Platform Terms

These Platform Terms govern your use of the Bontra recruitment platform. They apply to every user of the platform - candidates and company users alike. They do not contain any commercial fee or commission clauses. The commercial contract between Bontra and hiring companies is the separate Hirer Commercial Terms, accepted at the first page of company onboarding.

Bontra is used by two different kinds of people, and the specific rights and obligations differ slightly. Please read the sections that apply to you in addition to the Common Provisions, which apply to everyone.

If you are a job-seeking candidate - your terms are in §A Candidate Terms and §C Common Provisions.
If you are a hiring company user - your terms are in §B Company Terms and §C Common Provisions. You will separately accept our Hirer Commercial Terms - the contract covering our fees, placement triggers, and anti-circumvention provisions - during company onboarding. The full document is available for public reading at /hirer-terms. These Platform Terms do not bind you to any fee obligation.

By creating a Bontra account and accepting these Platform Terms via the sign-up checkbox, you agree to the sections above that apply to you, and to the Common Provisions. If you are a company user, you also acknowledge that the Hirer Commercial Terms form a separate contract that you must accept before Bontra can provide you with its commercial services.

§A Candidate Terms

This section applies to users who sign up to Bontra as job-seeking candidates. It covers the regulatory requirements of Regulation 18 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 and our general candidate-facing obligations.

A.1 Agency status disclosure

Bontra is an employment agency within the meaning of section 13(2) of the Employment Agencies Act 1973. This means:

We find work for candidates with employers (hiring companies)
When you accept a role, you are employed by the hiring company, not by Bontra
Bontra is not a party to the employment contract between you and the hiring company
Bontra is not an employment business - we do not pay wages, do not supply candidates on contract, and do not act as an intermediary employer

A.2 No fees to candidates

Bontra is free for candidates. No fees, charges, commissions, deposits, application fees, premium tiers, or other consideration will be charged to you for any part of the Bontra service at any time.

This is not a promotional offer - it is a statutory requirement under section 6(1) of the Employment Agencies Act 1973, which prohibits employment agencies from charging workers for work-finding services. Bontra is permanently committed to candidates paying nothing.

A.3 Your authority for us to act on your behalf

By creating a candidate account on Bontra, you authorise Bontra to act on your behalf in seeking employment. This authority includes:

Building your profile from your CV and logistics data
Comparing your profile and preferences with relevant job descriptions
Introducing your profile to verified hiring companies, subject to your data_sharing consent (see the Privacy Policy)
Making a generated CV preview copy, or extracted-text fallback where that copy is unavailable, available to a verified hiring company only after that company chooses to view the full profile for your specific introduction and remains current on Hirer Terms
Contacting you about roles that appear to match your preferences
Coordinating interviews and feedback between you and hiring companies

This authority is revocable at any time by deleting your account or by emailing [email protected].

A.4 Information you provide

You warrant that the information you provide to Bontra - your CV, logistics answers, qualifications, right-to-work status, location, salary expectations, and any other profile data - is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge. You are responsible for updating this information if your circumstances change.

If you knowingly provide false information (for example, claiming qualifications you do not hold), you are responsible for any consequences, including misrepresentation claims from hiring companies who relied on the information.

A.5 Age requirement

You must be 18 or over to use Bontra. You are asked to confirm your age during onboarding. Bontra is not intended for minors and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18.

A.6 Right to work

You warrant that you have the legal right to work in the United Kingdom, or in any country where a role you are matched against is based. Bontra does not verify right-to-work documentation - that is the hiring employer's obligation under section 15 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. However, we may ask you self-declaration questions during onboarding.

A.7 Reasonable adjustments (Equality Act 2010)

Bontra is committed to providing equivalent alternatives where our standard process would put a disabled candidate at a substantial disadvantage. Our onboarding uses a CV upload and intake questions and is designed to be accessible. If you need any other adjustment, please contact [email protected] and we will work with you to provide an equivalent alternative with no reduction in service quality.

A.8 How your data is handled

Your personal data is processed as described in the Bontra Privacy Policy at /privacy. In particular:

Your CV and profile are processed under the screening and matching consent purposes (Article 6(1)(a) UK GDPR)
Your profile is only shared with hiring companies if you have granted the data_sharing consent
You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your account
Legal record-keeping obligations under Regulation 29 of the Conduct Regulations 2003 may require us to retain minimum introduction records for 1 year after an introduction, even after you delete your account - see Privacy Policy §12 for details

A.9 Your interactions with hiring companies

After a hiring company chooses to view the full profile for an introduction, any subsequent interaction between you and the company (interview coordination, offer discussion, negotiation, and the eventual employment contract itself) is a direct matter between you and the company. Bontra coordinates the introduction and collects feedback from both sides, but Bontra does not negotiate on your behalf, set your compensation, or represent you in the employment contract.

§B Company Terms

This section applies to users who sign up to Bontra on behalf of a hiring company.

B.1 Who these terms apply to

These Company Terms apply to you, the individual user, acting on behalf of your company ("the Company"). By creating a company account on Bontra, you warrant that you have authority to accept these Platform Terms on behalf of the Company.

Important - the commercial contract is separate. These Platform Terms govern your platform use. The commercial contract between Bontra and the Company - covering our fees, placement triggers, transfer fees, notice periods, anti-circumvention, and confidentiality - is the separate Hirer Commercial Terms document. You will be asked to accept the Hirer Commercial Terms as the first step of company onboarding, before you can use any commercial feature of Bontra.

These Platform Terms alone do not bind the Company to any fee or commission obligation. All fee and commission obligations arise from the separate Hirer Commercial Terms clickwrap.

B.2 Permitted use

You may use Bontra to:

Post or confirm job descriptions for roles your Company is hiring for
Receive introductions to pre-screened candidates from Bontra
Communicate with introduced candidates through the channels Bontra provides
Provide feedback to Bontra on introductions and candidate progress
Manage your company's hiring pipeline for Bontra-sourced candidates
Access your company account settings and data

B.3 Prohibited use

You may not use Bontra to:

Scrape, harvest, crawl, or bulk-extract candidate data
Attempt to identify or directly contact candidates through channels outside the Bontra introduction workflow (see anti-circumvention in the Hirer Commercial Terms)
Share candidate data with any third party outside the Company, except with the candidate's prior written consent
Post job descriptions that are discriminatory, unlawful, or misleading
Use Bontra's infrastructure to send unsolicited communications to candidates
Engage in any practice prohibited by the Equality Act 2010 in relation to candidates you are introduced to

B.4 Job description accuracy

When you post or confirm a job description, you warrant that:

The information is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge
You have authority to represent the hiring role on behalf of the Company
The role is genuinely open - you are not posting a fictitious or filled role to harvest candidate data
You will promptly notify Bontra if the role becomes unavailable or changes materially

This is partly a regulatory requirement under Regulation 18A of the Conduct Regulations 2003, which obliges Bontra to obtain sufficient and accurate information from hirers about the positions for which candidates are sought.

B.5 Confidentiality of candidate data

Any candidate data you receive through an introduction is confidential. You may use it only for the purpose of evaluating and contacting the specific candidate for the specific role for which they were introduced. Candidate data includes any generated CV preview copy and extracted-text fallback Bontra makes available after you choose to view the full profile for that specific introduction, and any candidate contact details Bontra makes available at the same full-profile stage. The candidate's original uploaded CV remains available to the candidate from their own profile and is not provided to companies through the portal.

Specifically:

You must not disclose candidate data to any third party outside the Company without the candidate's prior written consent
You must not store candidate data longer than necessary for the evaluation and hiring decision - once a candidate is declined, you should delete your copy of the data within a reasonable period (60 days is a recommended default)
You must comply with the UK GDPR as an independent data controller for the candidate data you hold
On receipt of a Bontra CANDIDATE_DATA_DELETION_REQUEST email, you should delete your copy promptly

B.6 Feedback you provide

You agree to respond to reasonable feedback requests from Bontra on candidate introductions where practicable, even if that response is limited to a brief status update (for example, "not proceeding", "interview requested", "offer made", or "role closed"). This feedback may cover interview outcomes, candidate suitability, interest levels, and progress through your hiring pipeline. Any feedback you provide:

Must be lawful, accurate, and non-discriminatory
Is used by Bontra to improve matching quality, including AI-assisted matching support, and service reliability
Is not disclosed to the candidate except where required by a subject access request under Article 15 of the UK GDPR
Is retained for the periods set out in the Privacy Policy §9

B.7 Your authority as company user

By creating the Company account and accepting these Platform Terms, you warrant that you have authority to:

Bind the Company to these Platform Terms
Act on behalf of the Company in communications with Bontra

The separate authority warranty for the Hirer Commercial Terms - the explicit statement that you can bind the Company to commercial fee obligations - is captured during company onboarding, not here.

B.8 Data processing relationship

Bontra is the data controller for candidate data held on the Bontra platform. Once a candidate is introduced to you and you receive their full profile, you and Bontra become independent (not joint) controllers for the shared data. See Privacy Policy §6.6 for details.

B.9 Candidates who contact you directly

If a candidate contacts you directly outside the Bontra workflow (for example, via LinkedIn), you must still honour the anti-circumvention provisions of the Hirer Commercial Terms - that is, if Bontra introduced the candidate to you within the 12-month window and you later hire them through a different channel, the fee is still payable. See the Hirer Commercial Terms §5 for the full provision.

§C Common Provisions

This section applies to all users of the Bontra platform - candidates and company users alike.

C.1 Account registration

To create a Bontra account, you must provide a valid email address, verify it, and accept these Platform Terms and the Privacy Policy via the sign-up form.
You may alternatively sign up using an OAuth provider where available. See the Privacy Policy §8 for authentication processor details.
You are responsible for keeping your credentials secure. You must not share your password or session with another person. Notify us immediately at [email protected] if you suspect unauthorised access to your account.
You may only create one Bontra account per person. If you are creating a company account, that account is linked to the Company you represent and your individual identity at that Company.

C.2 Acceptable use

You agree that you will not:

Use Bontra for any unlawful purpose, or in any way that violates UK law or the law of any jurisdiction where you are located
Harass, threaten, defame, or discriminate against any other user or Bontra staff
Circumvent, disable, or attempt to interfere with any rate limit, access control, or security measure
Use any automated means (bots, scrapers, crawlers) to access Bontra beyond documented public endpoints
Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to extract the source code or underlying algorithms of the platform
Provide false, misleading, or fraudulent information about yourself, your company, your qualifications, or a candidate you are evaluating
Infringe the intellectual property rights of Bontra or any third party
Attempt to gain unauthorised access to other users' accounts or data

Breach of these rules may result in account suspension, termination, or - in the case of unlawful conduct - referral to law enforcement. See §C.7.

C.3 Intellectual property

Bontra IP: Bontra retains all intellectual property rights in the platform, matching and screening systems, user interface, documentation, and all related materials. No rights in Bontra's IP are transferred to you by virtue of using the platform.
Your content: You retain ownership of content you upload (CVs, job descriptions, feedback, profile data). By uploading content, you grant Bontra a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, process, transmit, display, and create derived data from your content, solely for the purpose of providing the Bontra service to you and to other users who are authorised to receive it under these Platform Terms and the Privacy Policy.
Company branding: You grant Bontra a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use your company names, trading names, logos, job descriptions, and other brand materials that you provide, approve, or publicly use to identify your business, solely for candidate-facing role summaries, introductions, job advertising, customer-reference statements, and Bontra marketing connected with the service. We will not imply a wider endorsement, partnership, or sponsorship unless you have approved that wording. If you ask us to stop using a particular logo or to use updated brand materials, we will make reasonable updates prospectively.
Termination of licence: This licence ends on account deletion, subject to the retention obligations in the Privacy Policy §9 and (for companies) the Hirer Commercial Terms §Survival.

C.4 Warranty disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

Bontra is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied
Bontra does not warrant that the platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of security incidents
Bontra does not guarantee that a candidate will receive introductions or job offers
Bontra does not guarantee that a company will find suitable candidates
Bontra does not guarantee the accuracy of extracted profile information; candidates are asked to review and correct their profile
Bontra does not guarantee match quality beyond reasonable care and skill
Bontra does not endorse or warrant the conduct of any user (candidate or company) beyond the platform itself

C.5 Limitation of liability