EU hiring teams face a dual mandate: move faster with better signal, and keep candidate data inside clear GDPR boundaries. Many AI hiring add-ons process data in US regions by default-a compliance gap that only shows up when Legal reviews the vendor.
GDPR basics for hiring data
- Define lawful basis and document it in your privacy notice.
- Sign a Data Processing Agreement when the vendor processes on your behalf.
- Limit retention: transcripts and CVs should not live forever in a sandbox.
- Maintain human accountability for hiring outcomes-AI as decision support, not sole arbiter.
Common vendor pitfalls
- US-only inference or storage with unclear Standard Contractual Clauses.
- Opaque model training on your candidate data without opt-out.
- Automated rejection without meaningful human review.
- No EU sub-processor list or outdated DPA templates.
Checklist for evaluating AI hiring tools
- Where are files stored? Where does model inference run?
- Can you export and delete candidate dossiers on request?
- Is output explainable enough for a hiring-committee audit trail?
- Does the product avoid automated hire/reject decisions?
Certalytic's EU stack
Certalytic runs on EU-sovereign infrastructure: Hetzner datacenters (Germany/Finland) for storage and compute, Mistral La Plateforme (France) for inference. Candidate data stays in EU jurisdiction for the screening path.