1. Who We Are
EditingTests.com (“we”, “us”, “our”) is an editorial assessment platform operated by Editorial Benchmarking Systems, trading as EditingTests.com. We have provided professional editorial aptitude assessments since 1998. Our platform is used by employers (“Clients”) to assess job candidates (“Candidates”) for editorial roles.
Contact: admin@editingtests.com
2. Scope of This Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how EditingTests.com collects, uses, stores, shares and protects personal data when you:
- Visit editingtests.com and its subdomains
- Register for a Client account
- Take an assessment as a Candidate
- Download a resource or playbook guide
- Contact us via any channel
- Use any feature of our platform
This policy applies to all individuals whose personal data we process, including Clients, Candidates, website visitors and prospective customers. It is compliant with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR 2016/679), the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA, Canada), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), and other applicable data protection legislation.
3. Data We Collect
3.1 Client Account Data
When you register as a Client, we collect:
- Name and job title
- Business email address
- Company name and sector
- Billing information (processed securely by Stripe — we do not store card details)
- Account preferences and settings
- Usage data (test sessions created, credits purchased and used)
3.2 Candidate Data
When a Candidate takes an assessment, we collect:
- Name (if provided by the inviting Client)
- Email address (for invitation delivery and result delivery)
- Assessment responses, answers and written submissions
- Timing data (time taken per question and per section)
- Browser and device information (for anti-cheat monitoring and result validity)
- IP address (for session integrity and fraud prevention)
- Test scores, percentile rankings and assessment reports
Candidates are assessed on behalf of our Clients. The Client is the data controller for Candidate personal data; EditingTests.com acts as data processor. Candidates should contact the organisation that invited them for queries about how their data is used in the recruitment process.
3.3 Playbook and Resource Downloads
When you download a guide or playbook, we collect:
- Name
- Work email address
- Company name
- Job function or role (optional)
3.4 Contact and Enquiry Data
When you contact us, we collect the content of your message, your email address, and any other information you choose to provide.
3.5 Website Usage Data
When you browse editingtests.com, we collect:
- Pages visited and time spent
- Referring URLs
- Browser type and version
- Device type and operating system
- IP address (anonymised for analytics)
- Cookie identifiers (see our Cookie Policy)
We use Matomo Analytics, a privacy-respecting analytics platform hosted on our own infrastructure. Analytics data is anonymised and is not shared with third-party advertising networks.
4. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)
We process personal data on the following legal bases:
- Contract performance — to deliver assessment services to Clients and process Candidate assessments under a Client’s instruction.
- Legitimate interests — to improve our platform, prevent fraud, ensure security, and conduct business analytics. We have conducted legitimate interests assessments and are satisfied our interests do not override individual rights.
- Consent — for marketing communications, non-essential cookies, and resource download follow-up emails. You may withdraw consent at any time.
- Legal obligation — where we are required to retain or disclose data by law (e.g. financial records for tax purposes).
5. How We Use Personal Data
- To create and manage Client accounts
- To deliver candidate assessment invitations and process test sessions
- To generate, store and deliver assessment reports
- To process payments via Stripe Checkout
- To respond to support and sales enquiries
- To send transactional emails (account confirmations, invitation links, result notifications)
- To send marketing communications where you have opted in
- To improve and develop our platform, tests and content
- To detect and prevent fraud, cheating, and abuse
- To comply with legal obligations
- To maintain aggregated, anonymised benchmarking data (candidate scores are included in percentile calculations with all identifying information removed)
6. Data Sharing and Third-Party Processors
We do not sell personal data to any third party. We share personal data only with:
- Stripe, Inc. — payment processing. Stripe processes billing data under its own privacy policy and is PCI-DSS compliant. We do not store card numbers.
- Plesk / server infrastructure — our hosting provider stores data on servers in accordance with applicable data protection standards.
- Anthropic, PBC — we use Claude AI (claude-sonnet-4-20250514) to assist with content generation for industry-specific test materials. Prompts sent to the API contain industry names and vocabulary lists only; no personal data relating to Clients or Candidates is transmitted.
- Professional advisers — lawyers, accountants and insurers under confidentiality obligations, where necessary.
- Law enforcement or regulators — where required by applicable law or a court order.
All third-party processors are required to process data only on our documented instructions and in accordance with applicable data protection law.
7. International Data Transfers
EditingTests.com operates globally and serves clients in the UK, EU, Canada, Australia and other jurisdictions. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK or EEA, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, including:
- Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission or UK ICO
- Adequacy decisions where the destination country has been deemed adequate
- Binding Corporate Rules or other approved transfer mechanisms
Stripe processes payments through servers in the United States and operates under its Privacy Shield commitments and updated data transfer mechanisms.
8. Data Retention
- Client account data — retained for the life of the account plus 7 years (for financial and legal compliance), then securely deleted.
- Candidate assessment data — retained for 24 months from the date of the assessment, unless the Client requests earlier deletion or a longer retention period is agreed in a Data Processing Agreement.
- Playbook/lead data — retained for 24 months from collection, or until you unsubscribe.
- Contact/enquiry data — retained for 3 years from last contact.
- Anonymised analytics data — retained indefinitely in aggregated form.
- Payment records — retained for 7 years for tax and accounting compliance.
9. Your Rights
Subject to applicable law, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:
- Right of access — to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Right to rectification — to request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
- Right to erasure — to request deletion of your data where there is no overriding legal basis for retention.
- Right to restrict processing — to request that we limit how we use your data while a dispute is resolved.
- Right to data portability — to receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format and transfer it to another controller (GDPR only).
- Right to object — to object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing purposes.
- Right to withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting prior processing.
- Rights related to automated decision-making — we do not make solely automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects. Assessment scores are provided to Clients as data; hiring decisions are made by humans.
To exercise any of these rights, email admin@editingtests.com with the subject line “Data Subject Request”. We will respond within 30 days (UK/EU GDPR), 30 days (PIPEDA), or 45 days (CCPA). We may ask you to verify your identity before processing your request.
Candidates: Your right of access to assessment results should first be directed to the organisation that commissioned your assessment (the Client). We will assist Clients in fulfilling their obligations to Candidates on request.
10. California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)
California residents have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act:
- The right to know what personal information is collected, used, shared or sold
- The right to delete personal information (subject to legal exceptions)
- The right to opt-out of the sale of personal information — we do not sell personal information
- The right to non-discrimination for exercising CCPA rights
- The right to correct inaccurate personal information
- The right to limit the use of sensitive personal information
To submit a CCPA request, email admin@editingtests.com.
11. Canadian Privacy Rights (PIPEDA)
Canadian residents have rights under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). You may request access to, or correction of, personal information we hold about you. We collect only the information necessary for the purposes described in this policy and with your knowledge and consent. Contact us at admin@editingtests.com.
12. Security
We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or destruction. These include:
- TLS/HTTPS encryption for all data in transit
- Encrypted storage for sensitive data at rest
- Access controls and role-based permissions
- Anti-cheat monitoring (tab-switch detection, clipboard controls) during assessments
- Regular security reviews
- Breach notification procedures
In the event of a personal data breach that poses a risk to your rights, we will notify the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours and affected individuals without undue delay, as required by GDPR.
13. Children’s Privacy
EditingTests.com is a professional B2B platform. Our services are not directed at individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.
14. Data Processing Agreements
Enterprise clients who require a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) in accordance with GDPR Article 28 should contact admin@editingtests.com. We are willing to enter into DPAs that specify the nature, purpose and duration of processing, the type of data involved, and the rights and obligations of both parties.
15. Supervisory Authority
If you are in the UK, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO): ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113.
If you are in the EU, you may lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority in your member state.
If you are in Canada, you may contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada: priv.gc.ca.
We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly before you contact a supervisory authority.
16. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements or other factors. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. For material changes, we will notify active Client accounts by email. Continued use of the platform after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
17. Contact
For any privacy-related queries, requests or complaints:
EditingTests.com
Email: admin@editingtests.com
Subject line: Privacy Enquiry