Referee Terms and Consent

Version 1.2 | Effective Date: 4 September 2026

Jurisdiction: Australia (applies globally where JobSeal operates)
Governing Law: Laws of New South Wales, Australia

This document should be read in conjunction with the JobSeal Platform Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy.

You are receiving this because a candidate has nominated you as a referee.

A candidate registered on the JobSeal platform has nominated you to verify their employment history and/or provide a professional assessment. Your participation is entirely voluntary. This document explains what you are being asked to do, how your responses will be used, and your rights in connection with this process.

1. Who We Are

JobSeal Pty Ltd ('JobSeal', 'we') operates a professional reference verification platform that enables candidates to build verified employment records and scores that they can share with prospective employers. We are based in Australia and operate in accordance with the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

2. What You Are Being Asked to Do

Depending on the type of request you have received, you may be asked to do one or both of the following.

2.1 Employment Verification

Confirm factual details about a candidate's employment at your organisation, including:

Whether the candidate worked at the organisation during the stated period;
The candidate's approximate role or level (you are not required to provide a precise title); and
Whether you held the managerial or HR role in which you have been nominated.

2.2 Behavioural Survey

Complete a short survey (approximately 8–12 questions, estimated 5–10 minutes) about the candidate's observable behaviours and performance during the period of employment you shared. The survey asks about:

How frequently the candidate delivered work reliably and on time;
How the candidate's technical skills compared with what was represented;
How the candidate handled professional interactions and feedback; and
Whether you would consider re-engaging the candidate in a similar role.

The survey does not ask for, and you should not provide, opinions about the candidate's personal characteristics, health, family circumstances, or any matter unrelated to their professional conduct in the role.

2.3 Optional Supporting Statement

If you are completing the Behavioural Survey, you may optionally add a short free-text statement in support of the candidate. This is entirely voluntary — you are never required to write one, and declining has no effect on the candidate's score or verification status. Unlike the rest of the survey (see 3.1), the text of this statement is retained and is not aggregated or discarded. See 3.3 for how it may be used.

3. How Your Responses Are Used

3.1 Aggregation and Anonymisation

Your individual responses to the survey are processed by our automated scoring system. The system converts your answers into normalised numerical values across four performance dimensions and computes an average. Only these computed dimension averages are retained. Your individual question-level responses are not stored anywhere on our systems after processing.

3.2 What Is Shown to the Candidate

The candidate whose profile you are contributing to can see their aggregated scores and the number of responses that contributed. They cannot see your individual answers, the dimension averages derived from your specific responses, or any information that would identify you as the source of a particular score.

3.3 What Is Shown to Employers

Employers who access the candidate's profile see the candidate's overall JobSeal, sub-dimension scores, and employment verification status. They do not see any individual referee response data or referee identities.

3.4 Employment Verification Records

The fact that you responded to a verification request (but not the content of your response) is recorded in the verification log associated with the candidate's employment record. Your name and the fact of your participation may be visible to the candidate and to employers as a verified referee contact. If you do not wish to be identified as having participated, please decline to complete the survey.

4. Your Obligations as a Referee

By completing the survey, you confirm and agree that:

You actually held the role and worked at the organisation in which you have been nominated;
You personally observed or managed the candidate during the period of employment described;
Your responses reflect your honest recollection of the candidate's professional conduct and performance;
You are not providing responses that you know to be false, exaggerated, or intended to harm the candidate;
You are not providing responses in exchange for any benefit, payment, or inducement from the candidate or any third party;
You are not acting under duress or at the direction of any party seeking to manipulate the candidate's score; and
Where your responses relate to your organisation's HR records, you have the authority to share this information for reference purposes in accordance with your employer's policies.

5. What You Should Not Include

Please do not include in any free-text fields, and do not allow to influence your scored responses, any information or opinions relating to:

The candidate's age, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, or any other protected characteristic;
The candidate's personal relationships, family situation, or matters outside the workplace;
Any medical, mental health, or personal circumstances of the candidate;
Any allegation or matter that is the subject of legal proceedings or a formal HR investigation that has not been concluded; or
Any information that you are contractually obliged to keep confidential.

Including such information is not only contrary to these Terms but may expose you personally to liability.

6. Defamation and Good Faith Protection

Responses provided in good faith, based on honest professional recollection, and without malicious intent, attract qualified privilege protection under Australian defamation law. This means that a truthful, good faith response about a candidate's professional conduct is protected from defamation claims even if the candidate disputes the characterisation.

However, this protection does not extend to:

Responses that are knowingly false;
Responses made with malicious intent (i.e., with the primary purpose of harming the candidate rather than providing honest feedback); or
Responses that go beyond the scope of professional conduct and include personal attacks or protected attribute commentary.

JobSeal's survey structure is specifically designed to elicit observable behavioural observations rather than subjective opinions, in order to maximise both the legal defensibility and the professional utility of responses.

7. Your Privacy Rights

JobSeal collects your name, professional email address, and employer details for the purpose of conducting this verification. As a referee, you have the following rights under the Australian Privacy Act:

Access: You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
Correction: You may request correction of inaccurate information;
Complaint: You may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) if you believe we have mishandled your information.

To exercise these rights, contact us at privacy@jobseal.co.

7.1 How Long We Keep Your Details, and Why

Your name and professional email address are recorded in JobSeal's audit log and retained for up to seven (7) years.

We keep this record to detect and investigate fraud. Reference fraud is typically a pattern rather than a single event — the same referee address appearing across unrelated candidates, or a referee and candidate who are not independent of one another. Detecting that requires being able to look back across records over time, which is not possible if the details are discarded as soon as a verification completes.

Two consequences you should understand before participating:

This retention is not removed when the candidate's account is deleted. If the candidate who nominated you later deletes their JobSeal account, most data about that verification is erased along with it, but the audit record of your participation — including your email address — is kept for the remainder of the seven-year period.
This retention does not rest on your consent, so withdrawing from the survey does not end it. Completing a survey is voluntary and consent-based (see section 8), and you may decline. The audit record is kept on a different basis: our legitimate interests in preventing fraud and maintaining the integrity of the platform, and our legal record-keeping obligations. That means it continues to apply to a nomination you received even if you choose not to respond to it.

You may still request access to, or correction of, this information at privacy@jobseal.co. If you believe you were nominated incorrectly, see section 8.

8. Voluntary Participation

Participation in a JobSeal survey is entirely voluntary. There is no legal obligation on you to respond and no adverse consequence to you personally if you choose not to. If you do not wish to participate, simply do not complete the survey. The link will expire automatically after 72 hours.

If you believe you have been incorrectly nominated as a referee (for example, if you did not work with the named candidate), please contact us at referee@jobseal.co so we can investigate and update our records.

9. Contact

Email: referee@jobseal.co
Privacy: privacy@jobseal.co