Declaration on data privacy in the appointment procedure

During the appointment procedure, the university  (represented , for example, by the appointment committee) collects extensive personal information. These data are processed and evaluated over the course of the appointment procedure. When applicants use the online application portal, their data are stored in the secure infrastructure of the cooperation partner. A contract with the provider of the online application portal guarantees the ability to monitor the infrastructure, among other things. The strict security measures put in place by the cooperation partner correspond to the level of protection demanded by such sensitive data. Documents and files are treated with absolute confidentiality. This also applies to evaluations and comparisons made in the context of candidate reviews . Access to data and files is granted only to persons involved in processing, evaluation and selection in the appointment procedure. As a matter of principle, information about applicants is disclosed only to those persons who require that information in order to perform their tasks in the context of the appointment procedure. These persons are defined in § 48 of the Higher Education Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg (Landeshochschulgesetz. LHG BW). Section 48 lists the members of a appointment committee, which consists of the following persons:

• a member of the faculty executive board acting as appointment committee chair
• at least one expert from outside the university
• two expert women
• one student
• where applicable, a member of the executive board of the university hospital  and an expert named by the university hospital executive board

In addition, the faculty search and hiring guidelines of the University of Tübingen regulate the involvement of the Faculty Council (Fakultätsrat), the Academic Senate (Akademischer Senat) (§ 254 subsection 1 sentence 2 and § 27d subsection 1 sentence 3 no. 4 of the LHG BW) and in some cases the University Senate.

Permitted use of data inside the University of Tübingen

The members of the appointment committee and other involved persons in addition to the academic dean or head of a degree program (cf. the constitution of the University of Tübingen) require access to the application data in order to properly realize their right to participate in the appointment procedure. Making application documents available to these committee members and involved persons who are also members of the university represents a use of personal data conforming to § 36 of the State Data Protection Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg (Landesdatenschutzgesetz, LDSG BW). Consent of the applicant is not required.

Legal provisions are also made for additional participants in the appointment procedure who are not members of the university as defined in § 9 of the Higher Education Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg (LHG BW), for example external experts or a member of the university hospital executive board. From the aspect of data privacy, providing application documents to these persons represents a transmission of personal data which is permitted by § 18 subsection 1 together with § 15 subsection 1 of the State Data Protection Act of the State of Baden-Württemberg (LDSG BW). This transmission of data is necessary for the fulfilment of the tasks of the university, namely the orderly execution of the appointment procedure. The use of the data for the purpose for which they were collected is ensured. For this reason the transmission of application documents in connection with appointment procedures to persons participating in the selection process and named in § 48 subsection 3 of the LHG BW and university statutes is permitted. Consent of the applicant is not required.

The storage of application documents at the university conforms to data protection guidelines. Hard copies of application documents are protected from access by unauthorized persons. All paper documents are stored in a locked cabinet. Access to the documents is only granted to persons involved in the appointment procedure.

Submitted hard copies or printouts made at the university are disposed of in compliance with data privacy law six months after the report is completed. Where electronic documents are submitted, these are deleted six months after the completion of the appointment procedure.

Other rights of the affected persons can be found in the Data Protection Declaration of the University of Tübingen at https://uni-tuebingen.de/meta/datenschutzerklaerung/.