HardhatBound

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 9, 2026

HardhatBound helps you get into the skilled trades. To do that, we collect some information about you. This page explains exactly what we collect, why, where it lives, who can see it, and how to get it deleted. No legal maze — if anything here is unclear, email us at hello@hardhatbound.com and a human will answer.

What changed on October 9, 2026: we added a record of your EPA 608 exam (test date, pass date, level, and a couple of follow-up questions), an optional notification around your test date, an optional public "I passed" card you can create and remove, a short optional survey we may email you after you pass, and optional follow-up emails over the few months after you pass. Details below.

Who we are

HardhatBound (hardhatbound.com) is operated from the United Kingdom and built for users in the United States. For anything privacy-related, contact hello@hardhatbound.com.

What we collect, and why

We only collect things we actually use. Here is the complete list.

Your account. Your email address, your date of birth, and the date you accepted these terms. We use your email to sign you in (we don't use passwords), to contact you about your account, and to send you occasional surveys (see Surveys below). We use your date of birth to make sure you're old enough to use HardhatBound (see "If you're under 18" below).

Your quiz answers. Your state, age band, where you are right now (in school, graduated, working, switching careers), whether you already have an EPA 608 certification, when you want to start, how you'd prefer to train, your budget, and whether you have a driver's license. We use these to build your personal roadmap — every answer changes what you see.

Your study activity. Every practice question you answer, whether you got it right, and when, plus a simple record of each time you finish a study session. This powers your streaks, accuracy stats, progress bars, and review schedule. It's also what makes your profile meaningful to employers — months of real study activity says more than any resume.

Your profile (only if you fill it in). Full name, contact details, zip code and how far you'll travel, whether you're eligible to work in the US, driver's license, reliable transport, when you can start, certifications you hold or expect, education stage, whether you'd relocate, and your background-check consent choice. Every field exists because employers ask about it. This information is only shared if you turn on "Get discovered" (see below).

Your EPA 608 exam record. If you tell us about your EPA 608 exam, we store your scheduled or actual test date, the date you passed, and which level you hold (Core, Type I, Type II, Type III, or Universal). If you tell us who issued your certificate, where you're at in finding work, and what you want to do next, we store those too. This is all self-reported — we don't check it against the testing body. We use it to personalize your roadmap, to mark your progress, and to recognize the moment you pass so we can show you next steps.

How you found us. If you arrived from one of our videos, the link tells us which one. We store that so we know which content actually helps people, not just which gets views.

Marketing emails (optional). If you tick the box at signup, or later on the screen where you tell us you passed your EPA 608, we'll send you occasional emails about getting into the trades. This is completely optional and separate from creating your account — leaving it unticked doesn't stop you from using HardhatBound in any way. If you're under 18, we never send these regardless of what's ticked. We record the date you opted in alongside your choice. If you opted in and you've recently passed your EPA 608, this also covers up to four short follow-up emails over the next few months with practical next steps — not promises of jobs, pay, or employer contact. Every one of these emails has a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can also withdraw consent any time by emailing hello@hardhatbound.com. We use Resend to deliver them.

Notifications (optional). If you turn on notifications, we store a push subscription for your device (a web address and encryption keys issued by your browser or phone maker's push service), along with your device's time zone and the browser and device type it reports to us. We use these to send you study reminders, such as a warning that your streak is about to break or a nudge if you haven't studied for a few days, at most one a day on each device, timed for the evening in your time zone. If you've told us your scheduled EPA 608 test date, we also use notifications to ask how it went: once around that date, and once more the next day if we haven't heard back — we stop asking as soon as you tell us a result. We don't use notifications for anything else. Turning notifications on is always your choice and is separate from creating your account. You can turn them off at any time in your browser or phone settings; when your device tells us it can no longer be reached, we remove the subscription automatically. If your account is deleted, the subscription is deleted with it.

Surveys (optional). From time to time we email account holders a short survey. One asks about how you first heard about the trades and what is stopping you from applying; if you pass your EPA 608 for the first time, we may separately email a short survey about how that went — how long you studied, what you used, where you took it, what it cost, and why you got certified, plus a few optional questions in your own words. Answering either is always optional, and you can ignore the email. We send these whether or not you've opted in to marketing emails, because they are research requests, not marketing. Each survey email contains a private link that works without signing in, and a link to stop survey emails; stopping survey emails is one setting that covers every survey, not just the one in that email, and you can also email hello@hardhatbound.com to stop them. If you answer, we store your answers, whether you are under 18 (so we know never to quote you), and your choice about being quoted. We may publish findings in reports, as combined statistics. We quote your own words only if you tell us we may — with your first name, or anonymously, as you choose — and we never quote anyone under 18, no matter what they picked. Anything already published in a report can't be recalled, but if your account is deleted we delete your survey answers with it.

Your public pass card (optional). If you pass your EPA 608, you can choose to create a shareable "I passed" card. You control what's on it: your first name or a name you type in, your level, honest study stats (like how many days you studied), and — only if you're a confirmed adult and choose to show it — your state. If you're under 18, or we don't know your age, your card never shows a state, no matter what you choose. The card is created only when you tap "Create my card," never automatically. Its page is public to anyone with the link but is marked so search engines don't index it. You can remove it at any time with "Remove my card," which immediately breaks the link on our end — but sites like LinkedIn or messaging apps that already cached a preview of it may keep showing that preview for a while after you remove it. If your account is deleted, your card is deleted with it.

Analytics. We use PostHog in cookieless mode to understand how the app is used (which screens people visit, where they get stuck). No tracking cookies, no advertising networks, no following you around the internet. We record specific actions too — starting or finishing the quiz, signing up, starting or finishing a study session, completing your profile, checking off roadmap steps, responding to the notification prompt, telling us how your exam went, creating or removing your pass card, tapping a share button, and starting or finishing the pass survey — so we can tell which parts of the app actually help. None of these records what you actually typed or shared, only that you took the action. Each of these carries the source tag for the video or link that brought you here, if any.

To count your visit correctly instead of splitting it into two, we store a random ID in your browser's local storage — not a cookie. It only exists to recognize the same browser across page loads, so signing up right after taking the quiz still counts as one visit. It isn't linked to your name, and it's never sold or shared. Clearing your browser's data removes it.

What we never do

We don't sell your information to advertisers or data brokers. We don't show ads. We don't track you across other websites. We don't collect anything not listed on this page.

"Get discovered" — sharing with employers

This is off by default. If you turn it on, we may share your profile and study record with employers looking to hire — that's the entire point of the feature. You can turn it off at any time, and sharing stops. If you never turn it on, no employer ever sees you.

If you're under 18

Under 13: you can't create a HardhatBound account. If we discover an account belongs to someone under 13, we delete it completely — including the sign-in record.

13 to 17: you're welcome here. But before your profile can be shared with employers, we require a parent or guardian's email address and their consent. Until that consent exists, "Get discovered" stays off.

Where your information lives

Your data is stored with these providers, who process it on our behalf:

We don't hand your data to anyone else except as described in "Get discovered."

Browser storage

We use your browser's local storage for essentials only: keeping you signed in, remembering which video brought you here, briefly holding your signup details while you log in, counting how many study sessions you've finished on this device, and remembering if you've dismissed the notification prompt so we don't keep asking. These aren't advertising cookies.

Operational records

We keep internal logs of when our scheduled jobs (like the one that sends survey invites) ran and whether they succeeded, and a daily internal summary email of counts like how many people signed up or passed. These contain job names, timestamps, and numbers only — never your name, email, or anything you wrote.

Your rights

You can ask to see the information we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted. We don't currently have a self-serve delete button — email hello@hardhatbound.com from your account email and we'll delete it, no questions asked. Deleting your account removes your profile, your quiz answers, your study history, your exam record, your pass card, your survey answers, your follow-up email history, and any notification subscriptions.

Changes

When we change this policy, we update the date at the top of this page and describe what changed. If a change significantly affects how we use your data, we'll also email account holders.

Contact

hello@hardhatbound.com — a real inbox, read by a real person.