Candidate Privacy Notice

OUTBRAIN CANDIDATE PRIVACY NOTICE

Last update: 20 November 2024

This Data Protection Notice (the “Notice”) aims to give those applying for any vacancies (“you”, “your”, “yours”) at Outbrain Inc., or one of its Group companies (“Outbrain”, “us” or “we”), information as to how their personal data (i.e. information that directly or indirectly identifies them) (“Personal Data”) is processed. This Notice may be updated to ensure continued compliance with current legislation and to reflect best practice. Outbrain Inc. is a data controller in relation to your Personal Data. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use Personal Data about you.

WHAT PERSONAL DATA DO WE COLLECT?

We process the following types of Personal Data (as applicable) pursuant to your application to work for us:

  • your identification data (e.g. name, date of birth, gender, photographs (static or moving), personal contact details and address);
  • your date of birth, nationality, marital status, and ethnicity;
  • right to work information (including passport, visa details and other identification documents);
  • records of your work and education history (including internal and external work history and references) and other information you have provided to us in your CV and covering letter;
  • background screening information (including criminal, credit reference and fraud checking, where permitted by applicable laws);
  • assessment content and results if you are given a task during the recruitment process; and
  • other information voluntarily disclosed by you.

Depending on the country, we may collect, store and use sensitive personal data during your application such as information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or identity, veteran status and information about your health, including any disability or special arrangements you may request.

HOW DO WE OBTAIN YOUR PERSONAL DATA?

We collect Personal Data about you from the following sources:

  • you, the candidate, when you submit your application;
  • a recruitment agency which submit an application on your behalf;
  • your named referees, from whom we confirm your past employment and positions; and
  • data accessible from publicly available sources, such as social networks (e.g. LinkedIn).

We will indicate where the information we have requested is mandatory or optional. We will also explain the consequences should you decide not to provide information which we have indicated is mandatory. In some circumstances this may mean we are unable to process your application.

THE PURPOSE OF PROCESSING YOUR DATA

We will use the Personal Data we collect about you to:

  • assess your skills, qualifications, and suitability for the role you applied to;
  • communicate with you about your application and the recruitment process;
  • keep records related to our hiring processes;
  • carry out reference checks, where applicable;
  • report on our equal opportunity monitoring; and
  • comply with our legal or regulatory requirements, such as assessing your right to work in the location you have applied to a role.

When you give your consent, we may also use your Personal Data to tell you about other opportunities or positions at Outbrain that you may be interested in.

How we use sensitive personal data and criminal convictions

We may use your sensitive personal data in the following ways:

  • We may use information about your disability status to consider whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment process, for example whether adjustments need to be made during an interview.
  • We may use information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or identity, veteran status for diversity and inclusion purposes and to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting in our group of companies. This data may be anonymised and aggregated in order to report on our equal opportunity monitoring obligations where such processing is specifically authorised or required by law.

We generally do not carry out criminal background checks as part of our recruitment process, unless when required by local laws for specific roles. In such a case, we will inform you through a specific notice during the recruitment process.

Automated decision-making

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making.

LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING

We will only process your Personal Data where we have a legal basis for doing so. Generally, we will be processing it to help us to decide whether to enter into a contract of employment with you. At other times, we will be processing your Personal Data because you have consented to us doing so. In which case you can withdraw such consent at any point. We may also process your Personal Data to comply with our legal obligations or because it is in our legitimate business interests to do so (for example, where it is necessary to understand our applicants in sufficient detail so we can operate an effective recruitment process).

SHARING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Within Outbrain

The Personal Data contained in your application is collected and processed by Outbrain Inc., which is the data controller, for the purposes of managing our recruitment and hiring processes. We will share your Personal Data within our group of companies for the purposes of processing your application.

Outside of Outbrain

We share your Personal Data with authorised third party service providers to conduct and manage the recruitment process. For example, we may share your Personal Data with such service providers in order to conduct screening and verification of your application and the information you have provided to us and to manage your application (for example managing communications with you etc). We may also disclose your Personal Data to our suppliers and other third parties in the following circumstances:

  • when required to do so by law;
  • in response to a legitimate request for assistance by the police or other law enforcement agency;
  • with local tax authorities and any governmental or administrative body where Outbrain determines that it is necessary or desirable in order to comply with applicable laws, court orders, or government regulations;
  • with a third party that is looking to acquire or does acquire all or part of the assets or stock of Outbrain, or that succeeds Outbrain in carrying on all or a part of the business of Outbrain whether by merger, acquisition, re-organisation or otherwise; and/or
  • to seek legal advice from our external lawyers or in connection with litigation with a third party.

All our processors, recipients and other entities in our group of companies are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your Personal Data in line with our policies.

TRANSFERS OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA OUTSIDE OF THE UK/EEA

Your Personal Data may be transferred for the purposes listed above to other Outbrain entities or to other recipients located in countries outside of the European Economic Area and/or UK, including the United States of America. Your Personal Data will only be transferred when the recipient is a country that provides an adequate level of data protection or subject to appropriate safeguards, such as the relevant module of the EU Standard Contractual Clauses. If you are located in the EEA or the UK, you may contact us for a copy of the safeguards which we have put in place to protect your Personal Data and privacy rights in these circumstances.

SECURING PERSONAL DATA

Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your Personal Data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your Personal Data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need-to-know reason. They will only process your Personal Data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. You can find more details about these measures on Outbrain’s Security page. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected Personal Data breach or security incident and will notify you and any applicable regulator of such where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

We will retain your Personal Data for a period of 12 months after we have communicated to you our decision about whether to appoint you to the role you applied to. We retain your Personal Data for that period so that we can show, in the event of a legal claim, that we have not discriminated against candidates on prohibited grounds and that we have conducted the recruitment exercise in a fair and transparent way. After this period, we will securely destroy your Personal Data in accordance with our data retention policy and applicable laws and regulations.

When you give your consent, we may retain your Personal Data for a longer period of up to 24 months after your application on the basis that a further opportunity may arise in future and you wish to be considered for such a position.

YOUR RIGHTS

Under certain circumstances, you have the right to:

  • Request access to your Personal Data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the Personal Data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
  • Request erasure of your Personal Data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove Personal Data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your Personal Data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below). This right is not absolute, and we may still be lawfully entitled to retain some of your Personal Data when we have a legitimate interest to do so, such as being able to respond to a legal claim.
  • Object to processing of your Personal Data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your Personal Data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of Personal Data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Withdraw your consent when you apply for a role, you may give you consent to be contacted by Outbrain for other opportunities for up to 24 months. You have the right to withdraw your consent for processing for that purpose at any time.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your Personal Data, object to the processing of your Personal Data, withdraw your consent or have any other request under data protection laws, please contact us via privacy@outbrain.com.

ENQUIRIES, REQUESTS OR CONCERNS

In the first instance, all enquiries, requests or concerns regarding this Notice or relating to the processing of your Personal Data including all requests should be sent to your P&C Business Partner or privacyquestions@outbrain.com. If you are not satisfied with Outbrain’s response, you also have the right to lodge a complaint about  the  processing of your Personal Data with your local data protection authority or with Outbrain’s appointed Data Protection Officer at dpo@outbrain.com. If you live in the UK, you can make a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at this address. If you live in the EU, you can find the relevant data protection authority here.

Outbrain commits to refer unresolved complaints concerning our handling of Personal Data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF to Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, Inc. (JAMS), an alternative dispute resolution provider based in the United States. You may also be able to invoke binding arbitration for unresolved complaints. To submit a complaint to the FTC, click here.