Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Katara ("we", "our", or "us") collects, uses, discloses, and protects personal information when you visit our website, create an account, or use our services. It applies to both job seekers and teams who interact with the Katara platform.

"Personal Information" means information that identifies, relates to, describes, or can reasonably be linked to an individual, as defined by applicable privacy laws.

This Privacy Policy applies only to information collected through Katara and does not apply to third-party websites, services, or applications that may be linked from our platform or integrated with it. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties.

Information You Provide

The personal information we collect depends on how you use Katara. For example, when you create an account or use our services, we may collect:

Account Information

• Full name
• Email address
• Encrypted password (if you sign in using email and password)
• Profile information provided by Google if you choose to sign in with Google, such as your name, email address, and profile picture

Candidate Profile Information

• Professional headline and biography
• Work experience and employment history
• Skills, technologies, and areas of expertise
• Education and certifications
• Location and work preferences
• Salary expectations (if provided)
• Links to portfolios, personal websites, GitHub, LinkedIn, or other professional profiles
• Resume or CV uploads

Recruiter Information

• Name and email address
• Team name and role
• Billing information required for subscriptions

Payment Information

Payments are processed securely by Stripe. Katara does not store your full payment card details. We receive limited payment information, such as payment status and customer identifiers, necessary to manage subscriptions and invoices.

Automatically Collected Information

• IP address
• Browser type and operating system
• Device information
• Pages visited and interactions with the website
• Referral URLs and approximate location derived from IP address

We use Vercel Analytics to understand how visitors use our website. Vercel Analytics is a privacy-focused, cookie-free analytics service that helps us improve the performance and usability of Katara without building advertising profiles of our users.

Messages and Activity

• Messages exchanged between candidates and teams through Katara
• Interview invitations, bookings, and reschedule requests
• A record of when a team views a candidate profile, which we use to show candidates interest in their profile and to detect misuse
• Work email addresses that teams provide so we can verify them before they can message

Applicant Information

Teams can publish job openings on a careers page hosted by Katara. If you apply through one of these pages, we collect the information you submit, such as your name, email address, phone number, LinkedIn profile, CV, and answers to the team’s screening questions. You do not need a Katara account to apply. We process this information on behalf of the team you applied to, and that team decides how it is used in their hiring process. See “Applicants and Hiring Teams” below.

Calendar Information

If you choose to connect a Google or Microsoft calendar for interview scheduling, we store the access credentials needed to keep the connection working, along with the times you are busy so that booking links only offer free slots. We do not store the titles, descriptions, attendees, or contents of your calendar events, and we do not use calendar information for any purpose other than scheduling interviews. You can disconnect your calendar at any time from your settings, which deletes the stored credentials and busy periods.

Katara’s use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

CV Parsing

When you upload a CV, we extract its text so it can be searched and displayed in your profile or application. For scanned or image-based documents, this may involve sending a rendered image of the document to a document-recognition model that we operate for this purpose. The output is only used to read the document; it is not used to rank, score, or make decisions about candidates, and it is not used to train models.

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only when it is necessary to operate Katara, provide our services, comply with legal obligations, or with your direction.

Service Providers

We work with trusted third-party providers that help us operate Katara. These providers may process personal information on our behalf and only for the purposes of delivering their services.

• Hosting and file storage: DigitalOcean. Our servers and uploaded files, including CVs, are hosted in the European Union (Frankfurt, Germany).
• Payment processing: Stripe, for subscriptions, invoices, and billing.
• Sign-in and calendar connections: Google and Microsoft, when you choose to sign in with Google or connect a calendar.
• Transactional email: Postmark, for account, application, and interview emails.
• Error monitoring: Sentry, which may receive technical details about errors.
• Website analytics: Vercel Analytics, which is cookie-free.
• Document recognition for scanned CVs, as described above.

International Transfers

Katara stores your information in the European Union. Some of the providers above process data in other countries, including the United States. Where personal information is transferred outside the EEA or the United Kingdom, we rely on safeguards recognised by applicable law, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision, and we require providers to protect the information in line with this policy.

Teams

If you create a candidate profile, the information you choose to include may be shared with teams through the Katara platform in accordance with your account settings and the features you use.

Legal Requirements

We may disclose personal information if we believe doing so is necessary to comply with applicable laws, respond to lawful requests from public authorities, protect the rights or safety of Katara, our users, or others, or investigate fraud, security incidents, or other unlawful activity.

Business Transfers

If Katara is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, sale of assets, or other corporate transaction, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction. If required by law, we will notify you of any material changes affecting your personal information.

When a team uses Katara to run its hiring, the team is the controller of the information it collects about applicants and candidates, and Katara processes that information on the team’s behalf and according to its instructions. This includes applications submitted through a team’s careers page, notes and interview feedback the team records, and messages the team sends.

If you applied to a role and want to access, correct, or delete the information a team holds about you, contact that team first, since it decides how your application is used. You can also contact us at hello@trykatara.com and we will help you reach them or, where we are able to, act on your request directly.

Teams that use Katara agree in our Terms of Service to use applicant and candidate information only for recruitment, to comply with the privacy laws that apply to them, and to honour requests from the people they collect information about. A data processing agreement is available to teams on request.

Katara uses cookies and similar technologies to provide essential functionality, keep you signed in, remember your preferences, and improve the performance of our website and services.

We also use Vercel Analytics, a privacy-focused, cookie-free analytics service, to understand how visitors use our website. It helps us measure traffic and improve Katara while minimizing the collection of personal information and avoiding cross-site tracking.

Most web browsers allow you to control or disable cookies through their settings. Please note that disabling essential cookies may affect the functionality of certain features of the website, including signing in and maintaining your session.

Security

We take reasonable technical, administrative, and organizational measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure. These measures include encrypted connections (HTTPS), secure password storage, access controls, and ongoing monitoring of our systems where appropriate.

If you create an account using email and password, you are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for maintaining the security of your account. While we work to protect your information, no method of transmitting or storing data over the internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as it is needed to provide our services, maintain your account, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

If you delete your account, we will delete or anonymize your personal information within a reasonable period, unless we are required or permitted by law to retain certain information for legal, security, fraud prevention, accounting, or regulatory purposes.

We may also retain aggregated or anonymized information that can no longer reasonably be used to identify you.

Katara is intended for individuals who are at least 18 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18 or permit them to create an account.

If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a person under 18, we will take reasonable steps to delete that information as soon as practicable.

If you believe that someone under the age of 18 has provided personal information through Katara, please contact us at hello@trykatara.com.

Depending on where you live, you may have certain rights under applicable privacy laws regarding your personal information. These may include the right to request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, as well as the right to object to or restrict certain types of processing.

Where required by law, you may also have the right to opt out of the “sale” or sharing of your personal information for certain purposes.

To exercise any applicable privacy rights, please contact us athello@trykatara.com. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request.

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or other regions with similar data protection laws, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information. These rights may include the ability to request access to your data, request corrections or deletion, object to or restrict certain processing, and request data portability where applicable.

Katara processes personal information to operate the platform, connect job seekers with teams, communicate with users, process payments, and improve our services. Where required by law, we rely on lawful bases such as performance of a contract, legitimate interests, and consent.

To exercise your rights, please contact us athello@trykatara.com. We may need to verify your identity before responding to your request.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal requirements, or operational practices.

When we make material changes, we will take reasonable steps to notify you, such as by posting an update on our website or sending you an email if appropriate.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of Katara after any updates become effective means you accept the revised policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how Katara collects, uses, or protects your personal information, you can contact us at hello@trykatara.com.