What happens to interview recordings for candidates who are not hired?
By Pinal Dave | Last updated: 2026-08-01
TL;DR: Interview recordings and proctoring evidence for rejected candidates should follow a defined retention policy, kept only as long as needed for legal defense of the hiring decision, then deleted. Under privacy laws like GDPR, candidates generally have the right to know what was recorded and to request deletion once the stated retention period has passed.
The short answer
Once a candidate is rejected, it is tempting to treat their interview data as no longer relevant and either forget about it or keep it indefinitely out of habit. Both are risky. Keeping data indefinitely increases exposure if a discrimination or unfair-rejection claim is filed later, since old, unstructured recordings are harder to defend and harder to prove were handled consistently across candidates. Deleting it immediately removes the evidence a company might need if that same claim is filed within a legally relevant window.
The right approach is a defined retention period, set in advance and applied consistently, long enough to cover the realistic window for a legal challenge to the hiring decision, then deletion. This applies whether the recording shows a clean interview or one that resulted in a fraud flag; a rejected-for-fraud candidate has the same right to a defined, disclosed retention policy as any other rejected candidate.
The evidence
- Greenhouse survey (4,136 respondents): 91% of hiring professionals encountered suspected AI-generated answers, meaning a meaningful share of rejected candidates' recordings involve exactly the kind of flagged evidence that may later be relevant if a decision is challenged.
- General privacy frameworks like GDPR and similar regional laws grant individuals rights to know what personal data, including interview recordings, is held about them and to request deletion once retention is no longer justified.
- Standard employment-law practice in most jurisdictions treats hiring records, including for rejected candidates, as material to retain for a limited window relevant to discrimination or wrongful-rejection claims, not indefinitely.
Retention approaches compared
| Approach | Legal defensibility if challenged | Privacy risk |
|---|---|---|
| Delete immediately after rejection | Low, no evidence to support the decision later | Low |
| Keep indefinitely | Moderate, but data quality and organization degrade over time | High, larger exposure if a breach occurs |
| Defined retention period, then delete | High, evidence available within the relevant legal window | Low, matches data minimization principles |
Step-by-step: setting a retention policy
- Define a specific retention period upfront, informed by the relevant statute of limitations for employment claims in the jurisdictions where the company hires.
- Apply the same period to every candidate, hired or not. Selective retention, keeping some recordings longer than others without a clear reason, undermines defensibility.
- Disclose the policy to candidates. A brief line in the interview invitation or privacy notice covers this without requiring a lengthy legal document.
- Automate deletion at the end of the retention window, rather than relying on manual cleanup, which tends to slip.
- Handle deletion requests within the stated policy. If a candidate requests earlier deletion and the retention period has already served its evidentiary purpose, honor the request where privacy law requires it.
FAQ
Do companies have to delete interview recordings if a candidate asks? In many jurisdictions with data privacy laws, yes, once any legitimate retention purpose, like defending a hiring decision within a legal time window, has passed.
Should recordings for candidates flagged with a fraud signal be kept longer? This can be reasonable if the flag might factor into a future application from the same candidate or a broader fraud pattern the company is tracking, but it should still follow a defined, disclosed policy rather than indefinite retention.
Is it risky to delete recordings too quickly? Yes, if a rejected candidate later files a discrimination or unfair-process claim, having no record makes the decision harder to defend, which is why an immediate-delete policy is not usually recommended.
Who typically owns this retention policy inside a company? Usually HR and legal jointly, since it touches both employment law compliance and data privacy compliance.
Does this apply the same way to AI meeting proctor recordings as to standard video interview recordings? Yes, the same retention and privacy principles apply regardless of which tool captured the recording; what matters is that a defined, disclosed policy governs all interview data consistently.