Does Karat Record Your Screen?

Karat records the interview, not your screen. As of September 9, 2026, Karat's documentation describes capturing the video call, your audio, and a full playback of the code you write in Karat Studio, then delivering all of it to the employer with a scored report. There is no screen share, no screenshot capture of your desktop, and no proctoring software. The Interview Engineer sees your code because you both work inside the same browser editor. This article separates what Karat captures from what it does not, and who ends up holding it.

What Karat records

Karat's Customer FAQ states: "All Karat interviews (including the interview audio and code playback) are recorded." The candidate-facing Resource FAQ puts it from your side: "The entire video call, including video and audio, your code, and a full playback, is recorded and shared with (Company Applied to). The Interview Engineer also writes and shares a structured report."

The Candidate Terms of Use are the consent. By taking the interview you allow Karat to "monitor written content that you input into the interview platform prior to the Interview" and to "record your answers, audio, video, and platform interactions during the Interview." Three streams, then: the webcam and microphone feed of the call, the code playback with every keystroke in the editor, and your interactions with the platform itself.

Your desktop is not in the recording

Karat Studio is a shared editor, not a screen share. Karat's public Studio overview describes it as "the Karat IDE that candidates & Interview Engineers use during the interview" and says it "allows the candidate and Interview Engineer to write and run code in real time together." The interviewer is watching the document you are both editing, the way two people watch a shared Google Doc. Nothing in Karat's documentation asks you to share a tab, a window, or a display.

The distinction matters for privacy. A screen share exposes notifications, other windows, and whatever else is on the display; what interviewers can see when you share your screen walks through those layers. Karat's recording contains none of that. It contains your face, your voice, and your code.

The webcam is the part candidates forget. The video call is recorded, so the recording includes your room, your expressions, and anyone who walks behind you. Karat recommends a webcam and does not document a camera-off option.

Who receives the recording

The employer. Karat's Customer FAQ lists the deliverables: "(a) a video recording; (b) a code playback recording; and (c) interview report including an overall recommendation and a quantitative score plus written feedback." Karat's privacy policy, last updated April 17, 2026, confirms it "may disclose certain of your Personal Data, including our assessment of any interviews you complete with Karat and recordings of the interviews, with the Prospective Employer."

There is a limit on the employer's copy. The Customer FAQ says "The video recording and code playback are accessible only within the Karat platform and not downloadable by customers." The employer watches inside Karat's system; it does not receive a file. What the employer can keep after the relationship ends is narrower still: "a customer may retain the Karat recommendation and quantitative interview scores in their environment."

Karat also uses the material itself. The Terms say Karat will "use the Interview Results internally for improving and developing Karat's products and services."

How long Karat keeps it

The Customer FAQ gives the ceiling: "Karat deletes candidate data upon the request of the candidate or after a maximum of 5 years from the date of the interview." The privacy policy adds an exception to deletion requests: "we may need to retain your Personal Data to prevent cheating or fraud, or provide you with the Services." A deletion request is honored in the ordinary case and may be refused where the recording is evidence in an integrity dispute.

The employer's retained scores and recommendation are not covered by that deletion, because they sit in the employer's environment, not Karat's.

The recording is the integrity system

Karat has no telemetry layer, so the recording and the interviewer's eyes do the work. The Customer FAQ says each Interview Engineer "is trained to monitor for and report abnormal candidate behaviors which may indicate cheating, such as typing outside of the browser window without explanation, frequently looking between monitors, or writing code in an unusual top-down or line-by-line manner." If a concern is raised, "the interview will be rewatched and reviewed in its entirety by a second IVE." The rules on outside help, including AI, are in whether you can use AI in a Karat interview.

What this means for candidates

Assume a full recording of your face, your voice, and every character you type in Studio, held by Karat for up to five years and viewable by the employer inside Karat's platform. Set up your camera and room the way you would for any recorded call. Nothing outside Karat Studio is captured, so a second window is not visible to the recording, but glancing at one repeatedly is visible to the interviewer and is on Karat's list of flagged behaviors. Before the call, decide what you want on the record, and after it, know that a deletion request exists. The wider set of questions to ask any platform that records you is in the candidate privacy checklist. For the full scope of what is scored from the recording, see what a Karat interview records, scores, and keeps.