How we handle your data

Vital is a credential-compliance platform for staffing agencies. We process two broad categories of data: information about the agency using the product (our customer), and information about the agency's workers whose credentials are tracked. For worker data, the agency is the data controller and Vital acts as a processor on its behalf.

• Account data: names, work email addresses, and roles of agency staff who sign in.
• Worker records: names, contact details, discipline, and employment metadata entered by the agency or imported via CSV.
• Credential documents: licenses, certifications, and check results uploaded by workers or staff, plus the fields drawn from them (license number, issuing body, dates).
• Operational data: audit logs, email-delivery records, and API usage.

We use this data solely to provide the service: tracking credential status, sending renewal and onboarding emails on the agency's behalf, verifying submitted documents, generating audit reports, and answering compliance-check API requests. We do not sell personal data or use it for advertising.

When an agency enables AI verification, a submitted credential document is sent to Anthropic to extract its fields and assess whether it plausibly matches the expected credential. Anthropic processes the document to return that result and does not use it to train models. AI is a screening aid that assists human reviewers. It is not a primary-source authority and does not, on its own, certify a credential's authenticity or confirm with the issuing board that a license is currently active. Agencies that need primary source verification for a given credential are responsible for obtaining it directly from the relevant licensing board or registry; see our terms of service for more detail. Agencies can operate the platform with AI disabled, in which case documents are reviewed manually and are not sent to Anthropic.

We rely on the following subprocessors to operate the service:

Documents are stored in access-controlled object storage; data is isolated per agency at the database level. On account closure, we delete or return personal data on request, subject to legal retention obligations.

Worker records are not kept indefinitely. When a worker is recorded as having left an agency's register, their record is automatically and permanently deleted once the agency's retention period has passed — by default three years from their removal date, which reflects the longest statutory retention obligation an agency is typically subject to. Deletion removes the worker, their credential records, their uploaded documents, and their consent records. An agency can set a longer period, or disable automatic deletion, where its own legal obligations require records to be held for longer.

Under data-protection law — including the EU/UK GDPR and South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) — you have the right to access the personal information held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to its processing, and to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Workers should direct requests to the staffing agency that holds their records — the controller (under POPIA, the responsible party). Agencies can fulfil those requests directly in the product, and we will assist as processor (under POPIA, the operator) where needed.

For processing subject to POPIA: the agency using Vital is the responsible party and Vital is an operator processing worker information on the agency's written instruction, as set out in our terms.

• Consent: when a worker submits information through their secure collection link, they are asked for explicit consent first, and each consent is recorded with a timestamp and the exact policy version agreed to. Submissions without consent are rejected.
• Special personal information: where an agency records fields such as race, this is done solely where the agency is required or permitted to hold that information under applicable law (for example South African employment-equity reporting). Vital does not use these fields for any other purpose, and they are never sent to AI verification. Within the product, access to these fields is restricted to the agency's administrator accounts; other staff roles cannot view or edit them.
• Cross-border transfers: data is hosted with the subprocessors listed above, some of which operate outside South Africa (databases and email in the EU/UK, AI verification and authentication in the United States). Each is bound by contractual data-protection obligations consistent with section 72 of POPIA.
• Complaints: you may lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) at enquiries@inforegulator.org.za.

Vital is a trading name of Vital Credentials Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17439286, with its registered office at 41 Fitzroy Road, London, NW1 8TP, United Kingdom. Vital Credentials Ltd is the data controller in respect of agency account data, and acts as a processor (POPIA: operator) in respect of worker data held on behalf of agencies.

Questions about this policy or a data-processing agreement? Email contact@vitalcheck.co.uk.