Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY
Hire Me GCC
Video-first candidate platform
**Effective date: 31 July 2026 Version 1.0 - Website publication draft
This policy explains how candidate videos, CVs and account information are collected, used, protected and shared. It is designed around the Bahrain Personal Data Protection Law and GDPR-aligned privacy principles.

1. Who we are

Hire Me GCC is a video-first recruitment platform that enables candidates to create a short professional introduction video, upload a CV and make a profile available to approved employers for genuine recruitment purposes.
The data controller responsible for your personal data is Bespoke Marketing Group, a company registered in the Kingdom of Bahrain under commercial registration number CR No. 188714-1, with registered office at Office 33, Mandarine Tower, Al Seef District, Kingdom of Bahrain. ("Hire Me", "we", "us" or "our").
Privacy contact: ceo@hireme-gcc.com | Postal address: Office 33, Mandarine Tower, Al Seef District, Kingdom of Bahrain | Telephone: +973 6666 2800.
Our confidentiality commitment Candidate information is not intended to be publicly searchable on the open internet. Access is restricted to approved employer accounts and authorised Hire Me personnel who need it for platform operation, support, security or compliance. We do not sell candidate personal data.

2. Scope of this policy

This policy applies to candidates, employers, website visitors and other users of the Hire Me website, mobile experience and related services. It covers account details, candidate videos, CVs, employment information, employer activity, communications, payment records and technical usage data.
An employer that downloads, records, exports or otherwise processes candidate information for its own recruitment decisions may become an independent data controller and must comply with its own legal obligations. Hire Me requires employers to use candidate information only for genuine recruitment and related hiring activities.

3. Information we collect

3.1 Candidate information

Identity and contact details, such as name, email address, telephone number, location and nationality or work-authorisation information where provided.
Profile information, including job title, experience, skills, education, languages, preferred roles, availability, salary expectations and geographic preferences.
Your CV, supporting documents and the content of your short introduction video, including your image and voice.
Current and previous employer information. You may request that your current employer is concealed or blocked as described in section 7.
Account, verification, support and communication records.
Payment and transaction details for optional paid features. Full card details should be handled by the appointed payment processor and not stored by Hire Me unless expressly stated.
Technical information such as device, browser, IP address, login history, cookies, security logs and platform interactions.

3.2 Employer information

Business name and registration details; authorised user names and contact details; subscription and payment information; candidate searches, profile views, saved candidates and communications; and security, verification and audit records.

3.3 Sensitive information

A video or CV may reveal or allow inferences about characteristics such as health, disability, ethnic origin, religion or other sensitive matters. Please do not upload sensitive information unless it is genuinely necessary for your job search. Where applicable law requires explicit consent for processing sensitive data, we will request it before processing.

4. How we use information and our lawful bases

We use personal data only for specified, legitimate recruitment and platform purposes. Depending on the circumstances and applicable law, our lawful basis may be your consent, performance of our contract with you, compliance with a legal obligation, or our legitimate interests where those interests are not overridden by your rights.
Purpose
Typical data
Lawful basis
Create and operate your candidate profile
Account, CV, video, preferences
Contract; consent where required
Show your profile to approved employers
Profile, CV, video, contact settings
Contract; consent; legitimate recruitment interests
Match and recommend candidates or roles
Skills, experience, preferences, search activity
Contract and legitimate interests
Verify employers and prevent misuse
Employer records, identity, logs
Legitimate interests; legal obligation
Provide support and service messages
Contact and account records
Contract and legitimate interests
Process subscriptions or featured upgrades
Billing and transaction data
Contract; legal obligation
Improve, secure and analyse the platform
Usage, device and security data
Legitimate interests; consent for non-essential cookies where required
Meet legal, regulatory and dispute requirements
Relevant account, transaction and audit records
Legal obligation and legitimate interests

5. Candidate video and CV visibility

Your candidate video is treated as part of your professional recruitment profile, similar to a digital CV but with visual and audio content. It will be made available only according to the visibility settings and access rules operated by Hire Me.
Candidate profiles will not be intentionally indexed for public search-engine results.
Only verified or approved employer accounts should be permitted to search or view full candidate profiles.
Employers may be shown limited or anonymised information before they are authorised or subscribed.
Contact details may be hidden until the relevant access condition is met or until the candidate chooses to reveal them.
Employer access may be logged, monitored, suspended or withdrawn where misuse is suspected.
Employers must not publish, scrape, sell, distribute or use candidate information for advertising, profiling unrelated to recruitment, or any unlawful discriminatory purpose.
By publishing a profile, you instruct Hire Me to make the selected information available to approved employers for recruitment. You can unpublish, restrict or delete your profile through the platform or by contacting us, subject to limited legal retention obligations.

6. No public sale of candidate data

We do not sell candidate personal data. We may charge employers for access to the recruitment platform, search functionality or candidate database, but that commercial access does not transfer ownership of candidate data and does not permit employers to use it outside genuine recruitment purposes.

7. Current employer confidentiality and blocking

Designed for candidates who are already employed A candidate may identify a current employer and ask Hire Me to take reasonable steps to prevent authorised users linked to that employer from finding or viewing the candidate profile.
1.
You provide the correct legal or trading name of your current employer and, where possible, its website domain or other identifying information.
2.
Hire Me records the employer as a blocked organisation for your account and applies the block to employer users that we can reasonably identify as belonging to that organisation.
3.
Your current employer name will not be displayed as part of your visible profile where you select the confidential-employer option. It may instead appear as "Confidential current employer" or similar wording.
4.
Hire Me may use your employer information internally only to operate the block, verify conflicts, prevent misuse and meet legal obligations.
5.
You should update the blocked employer promptly when your employment changes.
Important limitation: no platform can guarantee that a candidate will never be recognised. A colleague may use another employer account, an employer may trade under another name, or your face, voice, experience or CV may identify you. The block is a protective measure and not an absolute guarantee. Hire Me will use reasonable technical and organisational efforts and will investigate reported breaches or suspected circumvention.
Employers are prohibited from attempting to circumvent a candidate block, sharing login credentials or using another organisation’s account to identify employees. Breach may result in suspension, termination and other action.

8. Who we share information with

We disclose personal data only where necessary and proportionate, including to:
Approved employers and authorised recruiters, according to your profile visibility and the employer’s access rights.
Cloud hosting, video storage, content delivery, communications, analytics, cybersecurity, identity-verification, customer-support and payment providers acting under contract.
Professional advisers, auditors, insurers, investors or transaction counterparties where subject to confidentiality and only as reasonably necessary.
Courts, regulators, law-enforcement bodies or government authorities where disclosure is legally required or necessary to protect rights, safety, security or prevent fraud.
A successor entity in a merger, acquisition, reorganisation or sale, subject to appropriate confidentiality and data protection safeguards.
We require service providers acting on our behalf to process personal data only on documented instructions, to maintain confidentiality and security, and to return or delete data when their services end, subject to legal retention requirements.

9. International transfers

Hire Me is GCC-focused and may use service providers or permit employer access from countries outside Bahrain. Where personal data is transferred internationally, we will take steps required by the Bahrain Personal Data Protection Law and, where applicable, the GDPR or UK GDPR. These may include transfers to jurisdictions recognised as adequate, approved contractual safeguards, regulatory authorisation, or another legally permitted transfer mechanism.

10. Data retention

We retain personal data only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy, including providing the service, maintaining security, resolving disputes and meeting legal, accounting or regulatory duties.
Active candidate profiles: while the account remains active or until the candidate unpublishes or requests deletion.
Inactive candidate accounts: 24 months after last meaningful activity, followed by deletion or anonymisation unless the candidate renews the profile.
Employer and subscription records: for the service period and the legally required accounting or claims period.
Security, access and audit logs: 24 months, unless needed longer for an investigation.
Deleted content and backups: removed from active systems promptly and from rolling backups within 90 days, unless legal preservation is required.
Candidates will be given a straightforward way to deactivate or delete their profile. Where immediate deletion is not legally possible, data will be restricted and retained only for the required purpose.

11. Security

We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures proportionate to the sensitivity and risks of candidate video, CV and account data. Measures should include:
Encryption in transit and, where appropriate, at rest; secure password hashing; role-based access controls; and multi-factor authentication for privileged access.
Employer verification and access approval; user-level permissions; access logging; rate limiting; anti-scraping controls; and monitoring for unusual downloading or profile-view patterns.
Secure development, vulnerability management, backups, incident response and periodic security testing.
Confidentiality duties and data-protection training for personnel with access to candidate information.
Written processor agreements, supplier due diligence and deletion or return obligations.
Processes to assess and notify affected individuals and regulators of qualifying personal-data breaches within applicable legal timeframes.
No internet service is completely secure. Users must protect their login details and notify us immediately of suspected unauthorised use.

12. Your rights and choices

Subject to applicable law, you may have the right to:
Be informed about how your data is used and obtain a copy of it.
Correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
Withdraw consent where processing relies on consent, without affecting earlier lawful processing.
Object to or request restriction of certain processing.
Request deletion where there is no overriding lawful reason to retain the data.
Receive certain information in a portable format where legally applicable.
Complain to the Bahrain Personal Data Protection Authority or another competent supervisory authority.
Ask for human review where a legally significant decision is made solely by automated means.
To exercise a right, contact ceo@hireme-gcc.com. We may need to verify your identity. We will respond within the timeframe required by applicable law and explain any lawful limitation or refusal.

13. Automated matching and artificial intelligence

Hire Me may use rules, search ranking, recommendations or automated tools to help employers find potentially suitable candidates and to help candidates discover opportunities. Unless clearly disclosed otherwise, these tools are intended to support human recruitment decisions, not make final hiring decisions on behalf of employers.
We will not use candidate videos for facial recognition, emotion detection, biometric identification or automated personality scoring unless a separate assessment has been completed, the practice is lawful, the user has been clearly informed, and any required explicit consent has been obtained.

14. Marketing communications

We may send service communications necessary for account operation. Promotional messages will be sent only where legally permitted. You can unsubscribe from marketing at any time, although you will continue to receive essential account, security or transaction notices.

15. Cookies and analytics

We use strictly necessary cookies or similar technologies to operate login, security, preferences and payment functions. Analytics, advertising or other non-essential technologies will be used only in accordance with applicable consent requirements. A separate cookie notice and preference tool should identify each cookie category, provider, purpose and duration.

16. Minimum age

The service is intended for people legally able to seek employment and enter the applicable platform agreement. The platform must set a minimum age of 18. We do not knowingly create profiles for children below the applicable age without a lawful basis and appropriate parent or guardian involvement. If we learn that a child’s data has been collected unlawfully, we will delete or restrict it.

17. Employer responsibilities

Employers using Hire Me must:
Access candidate information only for genuine recruitment, selection, verification and hiring purposes.
Limit access to authorised staff and protect account credentials.
Keep candidate information confidential and secure, and delete it when no longer needed.
Not discriminate unlawfully or use video content to make decisions based on protected or irrelevant personal characteristics.
Not contact a candidate’s current employer without the candidate’s clear permission.
Not record, scrape, bulk-download, republish, sell, disclose or create unauthorised databases from candidate profiles.
Honour candidate rights and provide their own privacy information where they independently process candidate data.
Employer terms should make these obligations contractual and permit audits, suspension, termination, deletion demands and legal action for misuse.

18. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy to reflect changes in the service, law, technology or business operations. The updated version will be posted with a revised effective date. We will provide additional notice where a change materially affects how candidate data is used or where consent is required.

19. Contact and complaints

Questions, requests or complaints should be sent to ceo@hireme-gcc.com. You may also complain to the Bahrain Personal Data Protection Authority. Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, you may have the right to complain to the supervisory authority in the country where you live, work or believe an infringement occurred.

20. Legal framework and GDPR alignment

This policy is designed to reflect the core requirements of Bahrain Law No. (30) of 2018 with Respect to Personal Data Protection, including fair and lawful processing, specified purposes, data accuracy, security, confidentiality, data-subject rights, processor controls and international-transfer safeguards.
Where the EU GDPR applies because Hire Me offers services to, or monitors the behaviour of, individuals in the European Economic Area, Hire Me must comply with its territorial, transparency, lawful-basis, rights, security, processor and transfer requirements. Uploading a recruitment video is not prohibited by the GDPR. It is a form of personal-data processing and can be lawful when the platform provides clear information, uses a valid lawful basis, limits access and purpose, protects the data, respects user rights and meets international-transfer rules.
Accordingly, Hire Me should not state that video recruitment "does not contravene GDPR" in all circumstances. Compliance depends on how the platform is built and operated. The controls in this policy are intended to support compliance, but the final implementation, contracts, consent wording, cookie tools, hosting, retention settings and employer terms must match the policy in practice.

References

1.
Kingdom of Bahrain, Law No. (30) of 2018 with Respect to Personal Data Protection Law, especially Articles 3, 4, 8, 9 and provisions concerning data-subject rights and international transfers. Official English guidance copy available through the Bahrain Personal Data Protection Authority and Legislation & Legal Opinion Commission.
1.
European Union, Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation), including Articles 3, 5, 6, 12-22, 24-32, 35 and 44-49.
1.
UK Information Commissioner’s Office, Employment practices and data protection: recruitment and selection guidance (noting that guidance may be updated following legislative changes).
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