Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize efficiency and decision-making, but with that power comes a responsibility to protect individual rights, promote fairness, and foster transparency. Alva leverages AI to improve the efficiency and objectivity of hiring processes, and we have created extensive safeguards to ensure that we use and provide AI responsibly.
We use ISO/IEC 42001 and the EU AI Act as a foundation for our AI Management System— or AIMS (a collection of strategies, policies, and processes detailing how we work with AI). This means that we prioritize the interests of individuals when building and using AI, and we build products that are fair, accurate, and explainable. Our AIMS is closely integrated with our frameworks for data privacy and information security, and we continuously address AI-related risks to safeguard privacy, prevent bias, and ensure that our AI provides reliable insights that support fair hiring decisions.
Alva’s AI Values
Alva has incorporated seven core values outlined by the EU AI Act into our processes for designing, building, and using AI. These include:
Human Agency & Oversight: We design our systems to keep users in control by ensuring they can always understand, question, and override AI-driven suggestions when necessary.
Technical Robustness & Safety: AI needs to be reliable in every situation, so we build our systems with safety, security, and resilience in mind.
Privacy & Data Governance: We protect our users’ personal data and ensure our AI operates in a way that upholds the core principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), such as data minimization and privacy by design.
Transparency: We aim for all stakeholders to understand how our AI features operate, their intended purpose, and key considerations taken in the product design & development stages.
Diversity, Non-Discrimination, and Fairness: We actively minimize bias in outcomes and processes involving AI and make sure our platform promotes equal opportunities for users.
Societal & Environmental Well-Being: We aim for our product and operations to create a positive social impact while minimizing environmental harm.
Accountability: We hold ourselves accountable for the outcomes and impact of our AI.
How Alva Ensures Safe AI
In addition to optimizing our product and operations with the seven principles above, we adopt the following measures to promote the responsible use and development of AI.
Risk Assessments: Alva’s AI Task Force conducts risk and impact assessments on our AI systems to identify and evaluate ways in which they could negatively impact individuals and communities. As part of these sessions, we explore actions to mitigate AI risks and assign ownership over risk areas.
Supplier Vetting: All tools and suppliers used by Alva—including AI used internally and AI tools that are incorporated in our product—are reviewed by Alva’s compliance team to verify that they meet our data privacy, security, and AI requirements. As part of our supplier vetting process, we explore potential risks that tools and suppliers can pose to our users, product & services, and operations.
Awareness Training & Policies: We continuously educate our team on our AI policies, strategies, and processes. Once a year, we complete annual awareness trainings on data privacy, information security, and AI governance to help the team understand their role in promoting responsible AI. As part of our risk assessment process, we also verify the team’s awareness of our policies, including our Guidelines for AI Use and our Supplier Vetting Requirements.
Independent External Reviews: In February 2025, Unidot performed an audit of our implementation of an Artificial Intelligence Management System based on ISO-IEC 42001:2023 to attest that Alva has a functioning AIMS in place. Alva will also undergo a certification audit from DNV in 2025 for this international standard on AI governance.
How YOU Can Ensure Safe AI
A crucial aspect of Alva’s responsibilities is helping our users understand their role in upholding safe AI. We expect our customers and candidates to use our platform and services in line with our instructions (given in onboarding sessions and our help center articles) and we do our absolute best to prevent cases of misuse.
In addition to following our guides for how to use our platform and how to interpret our recommendations, we expect all users to:
Be Conscious of the Risks our AI Features Can Pose to Individuals: if you identify a way that our AI features can potentially harm individuals or society, please reach out to ai@alvalabs.io or your customer success manager. This includes instances where you notice the product does not function as intended or produces faulty recommendations.
Ensure Human Oversight: Our AI is built to support, not replace, human decision-making. As a user, you have the final decision over how our AI is used and are responsible for reviewing (and correcting, if needed) the outputs of our AI features to check for accuracy, relevance, and fairness in outcomes. You are also responsible for entering representative, accurate, and complete data when you enter information into our platform.
AI Literacy: For our customers, please make sure your team members who use Alva have the appropriate skills, awareness, and training to correctly use and interpret the results from our platform. Alva’s team will always be here to provide support.