Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

2. Information We Collect

We collect information in the following ways:

Information You Provide Directly

• Account Registration: When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, phone number, password, and account type (Candidate or Employer).
• Profile Information (Candidates): Resumes, employment history, education, skills, portfolios, LinkedIn import data, job preferences, and non-sensitive demographic or diversity-related information you choose to provide, where legally permitted, optional, and clearly identified as optional.
• Employer Information: Company details, job descriptions, hiring team member details, and payment information.
• Communications: Information you provide when you contact us for support or participate in surveys.

Sensitive and Special Care-Required Information

You should not include sensitive or special care-required personal information in your profile, resume, assessments, messages, or other User Content unless we specifically request it for a stated purpose or it is necessary for a legally permitted recruiting process.

Examples may include information concerning race, creed, social status, medical history, disability status, criminal history, crime-victim status, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, precise health information, or other information treated as sensitive, special care-required, or specially protected under applicable law.

We do not intentionally collect Japanese Individual Number ("My Number") information through the Services for recruiting or matching purposes. Do not upload My Number documents or similar government identification numbers unless we expressly request them through an appropriate secure process.

Where we are required or permitted to collect sensitive or special care-required personal information, we will do so only with your consent or as otherwise permitted by applicable law, and we will use it only for the disclosed purpose.

Information Collected Automatically

• Usage Data: We automatically collect information regarding your interaction with our Services, such as pages visited, features used, and time spent.
• Device Information: IP address, browser type, operating system, and device identifiers.
• Cookies and Tracking: We use cookies and similar technologies to track activity on our Service and hold certain information.

3. Purposes of Use and Recruitment-Sector Handling

We specify and use personal information for the following purposes, to the extent necessary to provide, operate, maintain, secure, and improve the Services and related recruiting and candidate-information functions:

• Account administration and support: to create, verify, authenticate, maintain, and administer user accounts; provide customer support; respond to inquiries; and communicate service-related notices.
• Candidate profile and recruiting services: to receive, parse, structure, display, and manage resumes, work history, education, skills, portfolios, assessments, availability, job preferences, and related candidate profile information.
• Job matching, applications, and introductions: to recommend jobs, candidates, employers, recruiters, and other marketplace opportunities; facilitate applications, introductions, interview coordination, talent-network participation, and recruiter marketplace features; and provide hiring workflow tools.
• Assessment and AI-assisted insights: to provide technical assessments, mock interviews, feedback, scoring, candidate or job recommendations, hiring insights, and related analytics, subject to the limitations described in this Privacy Policy.
• Employer, recruiter, and marketplace operations: to enable employers and recruiters to post jobs, manage candidate pipelines, evaluate applicants, communicate with candidates, and use platform features in accordance with applicable law and our terms.
• Payments, billing, and contracts: to process transactions, invoices, subscriptions, credits, and related business records for employer, recruiter, or other paid services.
• Security, fraud prevention, and service integrity: to detect, prevent, and investigate fraud, abuse, unauthorized access, security incidents, policy violations, and unlawful activity.
• Service improvement and analytics: to test, monitor, troubleshoot, analyze, and improve platform performance, usability, matching quality, AI model performance, and user experience.
• Legal compliance and dispute handling: to comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, and enforceable requests; enforce our agreements; protect rights, safety, and property; and resolve disputes.
• Additional disclosed purposes: to use information for any additional purpose that we disclose to you and, where required, for which we obtain your consent.

For recruiting, employment placement, recruitment/candidate-information, and related marketplace functions, OikoHire will collect, retain, disclose, and use job-seeker and candidate information only within the scope necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or otherwise disclosed to the individual, unless the individual consents or another legal basis applies.

Employers and recruiters that receive candidate information through the Services are responsible for handling that information in accordance with applicable employment, recruitment, privacy, anti-discrimination, and data-protection laws, and only for legitimate recruiting and hiring-related purposes.

If we materially change the purposes for which we use personal information, we will provide notice and obtain consent where required by applicable law.

4. How We Use AI and Automated Processing

OikoHire is an AI-assisted platform. We utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to facilitate and optimize the recruiting process. Here is how we use AI:

• Resume Parsing and Structuring: AI is used to extract text from uploaded resumes and categorize it into structured data fields (skills, experience, education).
• Candidate Matching: We use algorithms to suggest potentially suitable candidates to employers based on the alignment between job descriptions and candidate profiles.
• Skill Assessment Analysis: If you participate in our technical assessments or mock interviews, AI may be used to analyze your responses, code submissions, and communication patterns to provide feedback and scoring.
• Bias Mitigation: We actively design and monitor our AI models to identify and mitigate potential algorithmic bias, aiming for fair and equitable matching. However, no algorithm is entirely free of bias.

5. Sharing and Disclosure of Information

We may share your information in the following circumstances:

• With Employers and Recruiters (for Candidates): When you apply for a job, opt in to our talent network, or engage with recruiter marketplace features, your profile, resume, and assessment results may be shared with the respective employer(s) or recruiter(s).
• Service Providers: We share information with third-party vendors who perform services on our behalf (e.g., cloud hosting, payment processing, email delivery, analytics).
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose information, including to legal authorities, if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, protect our rights, or investigate fraud.
• Business Transfers: In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
• No Sale of Personal Information: We do not sell personal information.

International Transfers

Information may be processed and stored in countries outside your country of residence, including Japan and the United States. Appropriate safeguards will be applied where required by applicable law.

6. Data Retention and Security

Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you with the Services. We will also retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. If you request account deletion, we will purge your data within 30 days, except where legal retention requirements apply.

Security

We implement industry-standard security measures, including encryption in transit and at rest, regular security audits, and strict access controls, to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction.

Breach Response and Vendor Incidents

• Incident Investigation: If we become aware of a security incident that may involve personal information, we will promptly investigate the incident, assess the nature and scope of the information involved, take reasonable steps to contain and remediate the incident, and document our response as appropriate.
• Legally Required Notices: Where required by applicable law, we will notify affected individuals, regulators, business customers, or other legally required parties within the timeframes and in the manner required by law.
• Vendor Incident Obligations: We require service providers and vendors that process personal information on our behalf to maintain appropriate security measures and to notify us without undue delay of security incidents involving personal information processed for OikoHire, so that we can evaluate and meet any applicable legal or contractual obligations.
• No Guarantee of Absolute Security: Although we take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information, no website, platform, network, transmission, or electronic storage system can be guaranteed to be absolutely secure.

7. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your location, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, including:

• Access: The right to request copies of your personal data.
• Rectification: The right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate or complete information you believe is incomplete.
• Erasure: The right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
• Restrict Processing: The right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
• Object to Processing: The right to object to certain processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
• Data Portability: The right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.

You can manage your account settings and profile information directly within the OikoHire dashboard. To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details below.

8. Children's Privacy

Our Services are not intended for individuals under 18 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 18.

9. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer at: