Terms of use

1) Platform role

Trades Backer provides a secure application intake and management workflow for skilled trades hiring. The platform helps employers, unions, councils, and related organizations share one job link everywhere, collect standardized applications, and review candidates in one dashboard. Listings are staff-verified and manually published. Trades Backer is not a staffing agency and does not guarantee employment outcomes.

2) Eligibility and intended use

• You will use the platform only for lawful hiring, dispatch, onboarding, training placement, and related workforce coordination activities.
• You represent that you have authority to submit information on behalf of yourself or your organization.
• If you are using the service for an organization, you are responsible for ensuring your users follow these Terms.

3) Encryption and keys

• Applicant submissions are encrypted client-side to the employer's public key.
• Contact messages and listing requests are encrypted client-side to the staff key.
• Private keys should be stored securely by the key holder; we cannot recover lost private keys, and anyone with the matching private key may be able to decrypt related submissions.
• You are responsible for any access that occurs using your private key, whether authorized by you or not.

4) Employer/organization responsibilities

• Provide accurate listing details and keep postings current.
• Ensure public job pages, compensation details, work location, and hiring-organization information are truthful, authorized, and not misleading.
• Use applicant information only for legitimate hiring/dispatch/onboarding purposes, and follow applicable employment and privacy laws.
• Maintain appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards for any decrypted data you export or store internally.
• Restrict dashboard/key access to trusted personnel and secured devices. The Employer Dashboard is tablet-friendly and can be installed as a PWA; use dedicated browser profiles where appropriate.
• Do not request or collect high-risk identifiers through Trades Backer forms (for example, SSNs). Use your established internal process when required later.

5) Applicant responsibilities

• Submit truthful, accurate information and only upload files you have the right to share.
• Do not submit illegal content, malware, or abusive material.
• Avoid including high-risk personal data that is not required for application review.

6) Acceptable use

• No malware, phishing, harassment, or illegal content.
• No attempts to bypass security controls or access data outside of your authorized projectId/kid.
• No scraping, automated submissions, testing floods, or abuse of forms, rate limits, anti-spam controls, or upload systems.

7) Intellectual property

Trades Backer and its licensors own the platform software, design, and branding. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive license to access and use the service for its intended purpose.

8) User content

You retain rights to the information and files you submit. You grant Trades Backer a limited right to process submissions and associated metadata solely to operate the platform (receive, store, route, list, and enable authorized decryption) and to provide support.

9) Decrypted/exported data responsibility

Once data is decrypted or exported by an employer or organization, that party is responsible for its downstream handling, storage, sharing, retention, and compliance. Trades Backer does not control third-party ATS systems, shared drives, inboxes, or internal records where exported data may later be stored.

10) Security, monitoring, and anti-abuse

We may use technical controls such as request throttling, session validation, signed-request verification, hidden form fields, timing checks, file-size limits, and metadata-only operational logging to protect the service. Attempts to bypass or test these controls without authorization may result in blocked access. Authorized diagnostics and support work may be logged at the route and event level for troubleshooting and security review.

11) Availability and changes

The service is provided “as is” and may change over time. Features may be added, modified, or removed, and maintenance may temporarily interrupt access.

12) Disclaimers and limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Trades Backer disclaims warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Trades Backer is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, or business, arising out of or related to use of the service.

13) Suspension and termination

We may suspend or restrict access if we believe you are violating these Terms, abusing the service, or creating a security risk. You may stop using the service at any time.

14) Contact

Questions about these Terms should be routed through the Contact form on this site.

15) Source attribution and public distribution

Employers may share canonical Trades Backer listing pages through their own websites, job boards, social channels, dispatch updates, QR codes, and referral messages. Source tags or campaign parameters may be used to help identify where applicants came from. Those source labels are directional operational tools, not guarantees of complete attribution accuracy.

16) Communications and notifications

Trades Backer is designed to avoid noisy alerts. The standard flow uses on-page confirmations and dashboard review. We may send service-related communications when necessary (for example, listing verification, support follow-up, or critical operational notices). We do not send marketing messages by default.

17) Linking and framing

• You may link to Trades Backer listing and apply pages from your website, job boards, and social channels.
• For public roles, link to the exact job detail page when possible instead of routing applicants through a generic landing page.
• You may not frame, embed, or mirror Trades Backer pages in a way that obscures the source, alters user expectations, or interferes with security controls without prior written permission.