Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 7, 2025

Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how CodeDuel ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal information when you use our Platform. We are committed to protecting your data in accordance with applicable laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1. Information We Collect

a. Information You Provide to Us:

  • Account Information: When you register for an account, we collect information such as your name, email address, password, role (candidate or company), and company name (if applicable).
  • User Content: We collect information you submit through the Platform, including code submissions for challenges, quiz answers, CVs (now stored as URLs from Firebase Storage), and messages sent through any contact forms.
  • Communication: If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you.

b. Information We Collect Automatically:

  • Log Data: Like many websites, we collect information that your browser sends whenever you visit our Platform. This may include your IP address (from which we may infer your general location), browser type, browser version, the pages you visit, the time and date of your visit, and other statistics. This data is primarily used for analytics and to improve the Platform.
  • Cookies and Similar Technologies: We use cookies to operate and administer our Platform and to improve your experience. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Platform.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for various purposes, including to:

  • Provide, operate, and maintain our Platform.
  • Improve, personalize, and expand our Platform.
  • Understand and analyze how you use our Platform.
  • Develop new products, services, features, and functionality.
  • Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to provide you with updates and other information relating to the Platform, and for marketing and promotional purposes (where permitted by law and with your consent where required).
  • Process your transactions (simulated for subscriptions in the current prototype).
  • Conduct plagiarism detection on code submissions.
  • Generate assessment reports for job applications.
  • Send you verification emails, password reset emails, and other transactional communications (sent by Firebase Auth).
  • Prevent fraud and ensure the security of our Platform.
  • Comply with legal obligations.

3. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

  • Consent: Where you have given consent for processing for one or more specific purposes (e.g., for optional cookies or direct marketing).
  • Contractual Necessity: Where processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract (e.g., providing our services to registered users).
  • Legitimate Interests: Where processing is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party, except where such interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms (e.g., for fraud prevention, network security, analytics).

4. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information in the following circumstances:

  • With Service Providers: We may share your information with third-party vendors and service providers that perform services on our behalf, such as hosting, email delivery (Firebase Auth for auth emails, others for platform emails), and analytics.
  • With Companies (for Candidates): If you apply for a job offer, your User Content (CV URL, assessment results, name, email) will be shared with the company that posted the job offer. This sharing is based on your action of applying.
  • For Legal Reasons: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, protect and defend our rights or property, or in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of the Platform or the public.
  • Business Transfers: If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or asset sale, your personal information may be transferred.

5. Your Data Protection Rights (GDPR)

If you are a resident of the EEA, you have the following data protection rights:

  • The right to access, update, or delete the information we have on you.
  • The right of rectification.
  • The right to object to processing.
  • The right of restriction.
  • The right to data portability.
  • The right to withdraw consent at any time where CodeDuel relied on your consent to process your personal information.

You can exercise these rights by contacting us. Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before responding to such requests. You also have the right to complain to a Data Protection Authority about our collection and use of your Personal Data.

6. Data Retention

We will retain your personal information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, or as required by law. User profiles and core application data are stored in Firestore. CV files are stored in Firebase Storage until deleted by the user.

7. Data Security

We take reasonable measures to help protect your information from loss, theft, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Firebase Authentication provides security for authentication processes, and Firebase Storage/Firestore have their own security mechanisms. However, no internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error-free.

8. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Platform and hold certain information. For more details, please refer to a separate Cookie Policy if one is provided, or manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings.

9. Children's Privacy

Our Platform is not intended for use by children under the age of 16 (or the relevant age of consent in your jurisdiction). We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 16. If you become aware that a child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us.

10. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date.

11. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at privacy@codeduel.net.