Effective date: Aug 19, 2026 Applies to: Contributors enrolled on Outlier projects where screen monitoring is enabled Last updated: Aug 19, 2026
1. Purpose of this notice
This notice explains how and why we use screen monitoring on Outlier projects, and it supplements the Outlier Privacy Policy, the Outlier Terms of Use, and the Community Guidelines, all of which continue to apply to Contributors on the Outlier Platform. Where this notice differs from any of those documents on screen monitoring, this notice controls.
Read this notice before you begin work on a monitored project. We are not asking you to agree to monitoring, and your agreement is not the basis on which we process this data. Section 5 explains the basis we rely on and the rights that come with it, including your right to object.
2. Who is responsible for this data
Scale AI, Inc., is the data controller for the processing described here.
Privacy contact: privacy@scale.com
Data Protection Officer: William Gamble william.gamble@scale.com
EU representative under Article 27 GDPR: Lionheart Squared Ltd
Lionheart Squared (Europe) Limited
Address:
2 Pembroke House
Upper Pembroke Street 28-32
Dublin
D02 EK84
Ireland
Email: outlier@lionheartsquared.eu
UK Office
Address:
17 Glasshouse Studios
Fryern Court Road
Fordingbridge
Hampshire
SP6 1QX
England
3. When monitoring happens
Screen monitoring runs only when all of the following are true:
You are enrolled on a project, interview or course where monitoring is enabled;
You have given access to our screen monitoring application;
You have either:
an eligible paid task session open and your paid work timer is running;
an interview session open; or
a course session open.
Monitoring stops when you end the applicable task, interview, or course session, or stop screen sharing. If you stop sharing your screen, the timer pauses and paid time stops accruing rather than continuing to run.
While monitoring is active, a Screen Sharing Active indicator stays visible on your screen. Before capture begins, you receive an on-screen notice at timer start and your browser asks you to select what to share.
4. What we collect
Screen captures. We capture still images of your window, taken approximately once per minute.
Screen video. On designated projects, or where a specific integrity concern has been identified about your account, we may record screen video in place of or in addition to still images. Video capture is limited to no more than thirty (30) minutes per day where it is triggered by an integrity signal, and to your active tasking time subject to a daily project ceiling where it applies to a whole project. Any project where video is enabled will tell you so before you begin work.
Session and work metadata. Contributor or worker ID, project, task and timer identifiers, capture timestamps, active and idle status, and screen-share start and stop events.
Information derived from captures. Image fingerprints, text, applications, and pattern detections produced by our automated review tools. Where video is enabled, the reason your account was selected.
Because capture is of a whole screen or window, anything visible at the moment of capture is captured. That can include other applications, browser tabs, file names, notifications and personal content. It can also include information about other people if it is visible on your screen.
4.1 What we do not collect
We do not collect, and the monitoring tool cannot collect:
Camera or webcam images;
Microphone or other audio;
Keystrokes or typed content outside what is visible in a capture;
Any data when your timer is not running or you are not in an eligible task session.
We do not seek, target or use special category data (such as information about your health, religion, political opinions, trade union membership, sex life or sexual orientation), financial account details or government identifiers. If such content is visible on your screen while capture is active, it may be recorded incidentally. Section 8 describes the steps we take to reduce and remove it.
Please close personal applications, personal email, banking, health portals and private messaging before you start a monitored task session.
5. Why we collect it, and the legal basis we rely on
We use screen monitoring data for three purposes only:
Verifying paid time. Confirming that time recorded on the timer corresponds to actual work on the assigned task.
Detecting prohibited tools and practices. Identifying remote-access and desktop-sharing tools, mouse jigglers, auto-clickers and macros, timer manipulation, anti-detect browsers and multi-account tooling, and prohibited use of external AI models where a project restricts it.
Investigating suspected fraud and policy violations, and taking payment, access or enforcement decisions that follow from an investigation.
Our legal basis is our legitimate interests under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR and the equivalent provisions of other applicable data protection laws. Those interests are protecting the integrity of the work delivered to our customers, ensuring payments are made for work actually performed, protecting contributors who do the work properly from being disadvantaged by those who do not, and detecting and preventing fraud against Scale.
We do not rely on your consent, and we are not asking for it. The screen selection prompt you see comes from your web browser, which requires you to choose a screen before any browser-based tool can capture it. That prompt is a technical requirement of your browser. It is not a consent mechanism for this processing, and choosing to share your screen is not treated by us as permission to process your data. This matters to you in two ways: you do not need to worry that agreeing to work has waived your privacy rights, and you retain the right to object to this processing described in Section 10.
We have carried out a written assessment weighing our interests against your rights and freedoms, taking into account the intrusiveness of screen capture, our position relative to yours as a platform, and the steps described in Sections 4.1, 7 and 8. A summary of that assessment is available on request from the contact in Section 2.
We do not use screen monitoring data for performance evaluation, task quality scoring, work allocation decisions unrelated to integrity, training AI models, marketing, or any purpose disclosed to our customers. We do not sell, license or provide screen captures to Outlier customers.
6. Whether you have to accept monitoring
Monitoring is a requirement of working on projects where it is enabled. It is a contractual requirement of those specific projects, not of your relationship with Outlier as a whole.
If you decline at the on-screen notice, or you stop sharing your screen, the monitored task session will not start or will end, and you will not accrue paid time for it. Declining does not remove you from the Outlier platform, does not affect work you have already completed and been paid for, and does not by itself affect your access to projects that do not use monitoring.
7. Who sees this data and how long we keep it
Access. Screen captures are viewed only by authorized Scale personnel in Trust & Safety, Security, Engineering and Legal, on a least-privilege basis, through internal tools that require single sign-on. Every access to a capture is logged. Captures are not routinely reviewed; only files selected for a specific investigation are opened and examined.
Service providers. Amazon Web Services provides storage and computing, and Snowflake provides the data warehouse where metadata and detection outputs are held. Both act as our processors under written contracts. No third-party artificial intelligence, OCR or analytics provider receives your screen captures. The automated detection tools are operated by Scale.
Other disclosures. We may disclose captures to our external legal advisers, and to regulators, courts or law enforcement where we are legally required to do so or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. Where a capture is the basis of a payment or enforcement decision affecting you, we may show it or describe it to you.
Retention.
Data | Retention period |
|---|---|
Screen captures not selected for investigation | Deleted automatically 7 days after capture |
Captures retained as investigation evidence | No longer than 90 days |
Screen video | Deleted automatically after 90 days after capture |
Detection outputs and session metadata | No longer than 90 days |
Access logs | No longer than 90 days |
Deletion is enforced automatically by our storage configuration rather than by manual action. Data is kept beyond these periods only where a documented legal hold applies, for example an active investigation, dispute or regulatory request.
8. How we limit what is collected
Capture runs only during an eligible active task session with the timer running.
Still images are sampled at approximately one per minute rather than recorded continuously.
Camera, microphone and keystroke collection are excluded at the product level.
Captures of windows other than the Outlier task window that contain sensitive, health, financial or credential content are deleted once identified.
Only files selected for a specific investigation are decoded and examined.
Video, where enabled, is subject to a daily cap.
9. Automated tools and human decisions
Automated tools scan captures and produce detections that may flag your account for review. This is profiling for fraud-prevention purposes.
Our detection models are continuously governed by human specialists who define the rules, conduct audits, and regularly refine our systems. Because of this ongoing human oversight, our tools may automatically apply enforcement actions—such as account suspension or withholding payment—based on a single capture in cases of severe violations. For less severe flags, our investigators typically evaluate patterns across multiple captures and other evidence before reaching a decision. If you have questions about the decision or want to submit an appeal, please reach out to the support team at support@outlier.ai.
10. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you have some or all of the following rights. To exercise them, use the request channel in the Outlier Privacy Policy or contact us at privacy@scale.com. Captures are indexed to your contributor ID, so we can locate them.
Right to object. Because we rely on legitimate interests, you may object to this processing at any time. If you object, we will stop processing your screen monitoring data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the data is needed for legal claims. We will assess each objection individually, tell you the outcome and explain our reasoning.
Right of access. You may ask for a copy of the screen monitoring data we hold about you. We may need to redact content relating to other people, or content that would reveal the operation of our fraud-detection methods.
Right to erasure. You may ask us to delete your screen monitoring data. In most cases it will already have been deleted automatically. We may decline where the data is needed for an open investigation or to establish or defend a legal claim.
Right to restriction. You may ask us to stop further processing while a dispute about accuracy or our legitimate grounds is being assessed.
Right to rectification. You may ask us to correct inaccurate data, including our interpretation of what a capture shows.
Right to portability. Where applicable, you may ask for a copy of your data in a machine-readable format.
Right to complain. You may complain to your local data protection authority based on your country of residence. You may also contact us first and we will try to resolve the matter.
Exercising any of these rights will not lead to retaliation, reduced work allocation or any other adverse consequence.
11. International transfers
Screen monitoring data is stored and processed in the United States, in Amazon Web Services and Snowflake environments in the US West (Oregon) region. Authorized Scale personnel may access it from the United States.
Where data is transferred from the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension and Swiss-US Framework and the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, with the UK International Data Transfer Addendum where applicable. You may request a copy of the relevant transfer mechanism, with commercial terms redacted, from the contact in Section 2.
12. Changes to this notice
If we change what we collect, why we collect it, how long we keep it or the tools we use, we will update this notice and tell you before the change takes effect on projects you work on.