Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

This Privacy Policy explains how HardEarned LLC (“Hard Earned,” “we,” “us”) collects, uses, and shares information when you use hardearned.work, our text-messaging service, and related features (the “Platform”).

2. Information we collect

You give us directly:

• Account and profile information: name, email, phone number, city/region, trade, employment type, pay expectations.
• For workers: license/certification numbers you provide, self-reported work history (employer names, roles, dates, descriptions, photos), the names and contact information of people you ask to vouch for you, and any resume-style content you add.
• For employers: company name, culture statement, job post content, team member information, and documents you upload to an applicant’s file (for example, background-check or reference records), which are governed by our internal document-retention rules and access-controlled to the specific staff roles that need them.
• Messages you send us by text, email, or through the Platform, including replies to our AI-assisted interview prep, compliance-coach suggestions, and vouch requests.
• Payment information, which is collected and processed directly by our payment processor — we do not store full payment card numbers.

We collect automatically:

• Usage data (pages visited, features used, timestamps), device and browser information, and approximate location (from IP address).

We collect from other sources:

• Public license/certification records (for example, from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation), to verify license status.
• Information from a person you name as a reference or vouch, when they respond to our outreach about you.
• When an employer confirms a work-history entry, that confirmation.

3. How we use information

We use the information above to: operate and improve the Platform; create and display verified worker and employer profiles; power search, matching, and the AI-assisted interview-guide and compliance-coach tools; send the texts, emails, and in-app notifications described in Section 5; process payments and referral payouts; detect and prevent fraud or misuse; and comply with legal obligations.

AI-assisted features. Certain content you provide — for example, a job post’s description, a candidate’s verified profile data, or a compliance-review request — is sent to our AI model provider (Anthropic) to generate interview-question suggestions or compliance-coach feedback. This processing is used only to generate that output for you; it is not used to build a public profile of you elsewhere, and we do not sell this information.

4. Text messaging and your consent

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. All the categories of information described above exclude text-messaging originator opt-in data and consent — this information is not shared with any third parties, except as necessary to provide the texting service itself (our texting provider, who sends messages on our behalf) or as required by law.

You control your consent to receive texts: reply STOP at any time to opt out, or HELP for help. See our Terms of Service for the full texting terms.

5. Who we share information with

We share information with:

• Service providers who process data on our behalf, under contracts that limit their use of it to providing their service to us: our texting provider, for sending and receiving SMS/MMS/RCS messages; our hosting and database provider, for storing Platform data; our email provider, for transactional email; our AI model provider, for the AI-assisted features described in Section 3; and our payment processor, for billing.
• Other users, as the Platform is designed to show: your public profile (if you’re a worker) or company page and job posts (if you’re an employer) are visible to other users and, for job listings and public profile pages, to visitors without an account — that’s the point of a public job board. You control what you put in a profile.
• Legal and safety reasons: if required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or where we believe it’s necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Hard Earned, our users, or the public.
• A successor, if Hard Earned is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets — we’ll tell you if your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy as a result.

We do not sell your personal information.

6. Data retention

We keep account and profile information for as long as your account is active, and for a reasonable period after closure to meet legal and business-record obligations. Employer-uploaded applicant documents (background checks, reference notes, and similar records) follow a fixed retention schedule tied to the document’s type and applicable law, after which they are securely and permanently deleted — not just hidden — unless a legal hold applies. You can request deletion of your account at any time; see Section 7.

7. Your choices and rights

• Texting: reply STOP to opt out at any time, as described above.
• Profile information: you can edit or remove most profile content directly in your account.
• Access, correction, deletion: you can ask us to access, correct, or delete your personal information by contacting hello@hardearned.work. We’ll respond consistent with applicable law, including the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act and, where applicable, other state privacy laws.
• Marketing email: you can unsubscribe using the link in any marketing email we send.

Some information (for example, a vouch someone else wrote about you, or an employer’s confirmed-hire record) may require us to balance your request against another user’s own rights or our recordkeeping obligations — we’ll explain if that applies to a specific request.

8. Children’s privacy

The Platform is not directed to, and we do not knowingly collect information from, anyone under 18. If we learn we’ve collected information from someone under 18, we’ll delete it.

9. Data security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your information, including encryption in transit and role-based access controls on sensitive data (for example, the stricter access rules around background-check and drug-test records described in Section 2). No system is perfectly secure, and we can’t guarantee absolute security.

10. Where we operate

Hard Earned is based in Texas and operates in the United States. Our current platform operations, employer accounts, and job postings are Texas-focused, though our public job board and marketing pages may be visible to, and our texting/business-messaging registration may reach, users elsewhere in the U.S.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We’ll post the updated version here with a new “Last updated” date, and for material changes affecting how we handle your information, we’ll make reasonable efforts to notify active users directly.

12. Contact us

Hard Earned, hello@hardearned.work · HardEarned LLC, Texas.