OpenStaff Hospitality Jobs in Great Britain

This notice explains what personal information OpenStaff collects, why we use it, who sees it and what your choices are. In short: we use the profile you give us to match you with hospitality jobs. The matching is automated and uses AI. An employer whose job you match can see your profile, but not your email address or phone number until you apply or reply to them. You can hide your profile from matched employers, get a copy of your information or close your account whenever you like. OpenStaff is for people aged 18 or over in Great Britain.

Who we are and how to contact us

OpenStaff is run by OpenStaff Ltd, a private limited company registered in England and Wales.

Company number: 17474082
Registered office: 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX

In this notice "OpenStaff", "we" and "us" mean OpenStaff Ltd. We are the controller of the personal information described here. That means we decide how and why it is used, and we are responsible for it.

To ask a question about privacy, or to use any of your rights:

Email: privacy@openstaff.co.uk
Post: Privacy, OpenStaff Ltd, 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX

Who this notice is for

Candidates: people who create a profile to find hospitality work.
Employer users: people who create or use an employer account for a business.
Named contacts: people an employer names in a job post or a branch record. They may not have an account.
Visitors: people who look at our public website without signing in.
Business contacts: people we email about using OpenStaff for their business.
People who report or complain: anyone who sends us a report, a notice, an appeal or a complaint, with or without an account.
People in reports: people a report or a notice is about, or who are named in content someone reports.

Some sections apply to only one of these groups. The headings say which.

What we collect and where it comes from

If you are a candidate

Information you give us

Account details: your first name, last name, email address and password, and a username if you choose one in your settings. We store your password in a scrambled form that we cannot read.
Right to work: when you sign up we ask you to confirm that you have the right to work in the UK. We record that you confirmed it, the wording you confirmed and the time. If you answer that you do not have it, we do not create an account and we keep nothing.
Date of birth: we ask for it when you sign up, only to check that you are 18 or over. If a date you enter after signing up shows you are under 18, we keep a note that this happened, but not the date you entered, and a member of staff reviews the account.
Profile: whatever you choose to add: a photo, phone number, city, postcode, street address, county and country. You need a city or a postcode to be matched.
Work history: for each job, the job title, your description of the role, the employer's name, address and website, the start and end dates, your skills and, for a job you still do, the business on OpenStaff you linked it to, if you did. That link is never shown to employers; it only stops that business seeing you through a match.
Your CV, if you choose to upload one when you sign up: what was read from it to fill in your profile for you to check (your name, email address, phone number, city, postcode, work history and skills), the file's name and size, which AI model read it, and the time it was read. The file itself is sent once to the AI model that reads it and is then deleted straight away: we never store it. Everything in the file is sent to be read, so take out anything you do not want read first: a photo, your date of birth, your nationality, anything about your health, other people's details such as referees, and identity documents. The model is instructed to record none of them, and we keep none of them. You tick a box before the file is sent, and we record that confirmation with your sign-up.
Job preferences: the types of job you want, the roles and kinds of workplace you are interested in, the size of business you prefer and the pay range you are looking for, where you have set them.
Applications: the jobs you apply for, a copy of what each advert said when you applied, any cover letter you add, and whether you withdraw.
Saved jobs: the jobs you save to look at later.
Messages: what you write to employers.
Your choices: whether matched employers can see your profile (each change is recorded with the time and the wording you saw), which emails you want, and whether you have agreed to marketing.
What you send us directly: for example a question, a request to use your rights, a complaint, a report about something on OpenStaff or an appeal; and the businesses you block.

Information we create

Match scores and explanations: for each job you match, a score out of 100 and a short "Why this matched" explanation, with a note of whether AI wrote it; and a record of how each job was scored for you, matched or not: the comparisons our formula made, the AI model's own score, the versions of our formula, instructions and checks, which AI models were used, and what was sent to them about you and the job. We keep a history of these records: a new one each time the result for a job changes.
A matching summary: a long list of numbers worked out from your work history and preferences. It lets our system compare your profile with jobs. It does not contain your name or contact details.
Records of what happens in your account: the dated stages of each application, when you last read a message thread, when you accepted our terms and this notice, when you last used your account (to the hour; the automatic checks your browser makes in the background do not count), and which employers' accounts we have sent your profile or contact details to.
Marketing emails: if you asked for them, which ones we sent you and when, and any we did not send and why (for example, because you had unsubscribed by then); for the jobs email, which jobs it named, so that we never name a job twice, and when we had no new jobs to tell you about.
Staff actions on your account: a record of any action a member of our staff takes on your account (pausing or resuming your matching, clearing an age flag, switching your account off or back on, warning you, suspending your account or lifting a suspension, removing something you posted, closing your account, reopening it, holding or bringing forward its erasure), with the reason, a note for our own use, and who did it and when. The same record notes when you close your account yourself and when it is erased.
Requests about your matching: if you ask for a person to review a match or your matches, or for an adjustment to your matching, what you told us (for an adjustment, only which things to leave out), what we decided and why, and any change a person made to your matches (making a job a match or removing one, re-scoring it, using the standard explanation, or leaving something out of your matching).

Information employers add about you

The stage they move your application to: shortlisted, interview, trial, hired or rejected, and for a trial how long it will be and whether it is paid. You see each stage, and the trial details, on your application timeline.
Private notes about your application, or about you if they save your profile. These are for the employer's own use. They are not shown to you in OpenStaff.
The messages and invitations they send you.
Whether they have saved your profile, and when they first opened your application.

Information collected automatically

Two sign-in cookies and a small amount of browser storage. See our cookie notice.
Your IP address, your browser type, the pages and actions you request, and the time. These are kept in server logs.
Counters that limit how often an action can be repeated, to stop abuse.
A record of each sign-in session, so that we can end it when you sign out, change your password or close your account.
Whether an email we sent you could not be delivered or was reported as spam.

If you use an employer account

Information you give us

Your account details: your first name, last name, email address and password, and a username if you choose one in your settings.
Your business's details: its name and legal name, company number, legal form, type of venue and size; its contact email address, phone number, website, address and logo; and the name, photo, email address, phone number and address of each branch you add.
Job posts: everything you put in an advert, including any contact details.
What you do in your account: the invitations and messages you send, the stages you move applications to, the notes you write and the candidates you save. We record which user made each stage change.
Your acceptance of our employer terms, with the version and the time.
Your confirmations: each time you post, reopen or change an advert, a record that you confirmed it is lawful, genuine and accurate, which user did it and when, which warnings from our automatic check you confirmed and the words they were about, and a copy of the advert as you confirmed it (without its contact field).
Payments: for each job post you pay for, or start to pay for: the name, legal name, legal form, address and company number of your business and the result and date of our check of it, as they were when you started; which user in your account started it; the advert's title; the price and any VAT; the version of our employer terms you had accepted and when you accepted it; the receipt number; the dates; and the references our payment provider, Stripe, gives the payment and any refund or dispute. You enter your card details on Stripe's own page: they never reach us.

If you are a sole trader or in a partnership, information about your business may also be personal information about you.

Information we create or collect

The result of the checks we make to confirm that your business is genuine.
A record of which candidates' profiles and contact details we have sent to your account.
A record of any advert we take down: the reason we gave you, our internal note, who at OpenStaff did it and when, and a copy of the advert as it read at the time, its contact field included.
A record of any report about your business, one of your adverts or a message you sent: what the person who reported it told us, what we decided and, when it was reported from an account, a copy of the advert or of your business's details as they saw it, the contact field included.
A record of any action a member of our staff takes on your account (switching it off or back on, warning you, suspending your account and its adverts or lifting a suspension, removing a message you sent, your logo or a branch photo, recording a request we refused because it would have treated candidates differently because of a protected characteristic, closing your account, reopening it, holding or bringing forward its erasure), with the reason, a note for our own use, and who did it and when. The same record notes when you close your account yourself and when it is erased.
The same technical information as for candidates: cookies, server logs, security counters, sign-in session records, and when you last used your account.

What candidates see about you. Candidates see the name and legal name of the business, its logo, address, city and size, the name, photo, address and city of the branch, and whatever you put in the job post. Messages you send appear under the name of the business or branch. Candidates never see your own name, your username or your account email address. Business and branch logos are stored at web addresses that anyone who has the link can open.

If an employer names you as a contact

An employer may put your name, email address or phone number in the contact field of a job post or in a branch record. We store what they enter. We got it from the employer, not from you.

The contact field of a job post is shown to signed-in users who view that job.
A branch's email address and phone number are seen only by the employer and by us.
If we take an advert down, or someone reports it from their account, we keep a copy of it, the contact field included, with our record of the take-down or the report.

You have the same rights as anyone else under this notice. You can ask us, or the employer, to remove your details.

If you visit our public website

If you look at our public pages without signing in, our website host processes your IP address and the details your browser sends with every request, such as the page asked for, your browser type and the time. It needs these to deliver the page and to protect the site. On the homepage we also count visits, but only if you allow it. See our cookie notice.

If you email us, or use a form on a public page to report something, send us a legal notice, appeal or complain, we keep what you send so that we can deal with it: your words, the name and email address you choose to give, and the statements you confirm. We do not record your IP address with it.

If you report something, or someone reports you

When you report something to us, we keep your report: what you told us, when it arrived, the name and email address you chose to give, the statements you confirmed and what we decided. If you are signed in, we also know which account made it, and when you report a job advert, a business or a candidate's profile from your account we keep a copy of it as you saw it. We do not tell the person you reported who you are, unless you agree or the law requires it.

If someone reports you. We keep the report, what it is about and what we decide - including a copy of your advert, your business details or your profile as the person who reported it saw it - so that we can deal with it and keep people safe. If we act on your content or your account, we tell you what we did and why, unless the law stops us or telling you would put someone at risk. We do not tell you who made the report unless they agree or the law requires it, although in a conversation you may be able to work it out.

If we contact you about OpenStaff for your business

We hold your name, your role, the name of your business, your work contact details, where we got them, what we sent you and whether you asked us to stop. Our first email tells you where we got your details.

Information we do not ask for

We do not ask about your sex or gender, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, health or disability, trade union membership or criminal record. We do not collect identity or right-to-work documents: we ask you to confirm that you have the right to work in the UK, and we take your word for it. A CV you upload when you sign up is read once by an AI model and then deleted; the whole file is sent to be read, so please take these details, and other people's details, out of it first.

Please do not put this kind of information in free-text boxes such as role descriptions, cover letters or messages. Employers who can see your profile can read your role descriptions, and parts of them are sent to the AI models that do the matching. If you need an adjustment for an interview or a trial, you can ask the employer in your messages: say what you need, you do not have to say why. If you need an adjustment to use OpenStaff itself, tell us privately instead. See our accessibility statement. If something in your work history could count against you unfairly in the matching, for example because of a disability, a health condition or caring responsibilities, you can ask for an adjustment to your matching in your settings without saying why: the request and the adjustment record only which things to leave out.

What we use your information for, and our lawful basis

Data protection law says we need a lawful basis for each use of your information. This table sets out ours. It uses four terms:

Contract: we need the information to provide the service you asked for.
Legitimate interests: we have a genuine reason to use it, and that reason is not outweighed by your rights.
Legal obligation: the law requires us to do it.
Consent: you said yes, and you can change your mind.

What we use your information for	Our lawful basis
Creating and running your account, signing you in, and sending the emails that go with it (confirming your email address, resetting a password, confirming a change of email address)	Contract: we need to do this to give you the service you signed up for
Checking that candidates are 18 or over	Legitimate interests: keeping the service for adults only
Recording your confirmation that you have the right to work in the UK	Legitimate interests: keeping the service for people who may work in the UK
Scoring how well candidates fit jobs (the automated matching, including the AI steps)	Consent: we need to do this to give you the matching service. You can turn this off/on in your settings ("on" by default)
Showing a candidate's profile to employers whose jobs they match	Consent: we need to do this to give you the matching service. You can turn this off/on in your settings ("on" by default)
Sending your application, profile and contact details to an employer when you apply	Contract: you ask us to do this when you apply
Reading a CV you choose to upload when you sign up, to fill in your profile for you to check	Explicit consent: you tick a box before the file is sent, and the file is deleted as soon as it has been read
Carrying messages between candidates and employers, and emailing a candidate when an employer messages them, invites them or updates their application	Contract
Confirming that an employer's business is genuine before it can see candidates	Legitimate interests: protecting candidates from fake or unsafe employers
Keeping the service secure: limiting repeated requests, keeping logs, spotting misuse	Legitimate interests: keeping the service and the people who use it safe
Recording when you last used your account	Legitimate interests: knowing which accounts are still in use, so that we can set and apply retention periods for accounts nobody uses
Handling reports, removing illegal or harmful content, and suspending accounts that break our rules	Legal obligation (Online Safety Act 2023) and legitimate interests
Blocking a business at your request	Contract
Marketing emails to people who opted in	Consent. You can withdraw it at any time
Keeping a do-not-email list, so that we never send marketing emails to someone who asked us to stop, to an address that cannot receive them or to an address that reported one of our emails as spam; and turning off message or invitation emails for an address that reported one of them as spam	Legal obligation where you asked us to stop (we must keep stopping); legitimate interests for an address that cannot receive email or reported one of our emails as spam
Emailing business contacts about OpenStaff	Legitimate interests: telling relevant businesses about our service. You can object at any time
Counting visits to our public homepage	Consent: we count visits only if you allow it. You can change your mind at any time in cookie settings
Keeping a record of how each match score was produced, and of how the pairs that were not matched were scored, so that we can explain it, review it when you ask and show that our matching is fair	Legitimate interests
Answering a request for a person to review a match, and making an adjustment to your matching that you ask for	Legal obligation where UK GDPR Article 22C or the Equality Act 2010 requires it; otherwise legitimate interests
Answering rights requests and complaints, and keeping records that show we follow the law	Legal obligation
Dealing with legal claims, and answering lawful requests from authorities	Legitimate interests and legal obligation
Charging employers and keeping financial records	Contract and legal obligation

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Both are explained below.

Candidates never pay to use OpenStaff. We do not sell or rent lists of candidates, we do not pass your information to advertisers or data brokers, and we do not use it to train AI models.

If you do not give us the information marked as required when you sign up, we cannot create your account. If your profile has no work history, skills, job preferences or location, we cannot match you, but you can still browse and apply for jobs.

Automated matching in brief

OpenStaff works out how well each candidate fits each open job and gives the pair a score out of 100. Software does this, not a person. Nobody at OpenStaff checks a score or an explanation before it is first shown. Every score is labelled as automated, and every explanation says whether AI wrote it (explanations stored before we began recording this say neither).

What is scored: your work history (job titles, role descriptions, skills and time in each role), your job preferences (job type, pay range and business size) and your city, against the job's title, description, skills, job type, pay band, business size and city.
What goes to AI models for matching: the job titles, role descriptions and skills listed above, a band of time in each role (not the dates), the types of job you want and the size of business you prefer. Two models are used. Neither is given your pay range or any pay. Your city and the bands of time go only to the second, which gives a score and writes the explanation. Amounts of money you write in those boxes in the usual ways, such as £12.50, 28k or 28,000, are replaced before the models see them.
What never goes to an AI model for matching: your name, username, email address, phone number, date of birth, photo, street address, postcode, the names and addresses of the places you have worked, your cover letters, your messages and the dates of your roles. The one exception is anything you type into a job title, a skill or a role description yourself. Those are sent as you wrote them, except that amounts of money written in the usual ways, such as £12.50 or 28k, are replaced.
A CV you upload when you sign up is different and separate from matching: the whole file, images included, is sent once to the AI language model to read your work history, skills and contact details out of it, and the file is then deleted. That read never changes a score, and nothing from it reaches the matching except what you keep on the sign-up page, which becomes your profile like anything you type. You check what was read and can take out anything wrong before your account exists. Your CV is not used to train AI models.
The cut-off: a pair must score at least 40 out of 100 to be matched automatically. Below that, no match is saved automatically; a person at OpenStaff can make a pair a match after looking at it, and that employer then sees it like any other match, with its score.
The explanation: the short "Why this matched" text is written by an AI model, or filled in from a template, and it says which (explanations stored before we began recording this say neither). It is an automated summary and it can be wrong. "See why" beside it shows the main factors behind the score (where we have a record of how it was worked out), what was used and, unless that business cannot be shown any candidates at the moment, what that employer can see.
The record: we keep a record of how each job was scored for you, matched or not, so that we can explain it, review it when you ask and check that our matching is fair.
What a match does: it puts the job in your matches, unless you have blocked the business. It also lets that employer see your profile and invite you to apply, unless you have hidden your profile, it is your current employer or you have blocked it. The next section lists exactly what they see.
What a match does not do: it does not decide who gets a job. You can browse and apply for any open job whether or not you were matched, and employers make their own hiring decisions.

You can ask for a person to review a match, and you can stop matched employers seeing your profile. Both are explained below.

Who sees your information

Employers

Employers cannot search OpenStaff for candidates. An employer can see your profile if you apply to one of their jobs. Unless you have hidden your profile, it is your current employer or you have blocked it, it can also see it if you match one of its jobs or if it saved your profile earlier. They can filter their own lists of matched candidates, saved candidates and applicants by job or branch, and search them by name. Employers must pass our checks before they can see any candidate. Employers never see a CV you uploaded: it is deleted as soon as it has been read, and your profile is what they see.

When you match one of an employer's jobs (a score of 40 or more, or a match a person at OpenStaff made), and unless you have hidden your profile, it is your current employer or you have blocked it, that employer can see:

your first and last name, your photo and your city;
your work history: job titles, role descriptions, the names, addresses and websites of the places you have worked, start and end dates, and skills;
your current role, how long you have been in it, and your total length of experience;
the types of job and the size of business you prefer;
your match score and the "Why this matched" explanation for their job and, if they open "See why", the main factors behind that score: how similar the wording is, which of their job's skills you have, and whether the business size and the location fit.

When you apply to one of an employer's jobs, whether or not you were matched and even if you have hidden your profile, that employer can see the profile described above, and also:

your application and any cover letter;
your email address and phone number, unless you have blocked that employer.

When you reply to a message from an employer, that employer can see your email address and phone number from then on, while it can still see your profile and you have not blocked it, even if you later withdraw your application.

No employer ever sees your date of birth or age, your street address, postcode, county or country, the pay range you are looking for, or your matches, saved jobs, applications and messages with other employers. The explanation shown beside a match never mentions pay.

Some other things to know:

Invitations and messages. An employer you match can invite you to apply, unless you have hidden your profile, it is your current employer or you have blocked it. An invitation arrives as a message in OpenStaff and, unless you have turned off message emails or invitation emails, as an email. An employer can message you only after they have invited you or you have applied to that job. OpenStaff also adds a short automatic message to the thread when an employer moves your application to a new stage, and when you withdraw or apply again. None of these is added in a conversation with a business you have blocked.
If you withdraw an application. The employer keeps the application record, can still open your profile and, unless you have blocked it, can still message you about that job in OpenStaff. They can no longer see your email address and phone number, unless you have replied to one of their messages and have not blocked them.
Saved profiles. An employer who saves your profile can add a private note, and can keep opening your profile after the match itself has ended, as long as you let matched employers see your profile, it is not your current employer and you have not blocked it. Otherwise it can open your profile only if you have applied to one of its jobs, and your saved card is not shown to it.
Your current employer. If a job in your work history has no end date, that business never sees you through a match or among saved candidates: one you have linked to that job, or one whose name, legal name or branch name is the same as the employer you typed (we ignore capital letters, punctuation and endings such as Ltd). We cannot spot a business you have not linked if it uses a different name on OpenStaff, so if it worries you, link it in your work history or hide your profile. The name check can also leave out a different business with exactly the same name. If you apply to one of its jobs, that business sees that application and your profile, as any employer you apply to does, but it still never sees you through a match.
Hiding your profile. You can turn off "Let matched employers see my profile" in your settings. While it is off, no employer sees you through a match: you do not appear in any employer's matched or saved candidates, and none can invite you, even one that saved your profile or invited you before. An employer you have applied to still sees that application and your profile. Conversations you are already in carry on, and that employer still sees your name, photo and city in them and can keep messaging you. You still see your matches, and you can apply for any job.
Blocking and reporting. You can report a job, an employer or a message to us, and you can block a business. A business you block can no longer message you or invite you, see you in its matches, or see your email address and phone number. It still sees any application you have made to it, even one you withdraw, and your profile through it.
Checking what they see. The profile preview in your account shows what a matched employer sees.
What employers may do with it. Employers are separate businesses. Our employer terms say they may use your information only to fill the job in question, must keep it secure, and must not pass it on or use it for marketing. Once an employer has your information they are responsible for how they use it, and you can use your rights against them directly as well as against us.
Closed accounts and corrections. Once your account is closed, employers no longer see you anywhere on OpenStaff, conversations included. When we erase your information, normally 30 days after you close your account, we tell each employer our records show we sent it to, unless the law stops us, so that they delete their own copies. We do not tell an employer whose records only say it may have been sent your information, because telling it would itself tell it about you. If you correct your information, tell us and we will tell those employers too.

Other people who use OpenStaff

Job posts are shown to signed-in users, with the public details of the business and branch and the contact field. They are not on the public website.
Candidate profiles are never public. There are no public profile pages, and nothing for a search engine to find.
A skill name you type is added to a shared list that other users see as a suggestion. The list does not say who added it.

Companies that provide services to us

These companies handle personal information for us under a contract. They may use it only to provide their service to us, except where we say otherwise below.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) runs our servers, our database, our file storage, our logs, our email sending and the AI models used for matching and, if you upload a CV when you sign up, for reading it once (the file is then deleted and never stored). All of these run in London, except that the AI language model step, and the reading of a CV, can be carried out in AWS data centres in European Union countries. The AI models receive only the information listed under "Automated matching in brief" above and, for a CV you upload, that file for the length of the read.
Vercel, a company based in the United States, hosts our website. Apart from photos and logos, which travel straight between your browser and our file storage, everything you send to OpenStaff or receive from it passes through Vercel's systems, including your sign-in cookies, what you type into forms and your IP address. Vercel also provides the tool that counts visits to our homepage. For some information, such as data about how its own service is used, Vercel is a controller in its own right and its own privacy notice applies.
Stripe, our payment provider, takes any payment for a job post on its own page. It receives your account's email address and the amount, and your card details go to Stripe and never to us. Stripe also uses payment information as a controller in its own right, for example to prevent fraud and to meet its own legal duties, and its own privacy notice applies to that.
The provider of our company mailboxes handles any email you send to one of our addresses, and the notices we receive when an email about your account cannot be delivered or is reported as spam. Those notices about our marketing emails do not go there: our system reads them and, for an email that could not be delivered at all or was reported as spam, puts a scrambled form of the address on our do-not-email list.

Your information is encrypted when it is stored in our database and file storage, and when it travels between your browser, our website host and AWS. Candidate photos are stored privately and shown, to you and to employers, only through links that expire within an hour.

OpenStaff staff

A small number of authorised OpenStaff staff can see what is held in an account through an internal admin tool. That includes your full profile, with your date of birth and contact details, and your work history, applications, messages, match scores and employers' notes. The engineers who run our servers can also reach the database. Staff may look at this information only to run the service, to deal with a request, a report or a complaint, or to keep people safe, for example when a message is reported. Access to the admin tool is restricted. Each time a member of staff opens messages, a cover letter, an employer's notes or a profile photo in the admin tool, we record who did it, when and why; that record is kept after an account is erased, and it holds none of what was read. The engineers who run our servers do not read messages except to fix a fault; access to our servers and database is limited to named engineers, and their sessions on our servers are recorded.

Authorities and advisers

We share information with the police, HM Revenue and Customs, the Home Office, a court, or a regulator such as the Information Commission (ICO) or Ofcom, when the law requires it, or when it is lawful and necessary to prevent or detect crime or to protect someone from harm. Before we do, we check who is asking and the legal basis for the request, and we give only what is needed. We must also report certain illegal content to the National Crime Agency. An authority that wants to make a request should email privacy@openstaff.co.uk.

We may also share information with our professional advisers, such as our solicitor or accountant, when we need their advice.

Transfers outside the UK

AWS. Our servers, database, file storage, email sending and the first matching model run in London. The AI language model step (and the reading of a CV you upload when you sign up) can be carried out in AWS data centres in European Union countries. UK regulations recognise the European Economic Area as giving personal information enough protection, so the law allows this transfer.
Vercel. Vercel is a United States company. Website traffic, including the personal information in it, can be processed by Vercel in the United States and in other countries where it has servers.
Stripe. Payments are taken by Stripe; its payment service in the UK is provided by Stripe Payments UK Ltd. Stripe's companies in Ireland and the United States, and in other countries, may also process payment information; for transfers out of the UK, Stripe relies on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and on the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

You can ask us for more detail about these safeguards at privacy@openstaff.co.uk.

How long we keep your information

We keep your account and profile while your account is open. You can close your account in your settings at any time. It closes straight away: you are signed out everywhere and employers can no longer see you anywhere on OpenStaff.

For 30 days after you close it you can change your mind: sign in and choose to reopen your account, and it comes back as it was. If you have forgotten your password, reset it from the sign-in page as usual, then sign in and reopen it. After the 30 days we erase your account, normally at our next hourly run. We remove everything in it that identifies you: your name, email address, username, password, photo (including every stored copy of it), phone number, date of birth and address. We delete your profile, work history, job preferences, saved jobs, matches and matching summary, the records of how your scores were produced and any adjustment to your matching, your cover letters, the messages you wrote (except one that someone reported or that we removed, as listed below) and the notes employers wrote about you. We then tell the employers our records show we sent your information to that it has been erased, unless the law stops us. If you want your information erased sooner, email privacy@openstaff.co.uk; once we have acted on your request, we erase it, normally at our next hourly run.

If we close your account because it broke our rules or because you are under 18, only we can reopen it, for example after a successful appeal. We erase it after the same 30 days, unless we have to keep it for a legal claim, a legal obligation, a request from the police or another authority, an appeal, or as evidence of child sexual abuse content; if so, we tell you, unless the law stops us.

If you close an employer account, your adverts are closed and you can no longer see candidates. If you reopen it within the 30 days, your adverts stay closed until you reopen them. After 30 days we erase your own details, your business's contact details and logo, your branches' contact details and photos, and the contact details in your adverts. We keep the business's name, legal name, address, legal form and company number, and the result of our checks, because they are about the business. If the business is a sole trader or a partnership, or never told us its legal form, we remove its name and address too, including from the copies of your adverts kept with candidates' applications and with the confirmations you gave when you posted, reopened or changed them, and we remove the text of the messages you sent to candidates. If we ever took one of your adverts down, we keep our own copy of it as it read then, contact details included, as the record of what we took down and why. We also keep the record of each payment for a job post, with its receipt and any refund, and your business's details as they were when the payment started (the name and address of a sole trader or a partnership included), for at least six years after the end of our financial year in which the payment, or a refund of it, was made, because tax law requires it. A payment that was started but never made is deleted with the rest of your account, unless our payment provider has not yet confirmed that its payment page closed: we then keep it, and our retention schedule (see the note below) deletes it only once our payment provider has confirmed that. We also keep any report about your business, your adverts or your messages: any copy taken when it arrived, with your business's name and address whatever its legal form, and the text of a message someone reported or we removed.

What we keep after we erase an account, and why.

The record of your applications, without your cover letters: which job, when, and each stage it reached. The employer received your application, and the record shows how it was dealt with if there is a legal claim.
Your conversations with employers: the messages you wrote are removed, except a message someone reported or that we removed, which we keep, shown to nobody, as the record of that report; the employer's messages stay as our own record in case of a legal claim or a report. In both, your first name, last name and full name are taken out (a name of only one or two letters, or a nickname, can remain). The employer cannot see them any more.
A copy of each job advert as it read when you applied. It holds nothing about you.
A record that the account existed and was closed and erased: its ID number, its dates and, if we closed it, the reason we recorded. It no longer holds your name, your email address or anything else that identifies you directly; we do not write names or contact details in the reason, and the notes our staff wrote for their own use are removed. If you ask us before your account is erased, we can tell you which employers we will tell and which may have been sent your information; afterwards we can answer only if you give us the account reference from the email we sent when your account was closed.
Your requests about your matching: that you asked, when and what we decided, without what you wrote or the reasons we gave you. They show how we dealt with each request.
The records of what you agreed to, your right-to-work confirmation and your confirmation that we could read your CV among them, and which emails you chose, of which employers' accounts we sent your information to, and of when we told them that your information was erased. They show that we followed the law.
Reports about you: the category, the dates and what we decided, the words of the person who reported, with your name taken out in the same way when the report is linked to your account (a report that was never linked to it, such as one sent on our public form that we did not act on, keeps its words as they were sent), and the text of any message of yours that was reported or removed. They are our record of how we dealt with the report.
Reports you made: what you told us. They are our record of a report about someone else.
The record of each time a member of our staff opened your messages, your cover letters, employers' notes about you or your profile photo: who, when and why, never what they read.

How long we keep each of these is part of our retention schedule (see the note below). Copies of what we erase stay in our database backups for about a week, until those backups are deleted automatically. We do not use those backup copies, and if we ever have to restore one, we erase your account again before the restored copy is used. Photos are not kept in backups. Erasing an account does not change our logs; they are deleted on the schedule below. Emails you send us, and the delivery notices our email provider sends us about emails to you, stay in our company mailboxes for as long as we keep our mailboxes (see the note below).

These periods are already fixed:

What	How long we keep it
A sign-up that is never confirmed by email	Deleted after 3 days
Links we email you	A link to confirm your email address works for 3 days. A link to reset a password or change an email address works for 1 hour
A sign-in session	Up to 10 days after you last used it, or until you sign out or close your account
A photo you replace or remove	Taken off your profile straight away. A stored copy of a candidate's photo is then deleted automatically, normally within two days. A stored copy of a business or branch logo is deleted automatically after about 30 days. A photo we take down is deleted from our file storage at once, with every stored copy, and taken off every place that showed it, except a copy we must keep, restricted, as evidence for the National Crime Agency
A CV you upload when you sign up	Deleted as soon as it has been read, normally within a minute, whether or not you go on to create an account. We keep its name and size, which model read it, the time we read it and what was read, with your account
A closed account	Erased 30 days after it is closed, normally at our next hourly run, unless it is reopened first or we have to keep it (see above). What we keep after that is listed above
A match that no longer qualifies, because the job closed or was taken down, your profile changed, we paused your matching at your request, the score fell below 40 (unless a person at OpenStaff made it a match), or a person at OpenStaff removed it	Deleted the next time matches are recalculated, unless you were invited or had applied
Application logs, which hold IP addresses, browser types, the pages and actions requested and account IDs, and sometimes, in an error report, an email address	30 days
Firewall logs of blocked or flagged requests, load-balancer logs of requests, and records of staff sessions on our servers	90 days
Database performance records, which can include the text of database queries and values in them, such as the email address used to sign in	7 days
Database error logs, which can include values from a failed request, such as an email address	3 days
Notices from our email provider that an email to you could not be delivered or was reported as spam	Deleted from our system's queue as soon as it has read them, and after 14 days at most. Notices about emails about your account also go to our company mailboxes and stay there as long as we keep our mailboxes (see above)
Database backups	About a week. Something we delete or erase can stay in a backup for that long. Photos are not in our backups

Two more things to know:

If you unsubscribe from marketing emails, we put a scrambled form of your email address on a do-not-email list for the emails you stopped (all of them, if you chose that). We do the same for all our marketing emails if an email to you could not be delivered at all, or if your email provider tells us that you reported one of our emails as spam. Either way, we never send you those marketing emails again unless you tick the box for them again later (an address that could not receive email stays blocked). The list holds no name and no account, and it stays after your account is closed and erased, because its only purpose is to make sure we do not send you marketing emails. Amazon Web Services, which sends our emails, also keeps its own list of addresses that could not receive our emails or reported them as spam, and keeps it after we erase your account. If you report one of our emails about messages or invitations as spam and your email provider tells us, we turn that kind of email off; you can turn it back on in your settings.
An employer may have copied your details into its own records, for example your phone number. Closing your OpenStaff account does not remove them from there. When we erase your information we tell the employers our records show we sent it to, unless the law stops us, and our employer terms ask them to delete their own copies, but they are responsible for their own records.

Your rights

You have the right to:

be told how we use your information, which is what this notice is for;
get a copy of your information. You can download it from your settings, or ask us;
have it corrected. You can edit your profile, work history and preferences yourself. When you do, we recalculate your matches and their explanations, except for jobs you have already applied for;
have it erased. You can close your account in your settings: we erase it 30 days later, so that you can change your mind. If you want it erased sooner, or want particular information erased, email privacy@openstaff.co.uk;
restrict how we use it while a concern is looked into;
move it: get the information you gave us in a form you can take to another service. The download in your settings is a JSON file, a common format that other services can read;
object to how we use it (see the next section);
ask for a person to review an automated match (see the section after that);
withdraw consent where we rely on it, such as for marketing emails or for counting your visits to our homepage;
complain to us and to the regulator.

How to use your rights. Use the controls in your account, or email privacy@openstaff.co.uk. The download in your settings holds the information in your account, with a guide to it at the start; it is not everything we hold about you (for example, reports other people made, and what employers wrote about you), and you can ask us for the rest. We make the copy when you ask for it and do not keep it. If your account is closed or suspended, ask us by email. You can also write to us using the details at the top of this notice. You do not need a special form or special wording. There is normally no charge. We may ask for something to confirm who you are. We reply within one month. If a request is complex, or you have made several, the law lets us take up to two more months, and we tell you within the first month if we need to.

These rights also belong to employer users, named contacts, visitors and business contacts.

Your right to object

You have the right to object, at any time, to us using your information where we rely on legitimate interests.

Automated matching. You can object to OpenStaff scoring your profile, and to showing it to matched employers. To stop employers seeing you through a match, turn off "Let matched employers see my profile" in your settings: it works straight away and you can still browse and apply for jobs, but it does not stop the scoring. To object to the scoring itself, email privacy@openstaff.co.uk. We will consider your objection and reply within one month. If we agree, we pause your matching: we stop scoring your profile, withdraw the matches you were not invited to and have not applied for, and from that moment no employer sees you through a match; your invited jobs, your applications, and conversations you are already in, carry on.
Marketing. You have an absolute right to object to marketing. If you tell us to stop, we stop, and we do not ask why. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link that works in one step, without signing in, and an email app that shows an "Unsubscribe" button beside our marketing emails uses the same step. You can also untick the box in your settings, or email us.
Anything else we do on the basis of legitimate interests, such as contacting you about OpenStaff for your business. Tell us, and we will stop unless we have a compelling reason to carry on that outweighs your interests, or we need the information for a legal claim. We will tell you which.

Asking for a person to review a match

Matches are produced automatically, without a person being involved, unless a person at OpenStaff has reviewed one and made it a match. If you think a score, an explanation or the absence of a match is wrong or unfair, you can ask for a person to look at it.

Use "Ask a person to review this" beside the match (for a job you were not matched with, on the job's page; for your matches in general, "Ask a person to look at my matches" in your settings), or email privacy@openstaff.co.uk. Before you ask, "See why" beside a match shows the main factors behind its score, where we have a record of how it was worked out.
Tell us why you think it is wrong. You can give us anything you want us to take into account.
A trained member of our staff, who has the authority to change the result, will review it.
We reply within one month with the outcome and the reasons.
If you disagree with the outcome, tell us and we will look again. You can also complain.
If something in your work history could count against you unfairly, for example because of a disability, a health condition or caring responsibilities, you can ask for an adjustment to your matching in your settings or by email, without saying why. A person can leave out of your matching whether you are working now, how long each job lasted, or that you want part-time work or fewer hours: we leave out what you choose straight away, and a person checks it and replies within one month. Anything left out stops counting for you as well as against you. Employers are not told that you asked.

Employers make their own decisions about applications. Those are the employer's decisions, not ours. Our terms tell employers not to reject anyone on a score alone. If you think an employer has treated you unfairly, you can raise it with the employer and report it to us.

Marketing

We send marketing emails only to people who have opted in, and only to candidates: we send employer accounts none. When you sign up as a candidate there is one unticked box, for the jobs email below. You do not have to tick it to use OpenStaff, and you can change your choice in your settings at any time. Every marketing email says it is from OpenStaff Ltd and has an unsubscribe link that works in one step, without signing in.

If you ticked "Email me about jobs that may suit me", we may email you, at most once a week, a list of up to five open jobs from your matches that we have not emailed you about before, each with a link to its page. It shows no scores, explanations or pay, and it never includes a job you have applied for, a job you were invited to, or a job from a business you have blocked. We send it only while your box is ticked, and we check that, and our do-not-email list, each time we send one.

Emails that are part of the service are not marketing. These are: confirming your email address, resetting a password, confirming a change of email address and telling your old address about it; telling a candidate that an employer has messaged them, invited them or updated their application; telling an employer that we have taken one of its adverts down; confirming that an account has been closed or reopened, that we are keeping a closed account for now, or that we will erase it sooner as its holder asked; telling an employer that the information of a candidate it was sent has been erased; confirming that we have received a report, telling the person who sent a report what we decided (by email to the address they gave us, if they have no account), and telling a user that we have removed something they posted, warned them, suspended their account or lifted a suspension; and confirming that we have received a request for a person to review a match or for an adjustment to matching, or a report about an explanation, and telling the person who asked what we decided; and warning the holder of an account nobody has used that we will close it; sending an employer a receipt for each job post it pays for (or, if the advert could not be published after the payment, an email telling it so) and a receipt for each refund we make that goes through, except that, if the payment arrived while we had suspended the employer's account, or a member of our staff had closed it, and we had chosen not to email the employer about that (for example because the law stops us or telling the employer would put someone at risk), we send neither the email about an advert that could not be published nor the receipt for its refund; and telling an employer, once we have confirmed its business details, that it can now publish the adverts it has saved but not yet published. The emails to candidates about messages, invitations and applications include the employer's name, the job title and the first part of the message; candidates can turn those off in their settings, and can turn off invitation emails on their own. Sign-in and password emails are always sent while an account is open, and a password reset is also sent while the holder of a closed account can still reopen it themselves.

We do not track whether you open our emails or which links you click. We do not give your details to advertisers or upload them to advertising platforms.

Cookies and similar technologies

We use two sign-in cookies, a small amount of browser storage and, on the public homepage only and only if you allow it, a tool that counts visits. We do not use advertising cookies and we do not track you across other websites. The first time you visit, a cookie banner asks for your choice, and nothing optional runs until you give it. Our cookie notice lists each item. You can change your choice at any time in cookie settings.

Age

OpenStaff is for people aged 18 or over. We ask candidates for their date of birth when they sign up to check this, and we do not create a candidate account for anyone under 18. We do not show your date of birth or your age to employers, and we do not use them in matching. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it, so that no employer can see the profile, and we erase it 30 days later. Only we can reopen it, for example if we made a mistake.

How to complain

If you are unhappy with how we have used your information, please tell us first so that we can put it right.

Use the steps below if you think we have broken data protection law. For example, you may think we have used your information unfairly, kept it too long or not answered a request properly.

Email privacy@openstaff.co.uk, or write to us.
Tell us who you are and how to reply, what you think went wrong and what you would like us to do.
We acknowledge a data protection complaint within 30 days of receiving it.
We then look into it and tell you the outcome without undue delay.
We keep a record of your complaint and of what we decided.

If you need to complain in a different way because of a disability, tell us and we will arrange it. See our accessibility statement.

If you want to use your rights. Asking for a copy of your information, or asking us to correct or erase it, is a rights request, not a complaint. "Your rights" above explains how to make one.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commission (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator. You can make a complaint on the ICO website (opens in a new tab). It asks for a copy of the complaint you made to us, so it is usually best to complain to us first.

Changes to this notice

We update this notice when what we do changes, for example when we add a feature or start using a new provider. The version and date are shown at the top. If a change affects how we use your information in an important way, we tell account holders by email or in OpenStaff before it takes effect, and we explain what has changed and why. You can ask us for earlier versions.

Privacy notice