Policy
Your Interview Data Request Belongs With the Employer, Not the Vendor
Send it to the employer. HireVue's candidate FAQ says the company you interviewed with chooses the retention period, and that HireVue does not decide whether data is deleted [1]. Its help center tells a candidate who wants a recording to contact the hiring company, which controls it [2]. On that account, the platform holds the file on the employer's behalf. Name any written-request right that applies: New York City's covers the data type, its source and the retention policy, on a 30-day clock.
The takeA template letter addressed to whoever runs the software goes to a company that may hold the data only for a client, as HireVue says it does, and that is a decent explanation for why such a letter goes unanswered. The platform is not refusing you out of secrecy. It is answering the way a company holding data for a client answers. A letter that names the employer as the holder, and the platform as the party processing on its behalf, is harder to bounce.
Where Olive fits
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Olive produces no composite number, and no decision about a candidate is made by a machine alone: a person writes or edits each of six findings, and each one names the evidence excerpt it rests on. If an employer ever sends you an Olive assessment, the report you are granted is the same report the employer reads, on every tier.
Assess your shortlistWho Actually Holds Your Interview Data?
The employer holds it, and the platform stores it on the employer's instructions. HireVue's public candidate FAQ says the retention period is chosen by the company you interviewed with, and that HireVue does not decide whether or when data is deleted 1. The company you applied to does. The same FAQ says a candidate can request deletion at any point in the process.
The same split shows up on access. HireVue's help center tells a candidate who wants to see their own submitted recording to contact the hiring company directly, because that company controls the recordings and decides whether to provide access 2.
So the bounce has a direction, and it points at the employer.
A support page is not a statute: HireVue is describing its own product, and a regulator describing the law is a different thing. But it is the vendor's published position on its own candidate pages, which makes quoting it back the cheapest way to close an argument about who is supposed to reply.
What none of it tells you is the retention period itself, which the employer sets and the candidate does not see unless the employer discloses it. That question, and the deletion routes a few states give you, sit in how long a company keeps your AI interview video.
Send the Request to the Employer, and Name the Platform
Address it to the employer, and say in the first line that the platform holds the data on the employer's behalf. That one sentence answers in advance the reply a support queue would otherwise send back, and it tells the recruiter reading it that forwarding you to the vendor is not a route. Put the role and the interview date in the same paragraph.
A workable request names five things:
- the role, the requisition number if you have one, and the date of the interview
- the email address you applied under, since that is what the record is filed against
- the platform, described as the company processing the data for the employer
- what you want back: the recording or transcript, the retention period, the source of the data
- the legal basis where one applies to you, quoted by section number
Send it to a named person where you can find one. A careers alias and a support queue both route somewhere, but a recruiter with your name already in their sent folder is the person who can go and look.
Ask once, in writing, and keep the thread.
If the reply points you back at the vendor, answer on that same thread rather than opening a new one, and quote the vendor's own page if it says, as HireVue's does, that the hiring company controls access 2. An agent forwarding you back is following a script. The recruiter is the one who can step outside it.
A score or a report is a different request with a different answer, and in some cases a federal rule reaches it. Whether you can get a copy of the report a hiring vendor produced about you sets out that test.
Which Law Gives You a Written-Request Right?
Three are worth knowing: New York City's Local Law 144, the GDPR in the EU and the EEA, and the EU AI Act, and every one of them runs against the employer rather than the platform. In New York City, an employer that used an automated employment decision tool and has not published the information on its website must answer a written request within 30 days 3.
What the request returns is the type of data collected for the automated employment decision tool, the source of that data, and the employer's retention policy. Three items, and no more. Not your score, not the weightings, not the model, not the bias audit. The retention policy is still worth having, because it is the plain answer to how long the recording sits somewhere.
In the EU and the EEA, a subject access request under GDPR Article 15(1)(h) runs against the controller, which in a hiring process is the employer or agency holding your file. Where automated decision-making within Article 22 exists, you are entitled to meaningful information about the logic involved, along with the significance and the envisaged consequences of that processing 4.
The EU AI Act adds a second door and points it at the same person. Article 86 gives someone subject to a decision a deployer took on a high-risk system's output the right to clear and meaningful explanations of the system's role and the main elements of the decision 5. The right is triggered only where that decision produces legal effects or affects the person similarly significantly and adversely 5. The deployer is the employer.
The Act does not define that threshold, so whether a rejection at screening clears it is unsettled 5.
Timing is the part to check. The high-risk rules covering recruitment systems in Annex III were moved to 2 December 2027 by the 2026 Digital Omnibus, from a general date of 2 August 2026 6. An explanation request sent to a European employer today rests on a regime that is not yet fully in force.
Check which of these covers the job you applied for before you quote one.
Employers get their own briefing on this moment. What employers are told they owe a candidate the AI screened out sets out the notice, the account of what the tool evaluated, and the person who can look again.
What to Do When Both Sides Keep Bouncing You
Keep the thread, and treat the bounce as part of the record. A regulator has already found a related gap. The Information Commissioner's Office audited AI recruitment tools and reported in November 2024 that recruiters must make sure candidates are told how their personal information will be processed by AI, by providing detailed privacy information or making sure the provider does 7.
The same report says contracts between providers and recruiters must define which party is responsible for giving candidates that information, because the audits found the responsibility often unclear. That finding was about privacy information rather than access requests, but it describes the same split: a duty two organisations had not settled between them.
Those are recommendations from consensual audits, not a court ruling, and they reach the UK only. A candidate cannot enforce one directly. What a candidate can do is cite it in a complaint to the ICO, and a saved thread is what makes such a complaint concrete.
In New York City the complaint goes to the city, and so does the money. Local Law 144 carries a civil penalty of not more than $500 for a first violation, recoverable by the city, and it gives the candidate no claim of their own 8. It preserves the discrimination claims that already existed, which are the ones carrying a remedy for a person.
Save every reply, including the refusals.
What the employer was supposed to keep is a separate question with a longer answer. What employers are told to keep from an AI-assisted hiring decision covers the output, the version, the list and the written reason.
Common questions
Does the interview vendor have to answer me directly?
Usually not. On HireVue's own candidate pages the retention period is set by the company you interviewed with, and a candidate who wants a recording is told to contact the hiring company, which controls it. The platform is holding the data for the employer, so the employer is the party to address. That is a vendor describing its own process, not a statement of what any law requires.
What should the first line of my request say?
Name the employer as the party holding your data, and the platform as the company processing it on the employer's behalf. Then say what you want and by when. Adding the role, the interview date and the email address you applied under lets a recruiter find the record without another round of messages.
What if the employer says the vendor already deleted everything?
Ask for that in writing, with a date. A deletion that has happened is an answer, and it belongs on the same thread as the request. In New York City the retention policy is one of the three things a written request covers, so you can ask what the policy was even when the file is gone.
Do I have a right to my interview recording anywhere?
Where the job sits and where you live decide that, and the right usually runs against the employer rather than the vendor. An EU or EEA subject access request under the GDPR runs against the controller, which in hiring is the employer or agency holding your data. New York City's written-request right returns the data type, its source and the retention policy, not the recording. Check the law that applies to you before quoting one.
How long should I wait before following up?
Where a law sets a clock, use it: New York City's written-request right gives the employer 30 days. Where no clock applies, a week is a reasonable gap before a short reply on the same thread. Keep each message to the same request, so the thread reads as one unanswered ask rather than several.
References
- 1. FAQ | Frequently Asked Questions for Candidates hirevue.com The vendor's own statement that the retention period is chosen by the company the candidate interviewed with, that data is purged when that period expires, and that a candidate may request deletion at any point, which is this article's routing answer.
- 2. Can I view the interview questions before/after the interview? hirevuesupport.zendesk.com Supports the claim that a candidate has no direct access to their own recording through the platform and is told to contact the hiring company, which controls the recordings.
- 3. Int. No. 1894-A (enacted as Local Law 144 of 2021), a Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to automated employment decision tools dfs.ny.gov The written-request right this article gives a New York City candidate: data type, data source and retention policy, provided within 30 days where the employer has not published it.
- 4. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation), Official Journal L 119, 4.5.2016 publications.europa.eu Article 15(1)(h), the access right against the controller covering meaningful information about the logic involved and the consequences of the processing, which this article routes to the employer.
- 5. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) publications.europa.eu Article 86(1), the explanation right this article says runs against the deployer rather than the vendor, covering the system's role in the decision procedure and the main elements of the decision.
- 6. Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (Digital Omnibus on AI) eur-lex.europa.eu Dates the Annex III high-risk obligations at 2 December 2027 rather than 2 August 2026, which is the timing caveat this article puts on an explanation request.
- 7. AI tools in recruitment: Audit outcomes report ico.org.uk The regulator's recommendation that recruiters ensure candidates are told how AI processes their data, and that contracts define which party provides that information, which is this article's evidence that a bounced request is a known gap.
- 8. Int. No. 1894-A (enacted as Local Law 144 of 2021), a Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to automated employment decision tools dfs.ny.gov The remedy limit this article states: a civil penalty recoverable by the city, with the savings clause preserving other claims rather than creating one for the candidate.
8 sources, numbered by first appearance. How Olive sources claims
General guidance, not legal advice. Hiring rules differ by state and country and change often; check anything here against your own counsel before you act on it.
Olive assesses how a person works with AI. It does not detect AI-written documents, and it never produces a score, a ranking, or a match percentage for a person. Candidates read the same report the employer reads.