Arctic Shores
Arctic Shores sells a task-based psychometric assessment platform ("Una") that scores candidates on behaviour captured during short interactive tasks - covering personality, workplace intelligence and learning agility - rather than self-report questionnaires or CV review.
HireAIScore rates Arctic Shores 46 out of 100 (grade F, Substantial gaps) under rubric v1.0, last reviewed August 2, 2026. Arctic Shores ranks 32 of 49 vendors rated in Assessment AI, against a category average of 48. That score is drawn from 34 evidence items across 7 rubric criteria for Arctic Shores — 27 with a cited source, 7 recording that nothing was located.
§ 01 - Company facts
- Legal name
- Arctic Shores Limited
- Founded
- 2013
- Headquarters
- United Kingdom · GB
- Pricing tier
- Mid
- Market side
- Employer-side (AEDT)
- Categories
- AssessmentScreening
- Website
- arcticshores.com
These are company details, not findings. They are editable by a verified representative and carry no weight in the score, which is built only from the cited evidence below.
§ 02 - Score breakdown
§ Score breakdown
Category scoring
Weighted contribution shown to the right of each bar.
- 01
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Weight 20%50
+10.0 · category avg 53
- 02
Bias Audit Transparency
Weight 18%35
+6.3 · category avg 47
- 03
FRIA Support
Weight 15%35
+5.3 · category avg 32
- 04
Data Governance Disclosure
Weight 15%57
+8.5 · category avg 55
- 05
Human Oversight Design
Weight 12%56
+6.7 · category avg 55
- 06
Post-Market Monitoring
Weight 12%30
+3.6 · category avg 39
- 07
Customer Documentation
Weight 8%64
+5.1 · category avg 59
Category avg is the mean raw score on that criterion across the 49 Assessment AI vendors in scope of this rubric, this one included.
§ 03 - Strongest · weakest
Strongest category
Customer Documentation
Raw score 64 · contributes 5.1 to total.
64 against a 59 category average
Weakest category
Post-Market Monitoring
Raw score 30 · contributes 3.6 to total.
30 against a 39 category average
§ 04 - Cited evidence
Download diligence record→§ Evidence
Cited per category
Every score is backed by at least one cited piece of evidence.
Evidence ledger
- Items
- 34
- Documentation
- 20
- Public statement
- 6
- Product feature
- 1
- Absence
- 7
- With a source URL
- 27 of 34
- Source hostnames
- 1
- Fewest items
- 3
- FRIA Support
These figures measure how thoroughly Arctic Shores was reviewed, not how Arctic Shores performed — an absence row, recording that nothing was located, is counted like any other item.
Article 11 Technical Documentation
5 items50
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The science page references British Psychological Society standards and claims researchers 'conduct dozens of studies a year', but links no technical manual, validity study, reliability analysis or model documentation.
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Arctic Shores publishes an explicit explainability statement - the task is 'never a black box', offers 'explainable and compliant automation' and 'transparent scoring makes decisions simple to explain'- and asserts the assessment is 'GDPR and EU AI Act compliant'.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The product page describes step-level scoring ('score every step a candidate takes') and 'accessible, actionable reports' but gives no technical specification of how behavioural signals are combined into trait scores.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The most technical public article describes indirect measurement of traits via reaction times and interpretation of neutral stimuli and refers vaguely to 'construct-specific clusters of data', without naming any algorithm, model or statistical method.
https://www.arcticshores.com/insights/science-of-psychometric-assessments
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No model card, system card, AI policy, explainability whitepaper, instructions-for-use or ISO 42001 certificate was found on the trust centre, legal centre, compliance page, science page or resources hub; the compliance page cites only ISO 27001, and the Information Security Policy PDF it links to returns HTTP 404.
Bias Audit Transparency
4 items35
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Arctic Shores claims its scientists keep the assessment fair, meaning 'no adverse impact, regardless of ethnicity or gender', but publishes no selection-rate data, impact ratios, sample sizes or dates to support the claim.
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The company cites research showing 'a significant reduction in the performance gap between women, non-white and lower socio-economic status individuals' when aptitude questions are gamified - a general claim about gamification rather than a measured audit of Arctic Shores' own product.
https://www.arcticshores.com/insights/science-of-psychometric-assessments
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Fairness is argued from process standardisation ('every candidate gets the same opportunity regardless of background, gender, ethnicity or age') rather than from published differential-impact measurement.
https://www.arcticshores.com/insights/arctic-shores-solution
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No NYC Local Law 144 bias audit summary, independent audit report, or engagement with Warden AI, Holistic AI, BABL AI, DCI, ORCAA, Credo AI or ConductorAI was found via the trust centre, legal centre, compliance page, science page, resources hub or targeted web searches.
FRIA Support
3 items35
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A deployer-facing article with an external privacy lawyer covers UK GDPR lawful bases, Article 22 automated decision-making, the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, DPIAs as 'your source of truth', vendor documentation on bias testing, and briefly references the EU AI Act - but offers no FRIA template or Article 27 walkthrough.
https://www.arcticshores.com/insights/ai-recruitment-compliance-uk-what-ta-leaders-need-to-know
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A trust centre exists but routes only to product security pages, a sub-processor list and the legal centre; it contains no AI Act, FRIA or impact-assessment material.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No Article 27 Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment template, EU AI Act deployer pack, or per-jurisdiction (NYC LL 144 / Illinois / Colorado) deployer guidance was found on the trust centre, legal centre, compliance page or resources hub.
Data Governance Disclosure
7 items57
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Publishes exactly what candidate data is collected (name, email, IP, client ID, assessment results, with demographic data optional), AWS Ireland hosting, AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS in transit, role-based least-privilege access with two-factor authentication, and retention leading to anonymised research datasets.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A parallel security disclosure for the DataHub product adds a Frankfurt proxy server via Equinix and states that once identifying details are deleted the retained research data no longer constitutes personal data.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
States 'Arctic Shores is ISO 27001 certified', confirms GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 compliance, and describes third-party vendor risk assessments and annual policy review.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A third-party sub-processor schedule is published as a freely downloadable PDF rather than gated behind sales contact.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A dated Data Security Policy (effective 28 September 2023) is published openly as a PDF from the legal centre.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Offers a meaningful data-minimisation option: 'it is possible to use this solution without providing personal data and purely providing a client ID for each candidate'.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Neither security page nor the compliance page states whether candidate assessment data is used to train, tune or benchmark scoring models, and no training-data exclusion list or ISO 42001 certification was found.
Human Oversight Design
5 items56
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Explicit decision-support framing: the task 'assists you and your hiring managers in making better quality hiring decisions. But it never decides for you, meaning you stay in control of your process with no black boxes or unexplainable outcomes'.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Describes step-level scoring of every action a candidate takes and reports designed as 'accessible, actionable', supporting in-product explainability to hiring managers.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Candidates may automatically receive feedback (at the employer's discretion) presented on a 1-10 spectrum benchmarked against norm groups, with the page stating there is 'no better or worse'.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Arctic Shores publicly articulates what meaningful human involvement requires - that humans define the criteria and can override outcomes, rather than reviewing every data point.
https://www.arcticshores.com/insights/ai-recruitment-compliance-uk-what-ta-leaders-need-to-know
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No public documentation of concrete oversight machinery - override controls, audit logs, reviewer workflows, per-jurisdiction configuration toggles, or a candidate right-to-human-review process - was found on the product pages, trust centre, legal centre or candidate guidance; the candidate guidance page in particular explains neither the scoring method nor any appeal route.
Post-Market Monitoring
3 items30
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Describes an internal governance cadence - policies 'reviewed on an annual basis, or when a significant change occurs', risk assessments at regular intervals, and vendor risk assessments - but this is internal ISMS practice, not published post-market monitoring.
- Public statementCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Claims ongoing validation ('Our researchers conduct dozens of studies a year') but publishes none of the resulting studies or any monitoring output.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No public status page (status.arcticshores.com returned no page), no product or model changelog, no release notes, no security.txt, no vulnerability disclosure or responsible disclosure policy, and no named security contact were found via the trust centre, compliance page, legal centre or targeted web searches.
Customer Documentation
7 items64
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A legal centre publishes SaaS terms, the Data Processing Addendum, the third-party sub-processor schedule, the data security policy, the privacy and cookies notice and a candidate EULA, all as openly linked documents.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
The Data Processing Addendum (effective 20 November 2023) is downloadable directly without a sales gate.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
A resources hub aggregates insights, a glossary, guides and research reports, including a dated report on candidates' use of generative AI in recruitment.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Public use-case pages cover early careers, volume hiring and hard-to-fill roles, alongside product pages for Una, the science behind the assessment and case studies.
- Product featureCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Documents ATS and HR-system integrations with Greenhouse, SmartRecruiters, Teamtailor, Tribepad, Willo and Eploy, plus a standard API for systems not covered by a marketplace listing.
- DocumentationCaptured Aug 2, 2026
Separate candidate-facing guidance explains the task format and how to interpret feedback, supplementing the customer knowledge base.
- AbsenceCaptured Aug 2, 2026
No NYC Local Law 144 guidance, EU AI Act deployer documentation, or jurisdiction-specific compliance FAQ was found in the resources hub, trust centre or legal centre; the customer knowledge base at help.arcticshores.com returns HTTP 403 to unauthenticated visitors.
§ 05 - Editorial notes
Company overview
Arctic Shores Limited (Companies House no. 08589048) was incorporated on 28 June 2013 and is registered at Lowry House, 17 Marble Street, Manchester. Its platform, branded "Una", replaces question-based psychometrics with interactive behavioural tasks: candidates are scored on what they do during the task rather than on what they say about themselves, producing a profile of what the company markets as "Skill-enablers" spanning personality, workplace intelligence and learning agility. The company reports use by over 350 organisations and publishes integrations with Greenhouse, SmartRecruiters, Teamtailor, Tribepad, Willo and Eploy alongside a standard API. Two positioning claims recur across the site: that the assessment is resistant to manipulation by generative AI, and that it is "never a black box". Note for the record: no product, module or feature named "Silhouette" could be located anywhere on arcticshores.com or in public sources, and that name should not be attributed to this vendor without further confirmation.
Regulatory exposure
As a provider of an AI-assisted candidate evaluation tool, Arctic Shores sits squarely in Annex III high-risk territory under the EU AI Act, with obligations landing from 2 August 2026, and it sells actively into European markets. Its strongest defensible position is architectural rather than documentary: the company consistently frames the product as decision-support that "never decides for you", which materially reduces (without eliminating) UK/EU GDPR Article 22 automated-decision exposure and supports a meaningful-human-oversight argument. Its weakest position is evidentiary. The company asserts on its science page that its assessment produces "no adverse impact, regardless of ethnicity or gender", and asserts on a product page that a task is "GDPR and EU AI Act compliant"- yet publishes no adverse-impact data, no independent bias audit, no technical documentation pack, no conformity-assessment reference, and no NYC Local Law 144 audit summary. Arctic Shores holds ISO 27001 but not ISO 42001, and its published compliance and security material is information-security-shaped, not AI-governance-shaped. US deployers in New York City, Illinois and Colorado would need to generate the required artefacts themselves, since the vendor supplies none of them publicly.
Path to a higher score
The single highest-value move is to publish an adverse-impact analysis - ideally an independent audit by a recognised auditor - carrying sample sizes, selection rates by race/ethnicity and sex, four-fifths-rule impact ratios and a dated scope statement. The unsupported "no adverse impact" claim is currently the widest gap between what Arctic Shores says and what it evidences, and closing it would move two rubric categories at once. Second, publish a technical documentation pack: a system/model card describing which behavioural signals are captured, how they are combined into scores, norm-group composition, validity and reliability coefficients and known limitations, plus Article 13-style instructions-for-use so deployers can meet their own obligations. Third, add explicit EU AI Act deployer guidance including an Article 27 FRIA template and a per-jurisdiction note covering NYC LL 144, Illinois and Colorado. Fourth - the cheapest fix and the lowest-scoring dimension - stand up a public post-market surface: a status page, a product/model changelog and a published vulnerability disclosure policy with a security contact. ISO 42001 certification would consolidate the first two and lift the technical-documentation and data-governance scores together.
§ Regulatory frame
What applies to assessment ai.
Assessment is the most-regulated surface in AI hiring. NYC LL 144, EEOC and OFCCP frameworks, Illinois HB 3773, and EU AI Act Annex III §4 all apply, with overlap on bias-audit obligations.
§ Compare
Build any comparison→Arctic Shores against its nearest-scoring peers.
In Assessment AI.
§ Others rated in Assessment AI
All assessment vendors→Ranked 32 of 49 by weighted total under rubric v1.0. The ordering is arithmetic on the rubric and carries no view on which tool suits a given hiring process.
- 29Korn Ferry46F
- 30Talkpush46F
- 31Vervoe46F
- 32Arctic ShoresThis profile46F
- 33Cangrade45F
- 34Equalture44F
Conflicts of interest
No vendor pays for placement, scoring, or removal. Casework - the consulting firm that operates this directory - provides paid services to some vendors. Any active or recent (within 24 months) commercial relationship is disclosed on the affected vendor profile and the review is reassigned to an independent reviewer. See the full policy on About.
Casework has no commercial relationship with this vendor.