Data Retention & Deletion Policy

This Data Retention & Deletion Policy explains how Worldhire Global Ltd retains, stores, deletes, archives, and handles personal information, account data, profile data, recruiter activity, reach-out / connection records, consent-led access records, billing records, and platform logs across its websites, platforms, products, and services, including Korum, Select, and Sphere.

This policy applies to professionals, candidates, recruiters, employers, companies, hiring managers, executive search firms, staffing firms, consultants, partners, clients, subscribers, website visitors, and other users who interact with Worldhire platforms and services.

This policy should be read together with our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Candidate Consent Policy, Recruiter Terms, Recruiter Code of Conduct, Confidentiality & Consent Policy, Payments & Billing Policy, Cookie Policy, and any separate agreement, consent-led access record, order form, subscription plan, statement of work, or commercial terms agreed with Worldhire Global Ltd.

For the purpose of this policy, “Worldhire”, “we”, “us”, or “our” means Worldhire Global Ltd. “Platform” means our websites, applications, dashboards, tools, and digital services. “Korum” means the confidential career and hiring platform operated by Worldhire. “User”, “you”, or “your” means any person or organisation using or interacting with our services.

1. Purpose of This Policy

Worldhire collects and processes information to operate its platforms, deliver services, support confidential hiring workflows, manage recruiter access, protect professionals, process payments, maintain security, and comply with legal, tax, accounting, contractual, audit, and regulatory obligations.

This policy explains:

• What types of data may be retained
• Why data is retained
• How long data may be retained
• How deletion requests are handled
• What may remain after deletion
• How profile deletion differs from legal or audit record deletion
• How reach-out, consent-led access, consent, and recruiter activity logs are retained
• How backups and archived records are handled

2. Retention Principles

Worldhire follows these retention principles:

• We retain information only for as long as reasonably necessary.
• We retain information for the purposes described in our Privacy Policy and related platform policies.
• We may retain certain records for legal, tax, accounting, audit, security, compliance, misuse prevention, dispute review, and platform accountability.
• We aim to delete, anonymise, archive, or restrict information when it is no longer needed.
• We may retain limited records even after account closure where required or justified.
• We may retain evidence of consent, reach-out / connection activity, consent-led access workflows, recruiter access, payments, and misuse reports to protect users and the platform.

3. Types of Information Covered

This policy may apply to:

• Candidate and professional account data
• Candidate and professional profile data
• Discoverable Mode profile data
• Confidential Mode profile data
• CVs/resumes and uploaded documents
• Salary or compensation information
• Contact details
• Recruiter and employer account data
• Company account data
• Recruiter verification data
• Access request records
• reach-out / connection records
• Consent records
• Consent-led access workflow records
• Platform messages and communications
• Search activity
• Profile view activity
• Shortlist activity
• Billing and invoice data
• Payment records
• Subscription records
• Support records
• Complaint and misuse reports
• Security logs
• Device and IP metadata
• Website analytics and cookie data
• Legal and compliance records

4. Why We Retain Data

Worldhire may retain data for the following purposes:

• Operating Korum, Select, Sphere, and related services
• Maintaining user accounts
• Supporting candidate profile visibility
• Managing Discoverable Mode and Confidential Mode
• Supporting reach-out / connection workflows
• Recording consent
• Managing recruiter access and verification
• Supporting consent-led access workflows
• Preventing misuse, scraping, fraud, spam, and unauthorised access
• Investigating confidentiality breaches or misuse reports
• Resolving support issues
• Processing billing, subscriptions, taxes, and payments
• Maintaining legal, accounting, tax, and audit records
• Enforcing Terms of Use and related policies
• Defending or pursuing legal claims
• Maintaining platform security and integrity
• Complying with legal or regulatory obligations

5. Candidate and Professional Account Data

Candidate and professional account data may include:

• Name
• Email address
• Phone number
• Login information
• Account status
• Profile mode
• Account preferences
• Communication preferences
• Support history
• Account activity
• This information may be retained while the account remains active.
• If the account is closed or deleted, active account data may be removed, restricted, anonymised, or archived, subject to legal, security, audit, billing, dispute, and compliance requirements.

6. Candidate Profile Data

Candidate profile data may include:

• Professional summary
• Work history
• Current and previous roles
• Current and previous employers
• Education
• Skills
• Industry
• Function
• Location
• Notice period
• Salary or compensation range
• Expected compensation range
• Career preferences
• Availability status
• CV/resume
• Uploaded documents
• Visibility mode
• Other professional profile information
• Candidate profile data may be retained while the profile is active, visible, confidential, paused, hidden, or retained for service purposes.
• If a candidate requests deletion, profile data may be removed from active visibility and deleted, restricted, anonymised, or archived according to this policy.

7. Discoverable Mode Data

In Discoverable Mode, professional profile information may be visible to verified or approved recruiters, employers, companies, and hiring partners inside Korum.

Direct contact details are hidden by default and may be accessed by a verified or approved recruiter through Korum’s paid contact-reveal feature where permitted.

Worldhire may retain records of Discoverable Mode selection, profile visibility status, profile changes, reach-out / connection actions, and related activity for audit, security, misuse prevention, consent tracking, dispute review, and platform accountability.

If a professional changes from Discoverable Mode to Confidential Mode or pauses the profile, future visibility may change. However, records of prior activity may be retained where necessary.

8. Confidential Mode Data

In Confidential Mode, professional profile information may be masked, limited, or partially visible.

Worldhire may retain records of:

• Confidential Mode selection
• Access requests
• Candidate approvals
• Candidate rejections
• Candidate pauses
• Consent-led access workflow activity
• reach-out / connection decisions
• Recruiter requests
• Related platform communications
• These records may be retained for audit, security, misuse prevention, consent tracking, confidentiality review, dispute review, and compliance.

9. CVs, Resumes, and Uploaded Documents

CVs, resumes, and uploaded documents may be retained while a profile is active, visible, confidential, paused, or retained for service purposes.

If a user removes a CV/resume or requests deletion, Worldhire may remove it from active visibility within a reasonable period.

Copies may remain temporarily in backups, logs, caches, or archived systems until overwritten or deleted according to backup cycles.

Where a CV/resume has been accessed, shared, or used in a hiring workflow before deletion, records of that access may be retained for audit, security, legal, or dispute-related purposes.

10. Contact Details and reach-out / connection Records

Direct contact details may include phone number, email address, or other direct contact information.

In Discoverable Mode, direct contact details are hidden by default and may be accessed by a verified or approved recruiter through Korum’s paid contact-reveal feature (a one-time credit charge) where permitted.

Worldhire may retain reach-out / connection records, including:

• Recruiter or hiring user identity
• Company account involved
• Candidate profile involved
• Date and time of the reach-out / connection
• Type of information accessed
• Related role or search context where available
• Account, IP, device, and security metadata
• Any misuse report or complaint connected to the reach-out / connection
• reach-out / connection records may be retained even if the candidate later changes profile mode, pauses the profile, or deletes the account, where retention is necessary for audit, security, misuse prevention, legal, compliance, or dispute review.

11. Consent Records

Worldhire may retain records of consent, including:

• Profile creation consent
• Candidate Consent Policy acceptance
• Discoverable Mode selection
• Confidential Mode selection
• reach-out / connection consent
• CV/resume visibility settings
• Salary or compensation visibility settings
• Recruiter Terms acceptance
• Recruiter Code of Conduct acceptance
• Consent-led access acknowledgment
• Marketing consent or opt-out
• Changes to consent settings
• Consent records may be retained to demonstrate platform accountability, support user rights, prevent misuse, investigate disputes, and comply with legal obligations.

12. Consent-Led Access Records and Confidentiality Records

Worldhire may retain consent-led access records, including:

• Consent-led access acceptance records
• Consent-led access workflow timestamps
• Parties involved
• Role or opportunity context
• Access request history
• Candidate approvals or rejections
• Recruiter acknowledgements
• Electronic signature or checkbox records
• IP, device, and account metadata
• Related communications
• Misuse or breach reports
• Consent-led access and confidentiality records may be retained for legal, audit, compliance, security, enforcement, and dispute review purposes.
• Unless Worldhire Global Ltd is expressly named as a party to a specific consent-led access agreement, Worldhire acts as a platform facilitator and is not responsible for enforcing the consent-led access agreement between users.

13. Recruiter and Employer Account Data

Recruiter and employer account data may include:

• Name
• Work email
• Phone number
• Company name
• Company website
• Company domain
• Company registration country
• Recruiter location
• Countries hired for
• Company type
• LinkedIn profile
• Company LinkedIn page
• Verification status
• Access level
• Payment status
• Account role
• Team seat status
• Support history
• Usage history
• This information may be retained while the account is active and for a reasonable period after closure, suspension, or termination where necessary for legal, audit, billing, security, misuse prevention, dispute review, or compliance purposes.

14. Recruiter Activity Logs

Korum may log recruiter and hiring user activity, including:

• Login activity
• Search activity
• Profile views
• reach-out / connection actions
• Access requests
• Shortlists
• CV/resume views
• Messages
• Consent-led access workflow activity
• Download activity, where applicable
• Account changes
• Device and IP metadata
• Security events
• Misuse reports
• These logs may be retained for audit, security, misuse prevention, compliance, dispute review, and platform accountability.
• Worldhire may retain recruiter activity logs even after account suspension or termination where needed to investigate misuse, protect professionals, enforce policies, or defend legal or commercial claims.

15. Billing, Invoice, and Payment Records

Billing and payment records may include:

• Customer name
• Company name
• Billing address
• Tax identification details
• Invoice details
• Subscription details
• Payment status
• Transaction references
• Currency
• Payment method metadata
• Payment provider records
• Refund records
• Chargeback records
• Finance communications
• These records may be retained for tax, accounting, audit, legal, commercial, dispute, and compliance purposes.
• Billing and accounting records may commonly be retained for up to 6 years or for the period required by applicable law.

16. Support, Complaint, and Misuse Records

Worldhire may retain support, complaint, and misuse records, including:

• Support tickets
• Emails
• Chat records
• Complaint details
• Misuse reports
• Confidentiality breach reports
• Consent-led access breach reports
• Current employer contact reports
• Data misuse allegations
• Investigation notes
• Outcome records
• Evidence submitted by users
• These records may be retained for service quality, audit, security, misuse prevention, legal, dispute review, and compliance purposes.
• Where a complaint involves serious misuse, confidentiality breach, consent-led access breach, harassment, fraud, scraping, or current employer contact, related records may be retained for longer where necessary.

17. Security Logs

Security logs may include:

• Login history
• Failed login attempts
• IP address
• Device metadata
• Browser details
• MFA activity
• Password reset activity
• VPN/proxy risk signals
• Suspicious access patterns
• Rate-limit activity
• Security alerts
• Admin activity
• Access control changes
• Security logs may be retained for security monitoring, fraud prevention, misuse prevention, incident investigation, legal compliance, and platform integrity.
• Security logs are generally retained for 12-24 months unless needed longer for investigation, legal, compliance, audit, or security reasons.

18. Website Analytics and Cookie Data

Website analytics and cookie data may be retained according to our Cookie Policy, analytics settings, consent preferences, platform requirements, and service provider retention settings.

Non-essential cookies may require consent depending on applicable law.

Users may manage cookie preferences where available.

19. Indicative Retention Periods

The following table provides indicative retention periods. Actual retention may vary depending on legal, tax, accounting, audit, security, contractual, operational, dispute-related, and compliance requirements.

• Data Type
• Indicative Retention Period
• Active user account data
• While the account remains active
• Candidate profile data

While the profile is active, visible, confidential, paused, hidden, or retained for service purposes

Deleted candidate profile data

Removed from active systems within a reasonable period, usually 30-90 days where technically and legally possible

CV/resume and uploaded documents

While active or enabled; removed from active visibility after deletion request, subject to backups and legal retention

reach-out / connection records

Up to 6 years where needed for audit, misuse prevention, legal, or dispute purposes

Consent records

Up to 6 years where needed for audit, legal, compliance, or dispute purposes

Consent-led access records

Up to 6 years or longer if required by contract, law, dispute, or enforcement needs

Recruiter activity logs

Up to 6 years where needed for audit, misuse prevention, legal, or dispute purposes

Billing, invoice, and payment records

Usually up to 6 years or as required by applicable tax/accounting law

Security logs

Usually 12-24 months, unless needed longer for investigation or legal reasons

Support records

Usually up to 3 years, unless needed longer for service, legal, or dispute purposes

Complaint and misuse records

Up to 6 years or longer where needed for legal, audit, or dispute purposes

• Marketing preferences
• Until opt-out, account deletion, or retention review
• Backup copies

Retained according to backup cycles, then overwritten or deleted

20. Deletion Requests

Users may request deletion of their account, profile, or personal information by contacting:

• privacy@worldhire.com

A deletion request may result in:

• Profile removal from active visibility
• Account closure
• Removal or restriction of active profile data
• Removal of uploaded CV/resume from active visibility
• Deactivation of login access
• Suppression of future marketing communications
• Restriction or deletion of certain personal information where legally and technically possible
• We may need to verify your identity before processing a deletion request.

21. What May Remain After Deletion

Deletion does not always mean all information is immediately or completely erased from every system.

After a deletion request, Worldhire may retain certain information where necessary for:

• Legal obligations
• Tax obligations
• Accounting obligations
• Billing records
• Audit records
• Security
• Fraud prevention
• Misuse prevention
• Dispute review
• Consent-led access records
• Consent records
• reach-out / connection records
• Recruiter access records
• Compliance
• Enforcement of Terms or policies
• Defence or pursuit of legal claims

Examples of information that may remain include:

• Invoice records
• Payment records
• Consent records
• reach-out / connection logs
• Consent-led access logs
• Misuse reports
• Security logs
• Complaint records
• Legal correspondence
• Backup copies for a limited period
• Where possible, retained information may be restricted, archived, minimised, or separated from active platform use.

22. Backup Copies

Worldhire may maintain backup copies for business continuity, disaster recovery, security, and operational resilience.

Information deleted from active systems may remain in backups for a limited period until backup cycles overwrite or delete the information.

Backups are not used for normal active processing unless restoration is required.

If backup data is restored, Worldhire will take reasonable steps to re-apply deletion or restriction requests where technically and legally appropriate.

23. Anonymisation and Aggregation

Worldhire may anonymise or aggregate data so that it no longer identifies an individual.

Anonymised or aggregated data may be retained and used for:

• Analytics
• Product improvement
• Market insights
• Platform performance
• Security analysis
• Business reporting
• Research and development
• Anonymised data is not treated as personal information where it can no longer reasonably identify an individual.

24. Account Closure by Worldhire

Worldhire may close, suspend, restrict, or terminate accounts according to its Terms of Use and related policies.

Where an account is closed, suspended, or terminated by Worldhire, data may be retained where necessary for:

• Audit
• Security
• Misuse prevention
• Legal compliance
• Billing
• Dispute review
• Enforcement
• Protection of users
• Protection of platform integrity
• Account closure does not automatically remove all legal, billing, audit, consent-led access, consent, reach-out / connection, or misuse records.

25. Candidate Withdrawal From Hiring Process

If a candidate withdraws from a hiring process, Worldhire may restrict or stop future sharing of relevant profile information according to platform settings and applicable workflows.

However, records of prior access, reach-out, consent-led access activity, recruiter communication, access requests, or hiring workflow events may be retained for audit, security, legal, compliance, and dispute review.

26. Recruiter or Employer Account Termination

If a recruiter, employer, company, or hiring user account is suspended or terminated, Worldhire may retain account and activity records where necessary to:

• Investigate misuse
• Protect candidates
• Prevent repeat abuse
• Enforce platform rules
• Resolve billing issues
• Defend legal or commercial claims
• Preserve audit logs
• Comply with legal obligations
• Review reach-out / connection or access request activity
• Terminated users may lose access to candidate data, platform records, saved profiles, reach-out / connection access, messages, and paid features.

27. Data Shared With Other Users

If your information has already been lawfully shared with another user through Korum before deletion or withdrawal, Worldhire may not be able to delete copies held by that other user.

For example:

• A recruiter may have accessed contact details through reach-out / connection.
• A recruiter may have viewed or downloaded a CV where permitted.
• An employer may have received candidate information through an approved workflow.
• A candidate may have received confidential role information.
• Consent-led access may have been accepted between users.
• Users who receive data through Korum are responsible for handling it according to applicable laws, platform terms, confidentiality obligations, and their own retention obligations.
• Worldhire may take platform action where misuse is reported or suspected, but Worldhire is not responsible for unauthorised retention or misuse by another user, except where liability arises directly from Worldhire’s own unlawful act, negligence, fraud, wilful misconduct, or liability that cannot be excluded by law.

28. Legal Hold

Worldhire may suspend deletion or retain information where a legal hold is required or appropriate.

This may apply where information is needed for:

• Legal claims
• Regulatory requests
• Investigations
• Law enforcement requests
• Court orders
• Tax audits
• Billing disputes
• Consent-led access disputes
• Confidentiality breach claims
• Misuse investigations
• Security incidents
• Enforcement of Terms or policies
• Once the legal hold is no longer required, the information may be deleted, restricted, archived, or retained according to this policy.

29. User Rights

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have rights to:

• Access your personal information
• Correct inaccurate information
• Delete personal information
• Restrict processing
• Object to processing
• Withdraw consent
• Request data portability
• Object to direct marketing
• Ask about automated processing or profiling
• Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority

Requests should be sent to:

• privacy@worldhire.com
• We may need to verify your identity before processing certain requests.

30. How to Make a Deletion or Retention Request

To request deletion, restriction, correction, or information about retention, contact:

• privacy@worldhire.com

Your request should include:

• Full name
• Email address linked to your account
• Account type
• Company name, if applicable
• Specific request
• Relevant profile or account details
• Any supporting information needed to verify the request
• We may ask for additional information to verify identity or authority before acting on the request.

31. Refusal or Limitation of Deletion Requests

Worldhire may refuse, limit, delay, or partially fulfil deletion requests where permitted or required by law.

This may apply where data is needed for:

• Legal obligation
• Tax or accounting records
• Billing records
• Security logs
• Fraud prevention
• Misuse investigation
• Consent-led access records
• Consent records
• reach-out / connection records
• Dispute review
• Exercise or defence of legal claims
• Compliance with court, regulator, or lawful authority requests
• Where we cannot fully delete information, we may restrict, archive, minimise, or separate it from active platform use where appropriate.

32. Relationship With Other Policies

This Data Retention & Deletion Policy forms part of Worldhire’s wider legal and platform framework.

It should be read with:

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Candidate Consent Policy
• Recruiter Terms
• Recruiter Code of Conduct
• Confidentiality & Consent Policy
• Payments & Billing Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Subprocessors & Data Locations page
• Any specific agreement, consent-led access record, or commercial terms
• If there is a conflict between this policy and a signed agreement, legal obligation, court order, or regulatory requirement, the signed agreement, legal obligation, court order, or regulatory requirement will apply to the extent required.

33. Changes to This Policy

Worldhire may update this Data Retention & Deletion Policy from time to time.

The updated version will be effective from the date shown at the top of this page.

If changes are material, Worldhire may notify users through the website, email, account notice, or another appropriate method.

Continued use of Worldhire services after changes means you accept the updated policy.

34. Contact

For questions about this Data Retention & Deletion Policy, contact:

• Worldhire Global Ltd
• Registered Office: 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, United Kingdom
• Email: privacy@worldhire.com

For support:

• support@worldhire.com

For security concerns:

• security@worldhire.com

For billing matters:

• accounts@worldhire.com