recruitment assignments.

• Identify and introduce suitable candidates.

• Manage contracts, assignments, invoicing and payments.

• Maintain records of our professional relationship.

• Inform relevant business contacts about our executive-search services.

We normally rely on performance of a contract, steps taken before entering a contract and our legitimate interests in developing and delivering our services.

Website operation, security and improvement

We may use technical and website information to:

• Operate and secure the website.

• Prevent spam, fraud, misuse and unauthorised access.

• Diagnose errors and technical problems.

• Understand which pages and services are useful.

• Measure website and campaign performance.

• Improve website content and user experience.

• Record and respect cookie or tracking preferences.

Depending on the technology and purpose, we rely on our legitimate interests, consent or an applicable exemption under PECR.

Administration and legal compliance

We may use information to:

• Maintain business, financial and tax records.

• Establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

• Respond to legal or regulatory requirements.

• Handle data-protection requests and complaints.

• Detect or prevent fraud and other unlawful activity.

• Protect our rights, property, systems and users.

We rely on legal obligations and our legitimate interests in managing and protecting our business.

5. Our legitimate interests

Where we rely on legitimate interests, those interests may include:

• Operating an international executive-search business.

• Identifying appropriate candidates for genuine vacancies and assignments.

• Helping candidates access relevant career opportunities.

• Developing and maintaining professional relationships.

• Communicating with relevant business contacts about our services.

• Improving and securing our website and systems.

• Preventing fraud and misuse.

• Maintaining evidence of transactions, instructions and communications.

• Protecting and enforcing our legal rights.

Before relying on legitimate interests, we consider whether the processing is necessary and balance our interests against the individual’s rights, interests and reasonable expectations.

You may object to processing based on legitimate interests by contacting us.

6. Marketing communications

We may contact relevant business people about executive-search and recruitment services where we believe the communication is professionally relevant.

We rely on consent where PECR requires consent. In other circumstances, we may rely on legitimate interests, subject to your right to object.

You can stop marketing communications at any time by:

• Selecting the unsubscribe option in an email.

• Replying and asking us to stop.

• Emailing director@globalretailrecruitment.com.

We may retain a minimal suppression record after an opt-out so that we can respect your choice.

We do not sell personal information.

7. Special-category and criminal-offence information

A CV or recruitment discussion may occasionally contain sensitive information, such as information about health, disability, race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, political opinions, trade-union membership, sexual orientation or biometric information.

We ask that you only provide this information when it is relevant and necessary.

Where we process special-category information, we will identify both a lawful basis and an additional condition under Article 9 of the UK GDPR. Where required, we will also meet the relevant conditions and safeguards under the Data Protection Act 2018.

We will only process criminal-conviction or offence information where it is necessary, lawful and supported by an appropriate condition under the Data Protection Act 2018.

8. Who we may share information with

Depending on the circumstances, we may share personal information with:

• Clients and prospective employers involved in relevant recruitment assignments.

• Other recruitment or search partners where appropriate.

• Referees and organisations carrying out authorised checks.

• Website hosting, email, cloud-storage, customer-management, security, analytics and IT providers.

• Professional advisers, including accountants, insurers, legal advisers and auditors.

• Government bodies, regulators, courts, law-enforcement agencies or other authorities where legally required.

• A purchaser, investor or successor if our business or assets are reorganised, transferred or sold.

Prospective employers and clients may act as separate controllers when they receive candidate information. Their own privacy notices will explain how they use that information.

Our service providers may only use information for the agreed service and must protect it appropriately.

9. International transfers

Global Retail Recruitment operates internationally, including across the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, GCC countries and Asia.

A recruitment assignment may therefore involve sending personal information to a client, prospective employer or service provider outside the United Kingdom.

Before presenting your identifiable information to an overseas employer, we will normally discuss the opportunity and proposed disclosure with you.

Where UK personal information is transferred internationally, we use an appropriate lawful transfer mechanism. Depending on the destination, this may include:

• UK adequacy regulations.

• The UK International Data Transfer Agreement.

• The UK Addendum to the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses.

• Another safeguard or exception permitted by data-protection law.

We also consider the risks associated with the destination and recipient and apply additional safeguards where necessary.

You may contact us for more information about safeguards applying to a particular transfer.

10. Cookies and website technology

Gulf Retail Jobs does not embed analytics or advertising scripts, or set an employer-popup local-storage flag. Hosting services may use necessary security or session technologies to provide access to the website.

Gulf pages and the shared Gulf forms serve their fonts directly from the website you are visiting. Loading these fonts does not contact Google’s font servers.

The optional LinkedIn feed is supplied by Elfsight. It loads only after you select Load LinkedIn feed, connecting your browser to the provider. Elfsight and LinkedIn may receive technical information and use their own cookies or similar technologies. You can instead follow the direct LinkedIn link without loading the feed here.

Registration, application and enquiry forms are hosted by Global Retail Recruitment and use Cloudflare Turnstile for security. Cookiebot manages cookie choices on those shared pages. The Global Retail Recruitment site also has an optional enquiry preference cookie with a 24-hour lifetime; its Gulf forms do not show the enquiry popup.

See our Cookie Policy for the technologies used and how the two websites differ. You can manage cookie choices for the shared forms on Global Retail Recruitment. Those choices do not control the optional Elfsight feed on gulfretailjobs.com. You can also clear or restrict cookies and website data in your browser settings.

11. How long we retain information

Website CV registrations and vacancy applications are normally transferred into eBoss without keeping a separate website copy. Returning candidates are matched using their verified email address, even if their name has changed. When a rejected registration is held for review, the CV, details and application answers are retained in a private review queue on our OpenAI Sites and Cloudflare hosting infrastructure. Neil reviews these submissions before applying any changes to eBoss. Access to the queue and CV downloads is restricted to Neil. Pending review copies are retained for up to 30 days; handled copies for up to seven further days within that same 30-day limit. Expired copies are removed during subsequent application or review-queue activity. Review alerts contain references and a private review link rather than CV attachments or application answers.

We do not keep personal information indefinitely. Retention depends on why the information was collected, whether our relationship remains active, legal limitation periods and applicable accounting or regulatory requirements.

Our usual retention approach is:

• Candidate and prospective-candidate records: normally retained for up to 36 months after the last meaningful contact or recruitment activity. We may retain information longer where you remain actively engaged with us, request continued representation or where retention is reasonably required for legal purposes.

• Client and business-contact records: retained while the relationship is active and afterwards where necessary for professional, contractual or legal purposes.

• Contracts, invoices and accounting records: normally retained for at least six years in accordance with applicable accounting, tax and legal requirements.

• Website enquiries: normally retained for up to 24 months unless they lead to an ongoing candidate or client relationship.

• Marketing records: retained while marketing remains relevant or until you object or unsubscribe. A minimal suppression record may be retained to respect an opt-out.

• Website and security logs: retained for the period reasonably necessary to operate, secure and diagnose the website.

• Cookie and analytics information: retained for the periods shown in the current Cookie Policy and consent tool.

• Optional website preferences: Gulf Retail Jobs does not store an employer-popup preference. On the shared Global Retail Recruitment website, the optional enquiry preference cookie lasts up to 24 hours and is removed when preference consent is withdrawn.

When information is no longer required, we delete it securely or anonymise it so that it can no longer identify an individual.

12. Security

We use proportionate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information. These may include:

• Multi-factor authentication.

• Access controls and password protection.

• Encrypted systems and backups where appropriate.

• Secure cloud and email providers.

• Device and network security.

• Confidentiality requirements.

• Secure destruction of paper records.

• Regular review of access and retention.

No internet transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. If we become aware of a personal-data breach, we will investigate and make any notifications required by law.

13. Automated decision-making and artificial intelligence

We do not make decisions about candidates that produce legal or similarly significant effects solely through automated processing.

Technology may assist with research, administration, document review, communication or candidate matching, but recruitment assessments, recommendations and decisions involve human judgement.

A client may operate its own assessment or decision-making systems. Where this happens, the client is responsible for explaining its processing.

14. Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:

• Be informed about how your personal information is used.

• Request access to your personal information.

• Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.

• Ask us to erase information.

• Ask us to restrict how information is used.

• Object to processing based on legitimate interests.

• Object at any time to direct marketing.

• Receive certain information in a portable format.

• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent.

• Challenge certain decisions made solely by automated means.

• Complain about our use of your information.

These rights are not absolute, and legal exemptions may apply. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

To exercise a right, email director@globalretailrecruitment.com.

We do not normally charge for a data-protection request. We will respond within the period required by law and will explain if we cannot comply fully.

15. Information you must provide

You can browse most of our website without submitting personal information.

You are not generally obliged to provide recruitment information. However, if you want us to represent you, consider you for an opportunity or deliver a service, we may need sufficient information to assess suitability, communicate with you and meet legal or client requirements.

If required information is not provided, we may be unable to progress an application, introduce you to a client or provide the requested service.

16. Links and third-party websites

Our website may contain links to LinkedIn, client websites, vacancy platforms and other third-party services.

We do not control how those organisations process personal information. You should review the privacy information provided by the relevant third party before submitting information or using its services.

17. Children

Our services are intended for adult professionals and business contacts. We do not knowingly provide recruitment services to children or intentionally collect children’s information through this website.

18. Privacy complaints

If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, please contact:

Privacy contact: Neil Oviatt
Email: director@globalretailrecruitment.com
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7101 9416
Post: Global Retail Recruitment, 33–35 Daws Lane, London, England, NW7 4SD

We will provide a clear way to make a data-protection complaint, acknowledge receipt within 30 days, investigate appropriately, keep you informed and communicate the outcome without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commission’s Office:

Information Commission’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complaints/

You may contact the ICO without contacting us first, although the ICO may recommend giving us an opportunity to resolve the matter.

19. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice when our services, technology, suppliers or legal obligations change.

The latest version will be published on this website with its revision date. Where a change materially affects how we use personal information, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to the attention of affected individuals.