Candidate privacy notice

Candidates are never charged a fee, and we never send your CV, name or profile to a client without your agreement for that specific role.

1. Who this notice covers

This notice applies to you if you:

• send a CV through our candidates page or by email;
• apply for a role we are filling for a client;
• are contacted by us about a role after we found your professional profile;
• are placed through us, including into a seat on an offshore team we run for a client;
• act as a referee for a candidate.

AtherTalent, operated by Faraz Ather from Pakistan, is the controller of your data. The general privacy policy covers the website, clients and everyone else. Where the two differ, this notice applies to candidate data.

2. What we collect

• Identity and contact: name, email, phone, city and country, LinkedIn or portfolio links.
• CV and work history: employers, roles, dates, education, qualifications, skills, languages, and anything else you put in your CV.
• Right-to-work status for the country of the role and, where needed to confirm it, nationality or visa status.
• Salary and availability: your salary expectations, your current package if you choose to share it, notice period, availability and preferred working pattern.
• Assessment records: our screening notes, scores against the written rubric for the role, skills-screen results, our interview notes and the client's interview feedback.
• References: the names and contact details of referees you give us, and what they tell us.
• Communications: emails, messages and call notes between us.
• Placement records if you are hired: offer details, start date and, for seat staff employed or contracted through us, the details needed to run your contract and payroll.
• Identity documents, viewed only to confirm identity, age or right to work. We do not keep passports or original documents. See the ethical recruitment statement.

3. Where it comes from

• You: forms, emails, calls, interviews and the documents you send.
• Public and professional profiles: LinkedIn, GitHub, portfolio sites, professional registers, job boards where you have posted your CV, and contact-finding databases such as ZoomInfo, SignalHire and Apollo. If we contact you from a profile, our first message says so, and you can tell us to stop and delete what we hold.
• Referrals: someone who knows your work recommends you. We tell you that you were referred and, if the referrer agrees, by whom.
• Clients: their feedback after reviewing your CV or interviewing you.
• Referees: what they tell us about you, taken only at the offer stage and with your knowledge.
• Check providers: only where a role requires a background, credential or right-to-work check, and only after you have agreed to it.

4. Why we use it and the lawful basis for each purpose

We do not use your data for marketing and we do not sell it. Every message you get from us is about a role or about your data.

5. Sharing your details with a client: only with your agreement

Before any introduction we tell you the client's name, the role, its location and working pattern, the salary range where the client allows us to share it, and exactly what we will send. For a confidential search we tell you the industry, size and location first, and the name before any interview. You say yes or no. Saying no has no effect on how we treat you for other roles.

This is also what the UK Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 require of agencies working with UK clients. We apply the same rule for every client, in every country.

What the client receives: your CV, our summary and rubric scores, the result of the skills screen, and your salary expectations and notice period if you have agreed we can share them. We do not pass on special category data unless you have asked us to, for example an adjustment you want made at interview.

Once sent, the client holds its own copy under its own privacy notice. Our terms of business require clients to use your details only for that role, to keep them secure, and to delete them if you are not hired unless their own law requires otherwise.

6. Other recipients

Your data is stored and handled by the providers named in the privacy policy: Netlify (the CV form), Google Workspace (email and files), Calendly (interview bookings, on Calendly's own site), Supabase (our recruitment database and your sign-in to app.athertalent.com), Resend (the emails that database sends) and Anthropic (the AI that helps organise and pre-score CVs). Sourcing tools are used to find and contact you, not to store your file. Check providers see your data only for a check you have agreed to. Authorities see it only where the law requires. We never share your data with other agencies without your agreement.

AtherTalent is based in Pakistan, your data is worked on from Pakistan, and these providers are in the United States, so your data leaves your country. Section 5 of the privacy policy explains the safeguards.

7. Special category data

We do not ask about your health, disability, race or ethnic origin, religion or beliefs, sexual orientation, trade union membership, political opinions, or genetic or biometric data. If you volunteer such information, for example because you ask for an adjustment to an interview, we use it only for that purpose and only with your explicit consent, which you can withdraw at any time. If your CV contains such data and it is not needed, we do not use it in assessment.

Criminal record information is collected only where a role legally requires a check, only with your agreement, and only after we have told you what the check involves. Our equal opportunity statement explains how we keep protected characteristics out of shortlisting.

8. No automated decisions

No decision about you is made by software alone. We use AI-assisted tools to organise CVs and pre-score them against the written rubric for a role. The AI is Anthropic's Claude. A person reviews every score before it affects you, and a person makes the decision to advance or decline you. You can ask how a score was reached and ask for a person to look at it again.

9. How long we keep it

You can ask for deletion at any time. We keep a minimal note of a deletion request so that we do not contact you again by mistake.

10. You are never charged a fee

AtherTalent never charges candidates for anything: not for applying, not for CV help, not for interview preparation, not for visa or relocation support, not for placement. Clients pay us. If anyone asks you for money in AtherTalent's name, it is not us. Tell us at faraz@athertalent.com.

11. Your rights and how to exercise them

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• show you what we hold about you, including our notes and scores, and give you a copy;
• correct anything wrong or out of date, including your CV;
• delete your file;
• restrict what we do with it while a question is resolved;
• give you the data you provided in a machine-readable format;
• stop processing based on legitimate interests, including contact about future roles;
• withdraw consent to the talent pool or to an introduction that has not yet been made. Reply "remove me" to any email from us and we do the rest.

Email faraz@athertalent.com with "candidate privacy request" in the subject line. We confirm receipt within one business day and complete the request within one month. It is free. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, and we only ask for what we need to do that.

If you are unhappy with our answer you can complain to a supervisory authority. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office. In the EU it is the data protection authority of the country where you live or work. You do not have to contact us before complaining, but we would rather fix it.

12. Contact and changes

AtherTalent, Pakistan. faraz@athertalent.com. The candidates page describes what happens after you send a CV.

We review this notice at least every six months. If a change affects data we already hold about you, we tell you by email before it takes effect.