Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
2023 Indeed Transparency Report
As the world’s #1 job site, Indeed is committed to helping people get jobs.Comscore, Total Visits, March 2020 With every decision we make, we ask ourselves, “What’s best for the job seeker?”. Our priority is to make it faster, easier, and more enjoyable for people to get a job. This ultimately benefits employers as well, enabling them to get the right people in the right jobs more quickly.
We greatly value the trust that 250 million unique visitors place in us during critical stages of their career development and business growth.Google Analytics, February 2020 This edition of the Indeed Transparency Report highlights the ways in which we protect the privacy and security of our job seekers and employers.
Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
Security
As Indeed’s first layer of defense from potential threats, the security team works closely with Indeed’s product teams to protect job seekers and employers. Blocking malicious traffic and running a bug bounty program are some of the many ways the Security team makes our platform safer.
Blocking malicious traffic
The Security team uses a multi-layered system of defenses to detect and mitigate malicious traffic on Indeed. This primarily takes the form of bots, in addition to some human fraudsters.
Malicious bots are automated programs that can steal personal data, register fake accounts, and otherwise abuse our platform. Indeed has implemented a variety of automated strategies that leverage network reputation, anomaly detection, and other machine learning solutions to distinguish between human users and bots. This allows us to identify and block bots before they infiltrate Indeed’s platform.
Malicious requests are human-directed attacks on a network, through which bad actors attempt to compromise user accounts to perpetrate fraud. Though we believe that most people on the internet have good intentions, we work to block those who don’t by using technology to determine the origin and intent of requests into our system.
Running a bug bounty program
As part of our long-standing commitment to security, Indeed established both public and private bug bounty programs in 2017. These programs allow over 2,000 researchers to flag potential gaps in our systems.
By crowdsourcing this information from third-party researchers, Indeed is able to focus its internal resources on resolving the identified vulnerabilities.
Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
Trust & Safety
As Indeed’s second line of defense, the Trust & Safety team strives to protect job seekers and employers from outstanding instances of fraud and quality violations. We do this by automatically and manually identifying and removing fraudulent accounts as well as identifying and removing low-quality job postings.
What’s the difference between fraud and a quality violation?
Indeed defines fraud as accounts or job postings that target job seekers or employers with malicious actions or law-breaking activities.
Indeed defines quality violations as accounts or job postings that may go against our policies and/or guidelines.
Identifying and removing fraudulent accounts
Indeed uses automatic and manual means of identifying and removing fraudulent accounts from our site as quickly as possible. We put rules in place to flag potentially risky accounts for review by our moderators. Additionally, our Trust & Safety team proactively uses various tools and subject matter expertise to manually identify any accounts that the automatic system may miss.
- 203K+ Accounts proactively identified and removed
- 4K+ Accounts reported by users
- 139K+ Accounts removed by automated system
Speed of removal
Users can also identify and report potentially fraudulent accounts, which our moderators swiftly review and remove if they are found to be in violation of our policies. Users can also report all other user-generated content on the platform, including job posts, company page content, and messages. These reports are reviewed by trained moderators and actioned appropriately.
Through these automatic and manual means of identifying fraudulent accounts, Indeed is able to minimize their impact on our users, especially job seekers who do not then put themselves at risk by engaging with fraudulent employers.
- 140K+ Accounts removed in four days or less
- 48K+ Accounts removed prior to receiving applications
Identifying and removing low-quality job postings
Indeed strives to ensure that the jobs posted on our site are of the highest quality possible. In order to remain visible on the site, postings must offer open jobs (not training opportunities or expired positions), provide a detailed and accurate description of the role, and be free of vulgar or illicit content, in addition to meeting other criteria outlined in our job posting policies and guidelines. For more information, please see our Job Posting Standards.
As with fraudulent accounts, we have triggers in place that automatically flag postings that may not meet our standards for manual moderation. If a posting can be fixed, we will notify the employer and direct them to the Employer Help Center to help them do so. Additionally, users can flag any roles they deem problematic through the “report job” link at the bottom of a job posting.
Indeed uses multiple methods for moderating user generated content. The main mechanisms for employer and jobseeker accounts can be used to either automatically action content, or enqueue the content for human moderation. Among the most notable methods are rules written using high risk indicators, signals, and data science models that can predict the riskiness and health of an account.
Moderator training
Indeed’s moderation team is composed of 1000+ external vendor partners and a robust team of over 120 Trust & Safety professionals. Our moderators, located globally in 12 different countries, support clients and job seekers alike in 27 languages and 186 unique workflows within Indeed’s systems. These analysts and vendor partners undergo rigorous and specialized training, both prior to beginning work as well as continuous on-the-job training, in order to maintain the integrity of our systems and protect our users through each step of the hiring process.
Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
Jul. 1 - Dec. 31, 2023
Privacy and Legal
The Indeed Privacy and Legal teams take data security seriously. We work to protect job seekers and employers in a variety of ways, which include facilitating Data Subject Right (DSR) requests and processing government and private party requests.
Our privacy values
We value the trust that job seekers and employers place in us to help them find the right jobs and candidates.
We strive to maintain this trust by investing significant resources to protect their personal data. We also adhere to a number of privacy values, which include privacy by design, privacy by default, and consistency.
Facilitating Data Subject Right (DSR) requests
In order to comply with privacy laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), we respond to requests from users regarding their personal data. These Data Subject Right requests typically fall into one of two categories: Access requests and Deletion requests.
Processing government and private party requests for information
Indeed receives requests for user data from government and law enforcement agencies worldwide, as well as from private parties in the US. In striving to comply with local laws while also protecting our users’ privacy, we produce information only when data protection or other laws require it.
Please note, we may not produce information in response to various government, law enforcement, or private party requests, including those that:
- Do not comply with data protection laws
- Do not provide a unique identifier with which Indeed can accurately search our systems for an account
- For which Indeed has no user account information
- Are overly broad and that Indeed cannot narrow after consultation with the requesting party
- Are withdrawn by the requesting party
- Seek users’ identifying information or account contents when Indeed is not legally obligated to produce it
- Request information we do not collect
Indeed may object to these types of official requests through court procedures or by direct communication with the party.
Processing global government requests
Requests for information can originate from any country in which we operate. However, the account information in question may exist elsewhere and, therefore, require the request to be rerouted to the appropriate location. The chart in the following section reflects the country from which the request was originally submitted.
Rate of production
“Rate of Production” shows the percentage of cases for which Indeed provided user information to the requesting party.
Number of accounts requested
Indeed may receive one request for multiple accounts. This data reflects the number of accounts subject to a request for which some information has been produced. This data is not additional accounts from which some information may have been produced as part of the responsive information relating to the requested account. The type and amount of information produced may vary by request.
No. of requests | No. of productions | Rate of production | Accounts requested | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 22 | 9 | 40% | 20 |
| Australia | 1 | 1 | 100% | 1 |
| Brazil | 1 | 1 | 100% | 1 |
| Canada | 2 | 0 | 0% | 0 |
| Germany | 14 | 4 | 28% | 4 |
| Hong Kong | 1 | 0 | 0% | 0 |
| India | 3 | 3 | 100% | 3 |
| Italy | 2 | 1 | 50% | 1 |
| Japan | 18 | 7 | 38% | 9 |
| Netherlands | 3 | 3 | 100% | 3 |
| Spain | 4 | 3 | 75% | 3 |
| United Kingdom | 3 | 3 | 100% | 4 |
Types of United States government requests received
Examples of government and law enforcement agencies include: US Department of Justice, State Workers Compensation and police departments. These requests may be in the form of a subpoena, court order or warrant.
Investigations of Indeed by government agencies may result in a production containing user information that we have not included in our report. Please note, users are not impacted by these productions, as their individual account information is not the subject of such government information requests issued to Indeed.
- 18 Subpoena(s)
- 2 Court Order(s)
- 2 Warrant(s)
Processing private party requests in the United States
Indeed defines information requests as “private party” when the information is requested by parties that do not represent a government or law enforcement agency, such as a law firm that represents an individual or a private organization.
In the US, there are many laws to protect user information. If Indeed receives a request to produce a job seeker or employer’s information as a third-party in private litigation, Indeed will review the request and object whenever possible, only producing the requested information when required by law.
No. of requests | No. of productions | Rate of production | Accounts requested | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 56 | 0 | 0% | 0 |
Recent reports
Additional resources
Indeed lives its mission to help people get jobs every day by ensuring job seekers and employers can safely search for the right position and candidate. For more information on our efforts to help guarantee the validity and relevance of our job content, as well as the security and privacy of our users, please explore the resources in the following section: