Privacy Policy

Socratease, Inc ("Socratease", "Equip", "we", "us", or "our") respects the privacy of its users ("User", "your", or "you"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our hiring platform (the "Platform") through our website at equip.co (the "Website").

We do not sell your personal information, nor do we intend to do so. Candidate data is used to deliver the hiring service to the employer who requested it, and to operate, secure, and improve the Platform. It is never used for AI model training, marketing, or advertising.

Equip is used mainly for hiring, and is also used by organisations to assess their own people, for example for internal evaluation or learning and development. Where this policy refers to a candidate, it covers both.

Equip is intended for use by adults. It is not directed at anyone under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. All users must confirm they are at least 18 years old to use the Platform.

Capitalized terms have the same meaning as in our Terms of Service, unless otherwise noted here.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By accessing or using our Website or Platform, you agree to the terms contained in it. If you do not agree, please do not access or use our Website or Platform.

If you have any questions, please contact us at .

Equip serves two roles depending on the type of data:

• Data Processor for candidate data, covering applications, resumes, assessment attempts, interview recordings and transcripts, scorecards, and proctoring evidence. The hiring team (our customer) is the data controller. They decide what is collected, obtain consent from candidates, and own the relationship with the candidate. Equip processes and stores this data on their behalf and on their instructions. This includes resume parsing and Job Fit Scoring, which we perform because the hiring team has asked us to.
• Data Controller for our own first-party data, including recruiter account information, billing details, and website analytics.

Because we act as a processor for candidate data, requests from candidates to access, correct, or delete that data are directed to the hiring team. See Data Deletion Requests.

At registration: For recruiters, we collect your name, email address, and company information. We support Google and Microsoft single sign-on as well as email one-time-code authentication.

From candidates who apply to a job: The hiring team decides which fields to request. The application form can collect your name, email address, phone number, city, LinkedIn profile, year of birth, work experience, education, industries, skills, projects, resume or CV, notice period, salary expectation, portfolio URLs, languages, and willingness to relocate. Hiring teams may also add their own custom fields and screening questions, and may request file attachments.

During an assessment or interview: We collect your responses, the time taken, and the scores generated. For AI interviews we collect audio and video recordings of the session and the transcript produced from them.

During a proctored assessment, Equip uses the following data feeds, if enabled by the hiring team: webcam, microphone, screen share, and an auxiliary device (your phone camera). From these feeds we capture:

• Photos, including a photo taken before the test starts and photos captured at random moments
• Screenshots, including of a tab you switched to
• Audio recordings
• Screen and interaction recordings, if full session recording is enabled
• An image of a government or institution ID, if ID Card Verification is enabled

Candidates are shown exactly which proctoring measures are active before the assessment begins, and must grant the corresponding browser permissions.

Technical metadata: We collect your IP address with approximate geolocation, browser type, operating system version, and a device fingerprint, on every assessment attempt. We do not collect GPS coordinates.

Financial information: We do not collect or store credit card or bank account information. Payments are handled by Stripe, a third-party payment processor.

We collect personal information in the following ways:

1. At registration on our Website or Platform
2. From application forms and screening questions completed by candidates
3. From resumes and other documents uploaded to the Platform, including by a hiring team importing them in bulk
4. From assessment and interview sessions, including the responses given
5. Through browser-based monitoring during proctored assessments
6. In email and other electronic messages between you and our Platform
7. From transactions you carry out on our Platform
8. From correspondence records if you contact us

We also collect information automatically as you navigate our Platform:

1. Usage details
2. IP addresses
3. Information obtained through browser cookies
4. Other tracking technologies

For Recruiters (account holders):

• Account management and authentication
• Billing, credit purchases, and invoicing
• Service notifications, such as low credit balance alerts
• Marketing communications, with opt-out available
• Platform improvement and customer support

For Candidates:

• Delivering the application, assessment, and interview experience
• Grading responses and generating scores, scorecards, and interview reports
• Proctoring, including evidence collection and Trust Score calculation
• Parsing your resume and ranking your application against the hiring team's criteria
• Presenting all of the above to the hiring team you applied to
• Transactional communications only, such as invitations, links, and stage updates sent by the hiring team

Candidate data is never used for marketing, advertising, or AI model training.

We do use product analytics, including session recording, to understand how the Platform is used and to fix and improve it. This covers candidate sessions as well as recruiter sessions. It is analytics on our own product, and the data is not shared with anyone outside the providers listed in Third-Party Service Providers.

Cookies are small pieces of text used to store information in web browsers. We use cookies on our Website and Platform to keep you signed in, to compile aggregate data about site traffic and interactions, and to allow trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf.

We use CookieYes, a consent management platform, to manage your cookie preferences. You can set your browser to refuse all or some cookies, but this may affect your experience of the Platform.

We may include or offer third-party products or services on our Platform. Those third parties have separate and independent privacy policies, and we have no responsibility or liability for their content and activities. Please send any feedback to .

We take the security of your data seriously. Our measures include:

• Regular security scans and penetration testing
• SOC 2 Type 2 audit cycle, conducted annually
• ISO 27001 certified information security management
• SSL/TLS encryption for all data in transit
• Encrypted storage for data at rest
• Role-based access controls for employees
• Third-party payment processing, so we never store payment card data

All information you provide is stored on secure servers behind firewalls. The safety and security of your information also depends on you: please keep your login credentials confidential and do not share access to your account.

Breach Notification: In the event of a personal data breach, we will notify affected users within seventy-two (72) hours by email and/or through our Platform notification system. We will also notify the relevant data protection authorities as required by applicable law.

All data is stored in the United States on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. All storage and processing infrastructure is located in the United States.

Proctoring capture is processed and stored by AutoProctor, an affiliated product operated within the same corporate group, which is why proctoring evidence follows the retention schedule set out below.

When you take a proctored assessment, evidence data is stored securely in the cloud. What is collected during your session is determined by the proctoring measures your hiring team has enabled, and you can see exactly what those are before you begin.

We categorize the data we collect and apply different retention periods:

Proctoring evidence is the only category subject to automatic deletion on a fixed schedule. Everything else other than billing records is removed when the hiring team's account is deleted. A hiring team can also delete individual candidates and their associated data from their dashboard at any time.

We may share your Personal Information in the following circumstances:

To Recruiters: We disclose application, assessment, interview, and proctoring information to the hiring team (the data controller) that created the job opening or assessment. This includes your responses and scores, interview recordings and transcripts, scorecards, Trust Score, proctoring evidence, email address, IP address, and browser and operating system information. The hiring team configures which proctoring measures are enabled, and candidates see this before the assessment begins.

To Sub-processors: We share data with service providers who help us operate our Platform, as listed in the Third-Party Service Providers section. These parties are required to protect your information.

Legal Requirements: We will disclose personal information (i) to comply with court orders, laws, or legal processes, (ii) to enforce our Terms of Service, (iii) to protect the rights, property, or safety of Socratease, our customers, or others, and (iv) for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

We do not sell, trade, rent, or otherwise transfer personal information to others. We do not provide non-personally identifiable visitor information for marketing purposes.

Your data is never shared with another hiring team. If you apply to two different companies through Equip, neither can see the other's application.

Equip uses automated processing in several places. The hiring team decides how to use its output: they may review it themselves, or set up automation rules that act on it, such as moving an application forward, sending a message, or declining an application.

• Trust Score. A 0-100% score generated from behavioural signals observed during a proctored assessment, such as face presence, tab switching, and screen activity. It is advisory only; the hiring team reviews the underlying evidence and makes the final determination on assessment integrity.
• Job Fit Score. A ranking of an application against criteria the hiring team defines. It orders a shortlist, and the hiring team may use it in their automation rules.
• AI grading. Free-text, spoken, and code responses may be graded automatically, and AI interviews produce an automatically generated report. Recruiters can review the response and the reasoning behind every score.
• Resume parsing. We extract structured fields from uploaded resumes to populate candidate profiles.
• Facial comparison. By default, Equip does not perform biometric identification or facial recognition; proctoring uses behavioural anomaly detection. Two paid add-ons change this and only operate when the hiring team enables them: ID Card Verification compares your face on camera against the photo on the ID you upload, and Impersonation Detection checks that the person on camera is the same throughout the session. Both are disclosed to candidates before the assessment begins.

Equip provides these tools and does not make hiring decisions. The hiring team, as the data controller, chooses whether and how to automate any step, and is responsible for those decisions. If you have questions about how an employer uses automation, or want a person to review a decision, contact that employer.

Equip is a data processor for candidate data. The hiring team you applied to is the data controller, and they hold the ability to delete your data directly.

If you are a candidate and want your application, assessment, interview, or proctoring data deleted, contact the hiring team you applied to. They can delete a candidate and the associated data from their Equip dashboard at any time. Because they are the controller of that data, the decision rests with them.

If the hiring team does not respond within thirty (30) days, contact us at and we will act on your request. We respond to data deletion requests within thirty (30) days.

If you are a recruiter and want to delete candidate data, you can do so from your dashboard: select the candidates and use the delete action. To delete your whole account and everything in it, contact . Billing and invoice records are retained for eight (8) years after deletion, as tax and accounting law requires.

Proctoring evidence is deleted automatically after 3 months regardless of any request.

This section supplements the information above and applies to users who are residents of, or visitors from, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland.

Data Location and Transfers: All data is stored and processed on infrastructure located in the United States. By using our Platform, you consent to the transfer of your Personal Information to the United States for processing.

Transfer Mechanism: We rely on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/914) for transfers of Personal Data from the EEA to the United States. If there is any conflict between this Privacy Policy and your rights under the Standard Contractual Clauses, the Standard Contractual Clauses govern. Full terms are set out in our Data Processing Agreement, available on request at .

Your Rights: If you are a resident of or visitor to Europe, you have the following rights over your Personal Information:

• Access: Request information about, and a copy of, the Personal Information we hold about you.
• Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete Personal Information.
• Objection: Object to the collection or use of your Personal Information for certain purposes.
• Erasure: Request that we erase some or all of your Personal Information. For candidate data we act on the instructions of the hiring team, who is the controller, and we will act directly if they do not respond within thirty (30) days; see Data Deletion Requests.
• Restriction of Processing: Request that we restrict further processing of your Personal Information.
• Portability: Request a copy of your Personal Information in a machine-readable format, or its transfer to another entity where technically feasible.
• Withdrawal of Consent: Withdraw your consent at any time. This may limit your ability to use some or all of the Platform.
• Right to File a Complaint: Lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority of your country or EU Member State. Visit the EDPB website to locate your Data Protection Authority.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at or write to us at Socratease, Inc, 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes, Delaware 19958 United States. We will respond within thirty (30) days.

This section supplements the information above and applies to users who reside in Canada. We comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA"), and terms defined in PIPEDA have the same meaning when used here.

• Definition of Personal Information: Any information about an identifiable individual, including business contact information such as name, position, title, address, and professional phone number.
• Right to Access: You can request access to your personal information. We will explain how we have used it, provide a list of the parties with whom it has been shared, and provide a copy in an accessible format.
• Right to be Forgotten: Your information is kept for as long as required for the purposes of our Platform. Unless we give you notice otherwise, we retain it until you or we terminate the account.
• Data Breach Notification: We will notify you as soon as feasible of any breach that creates a "real risk of significant harm". We keep a record of every data breach and, on request, provide the Office of the Privacy Commissioner with access to that record.
• Canadian Privacy Officer: Jayanth Neelakanta at .
• Contact: Email or write to Jayanth Neelakanta at Socratease, Inc, 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes, Delaware 19958 United States. We will respond within thirty (30) calendar days.

This section applies to California residents under the California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA") and the California Privacy Rights Act ("CPRA").

Equip does not sell your personal information. We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer personal information to third parties for monetary or other valuable consideration.

As a California resident, you have the following rights:

• Right to Know: Request that we disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources, the business purpose for collecting it, and the categories of third parties with whom we share it.
• Right to Delete: Request that we delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions. For candidate data, see Data Deletion Requests.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale: We do not sell personal information, so no opt-out is necessary.
• Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

To exercise these rights, email or write to Socratease, Inc, 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes, Delaware 19958 United States.

Marketing and promotional emails are sent only to recruiters (account holders), never to candidates.

Candidates receive transactional communications only, such as assessment invitations, interview links, results, and updates when the hiring team moves them to a new stage. These emails are triggered by the hiring team; Equip does not send candidates unsolicited mail.

All marketing emails include an unsubscribe option. To opt out, follow the instructions at the bottom of any email or contact us at .

Equip uses the following third-party service providers. The final column indicates whether the provider processes candidate data or only recruiter and account data.

If you have any questions about our third-party service providers, email .

Socratease reserves the right to change or modify this Privacy Policy at any time. Modifications are binding upon your acceptance of the modified Privacy Policy. We will inform you about modifications by email, on our Website or Platform, or by comparable means within a reasonable period. Your continued use of our Website or Platform constitutes your consent to those changes.

If you believe that any content on our Website or Platform violates your copyright, and you wish to have the allegedly infringing material removed, the following information must be provided to our designated Copyright Agent in the form of a written notification (pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, a "DMCA Takedown Notice"):

1. Your physical or electronic signature;
2. Identification of the copyrighted work(s) that you claim to have been infringed;
3. Identification of the material on our Website or Platform that you claim is infringing and that you request us to remove;
4. Sufficient information to permit us to locate such material;
5. Your address, telephone number, and email address;
6. A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the objectionable material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or under the law; and
7. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are either the owner of the copyright that has allegedly been infringed or that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Socratease's Copyright Agent to receive such notices is Jayanth Neelakanta, at and at Socratease, Inc, 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes, Delaware 19958 United States. You acknowledge that for us to be authorized to take down any content, your notice must comply with all the requirements of this Section. Please note that, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), any misrepresentation of material fact in a written notification automatically subjects the complaining party to liability for any damages, costs, and attorney's fees incurred by Socratease in connection with the written notification and allegation of copyright infringement.

To ask questions or comment about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, please contact our Privacy Officer:

By using our Website or Platform, you agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy and the terms set out in our Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use our Website or Platform.

Because Equip handles applications, assessments, interviews, and proctoring, candidates and hiring teams often have specific questions about how data is collected, stored, and protected. Below are the answers we are asked for most often.