For recruitment firms, staffing agencies, and IT services companies
DataBait injects undetectable fictitious candidates into your files (CV database, candidate database, talent pools, databases shared with your ATS, your job boards, your multi-posting services, and your sourcing providers), each with a real email address and a mobile number, monitored 24/7. Since these candidates match no real person, any email, SMS, or call they receive reveals illegitimate use of your data and produces court-admissible proof, within 72 hours.
The cost of a data leak
Your CV database is your most strategic asset, and the most coveted. A consultant leaving with the talent pool, a job board or a multi-posting service reusing your candidates outside scope, a cyberattack: the employment sector has just seen the largest data leak ever recorded in France, at France Travail. A leak here means candidate capital misappropriated, GDPR exposure on data that is sometimes sensitive, and an advantage handed to your competitors.
Sources: CNIL 2024 (France Travail) · GDPR art. 33 · French Criminal Code art. 314-1
Data security
DataBait detects the actual theft of your candidate database through its use, once it has left your information system.
Your EDR and DLP watch access and the perimeter of your information system; once the data has gone out to your ATS, your job boards, your multi-posting services, or your sourcing providers, they are blind to what is done with it. The business rests on permanent sharing of candidate data (multi-channel job posting, shared talent pools, outsourced sourcing), and every channel is a legitimate exit route for your data, hence just as many misappropriation surfaces beyond the reach of your perimeter tools. DataBait takes over on use: since the fictitious candidates it injects match no real person, their only expected contacts are your own mailings and those of the senders you have declared; any other contact betrays, by construction, illegitimate use of your data. Complementing your existing setup, with no structural false positives.
Legal
DataBait provides you with court-admissible proof of the theft of your candidate database: a commissaire de justice report, drawn up within 72 hours, sealed by a qualified eIDAS timestamp.
Each step of the procedure is sealed by a qualified eIDAS timestamp, issued by a QTSP on the EU Trusted List: contract signature, the list of fictitious candidates injected, source code of the emails and SMS received, through to the commissaire de justice report that consolidates them. Compliant with the AFNOR NF Z67-147 standard, this report is admissible before French courts.
For a firm, an agency, or an ESN, this report covers both an internal and an external leak: it establishes that a candidate database left its perimeter, on what date, through which channel it was used, and with which forensic metadata. You and your counsel hold proof already assembled to characterise the facts and decide on the steps to take, whether it concerns a consultant bound by confidentiality or an ATS, job board, or sourcing provider operating outside the scope of its DPA. Without the report, those steps remain theoretical.
Compliance
DataBait supports your GDPR compliance: the alert, sealed by a qualified eIDAS timestamp, proves your date of awareness, the certain starting point of your notification to the CNIL.
The GDPR requires you to notify a breach to the CNIL within 72 hours (article 33) and, where the risk to individuals is high, to communicate it to them (article 34). The CVs you handle may contain sensitive data within the meaning of article 9 of the GDPR (health, trade union membership, origin), and the CNIL recruitment framework strictly governs what you may collect and retain. Beyond the deadline, the leak itself is documented: in a CNIL inspection, you demonstrate what you knew, when, and what you did about it.
The GDPR (article 28) requires you to select and monitor your processors with due diligence: ATS, job boards, multi-posting services, sourcing providers. DataBait turns that diligence into continuous monitoring: injecting dedicated fictitious candidates into each database entrusted to a provider turns your oversight duty into a permanent signal, with no additional audit. And because it accesses no real CV, it introduces no new risk to your candidates itself.
Use cases
DataBait detects and proves leaks and misuse of your candidate database, whoever the actor.
A departing recruiter or consultant walks off with the CV database or the talent pool, to use it at a competing firm, set up their own business, or resell it. A fictitious candidate is contacted: you are alerted, and the report grounds your action, civil and criminal alike.
An ATS vendor, a job board, a multi-posting service, or a sourcing provider leaks or reuses your candidate database outside the DPA. Contact with a fictitious candidate reveals the misappropriation, backed by court-admissible proof, and identifies the third party if your databases are segmented.
A cyberattack hits your information system or a provider's. The employment sector saw, with France Travail, the largest leak ever recorded in France, through compromised adviser accounts. Your fictitious candidates surface on the dark web: you learn it from monitoring, not from your candidates' complaints. You warn them of the phishing and fake-job-offer risk, then notify the CNIL — before the press picks it up.
How it works
DataBait turns every attempt to misuse your candidate database into proof.
DataBait injects undetectable fictitious candidates into your files (CV database, candidate database, talent pools, databases shared with your ATS, your job boards, your multi-posting services, and your sourcing providers), generated from public statistical datasets (INSEE, IRIS, BDNB), with no LLM and no hallucination, each carrying a real email address and a mobile number. DataBait accesses none of your real candidates.
Email address and mobile number monitored continuously; since these candidates match no real person and your own senders are declared, any other contact received is illegitimate by construction, with no structural false positives.
Continuous search for your fictitious candidates across forums, marketplaces, and dumps, even with no contact at all: you know a database has leaked before the CNIL, your candidates, or the press.
Every signal generates proof sealed by a qualified eIDAS timestamp and triggers an alert qualified by type, enriched with OSINT and delivered with its forensic metadata, so your security lead can prioritise (email or SIEM integration).
Commissaire de justice report compliant with the AFNOR NF Z67-147 standard and a qualified eIDAS timestamp, court-admissible within 72 hours, directly usable for your GDPR notification and your claims.
Integration
DataBait is a fully managed SaaS: it runs with no agent and no change to your infrastructure, and carries no operational overhead for you; every alert is a real signal, with no false positives to triage.
Alerts reach you through the channel of your choice: email (the primary channel, precisely addressable per recipient and per assignment) or SIEM integration. No agent to install, no schema migration: the fictitious candidates are injected through the same import routes as your new candidates.
Protecting the firm
DataBait injects the fictitious candidates into your CV database, your talent pools, and your internal ATS. You tool your own GDPR compliance without changing your information system, and without DataBait accessing a single real CV.
Third-party oversight
DataBait injects fictitious candidates dedicated to each database you share with your job boards, your multi-posting services, your ATS vendors, and your sourcing providers. Segmented by recipient, these databases make it possible to identify the third party behind a misappropriation; you turn your processor-monitoring diligence (GDPR art. 28) into a continuous signal, with no annual audit.
Sovereignty
DataBait is a company incorporated under French law, 100% owned by French shareholders and operated in France on sovereign infrastructure; none of your data transits through or is stored on our servers.
The infrastructure is hosted in France on a platform qualified SecNumCloud (ANSSI) and managed by a French company certified ISO 27001, beyond the reach of extraterritorial jurisdictions. And because DataBait accesses no CV and no real application, and limits itself to the contact channel of fictitious candidates, it introduces no new risk to your candidates' data.
Trust
No promises: with every alert you receive an evidence dossier already assembled to enforceable standards.
Evidence dossier
AFNOR NF Z67-147
Commissaire de justice report, signed within 72 hours of the alert.
eIDAS · art. 41
Qualified timestamping, with a legal presumption of validity throughout the European Union.
Chain of custody
Documented, admissible before French and European courts.
SecNumCloud-qualified hosting · ISO 27001
Data hosted in France, on ANSSI-qualified infrastructure.
Listed
MARTECH PLAYBOOK 2026 · Havas Business Science
DataBait is listed in this cyber martech catalogue.
Frequently asked questions
Every database holding candidate data: CV database, candidate database, talent pools, sourcing lists, and databases shared with your ATS, your job boards, your multi-posting services, and your sourcing providers. DataBait detects three families of signal:
No. DataBait accesses no CV, no application, and none of the data of your real candidates. It injects fictitious candidates, generated from public statistical datasets, and monitors only their contact channel (email, SMS). Your real data never leaves your information system, and DataBait brings no third party into the handling of your candidates. DataBait was designed to preserve the confidentiality of your database by construction.
The alert, sealed by a qualified eIDAS timestamp, proves your date of awareness, the certain starting point of your notification to the CNIL within 72 hours (article 33 of the GDPR) and, where the risk is high, of your communication to the individuals concerned (article 34). The CVs you handle may contain sensitive data (article 9 of the GDPR), and the CNIL recruitment framework governs their collection. Beyond the deadline, the leak is documented: in a CNIL inspection, you demonstrate what you knew, when, and what you did about it. DataBait also gives substance to your diligence in monitoring your processors (article 28 of the GDPR).
Yes, if you segment your databases by recipient: DataBait injects dedicated fictitious candidates into each database you entrust, and a contact received on the candidates of a given database identifies the third party concerned. On a single database shared with several providers, a contact proves the misappropriation but does not identify who did it; attribution then requires your own investigation.
None. DataBait runs as a fully managed SaaS, with zero infrastructure changes and zero operational overhead on the firm's or agency's side. No agent to install, no schema migration, no connector to maintain. Deployment crosses no critical production environment: the fictitious candidates are injected through the same import routes as your new candidates.
Data hosted in France, SecNumCloud-qualified hosting (ANSSI qualification), ISO 27001. Proof produced under French law (commissaire de justice, AFNOR NF Z67-147) and recognised throughout the European Union (qualified eIDAS timestamp). No transfer outside the EU. And because DataBait accesses no real CV, deploying it adds no risk to your candidates' data.
A database under DataBait that has never triggered an alert demonstrates, by construction, the absence of detectable misuse. For you and your DPO, that is a measurable indicator of the maturity of your setup and of your providers'. It is also an exhibit you can produce in support of your diligence.
Three areas stand out, along three distinct axes of exposure:
Get in touch
Book 30 minutes with our team: we go through your CV database and the databases you share with your job boards, your multi-posting services, and your sourcing providers, and identify the areas where injecting fictitious candidates delivers proof fastest, without ever accessing your CVs.
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