This article explains Handshake AI's time-tracking policy for fellows completing paid work on projects. Accurate time tracking ensures fairness, protects the integrity of paid work, and maintains consistent quality across the platform. This policy also defines behaviors considered time fraud, so expectations are transparent and applied consistently for everyone.

Fellows completing paid annotation, evaluation, or task-based work are expected to track time accurately and work only while the task timer is running. The timer must be paused whenever active work stops, and all logged time should fall within the Maximum Handling Time or time cap for the assigned task, as described in the project details.

Reasonable time use. Work within the time cap for each task type. Intentionally extending work time, such as consistently hitting or exceeding the time cap, slowing down work to increase logged time, or recording time inaccurately, is not permitted.

Idle time. Pause the timer whenever you're not actively working. Allowing the timer to run while stepping away, getting distracted, or performing unrelated activities is not allowed.

Realistic working hours. Logged hours should reflect reasonable, human work patterns. Working continuously for excessively long periods, logging hours at nonstop or highly unusual frequencies, or using automation tools to simulate activity is not permitted.

Single-task work. You may only work on one task at a time. If another task is opened while one is in progress, the platform will automatically pause the current task's timer.

Handshake AI may review time logs when signals suggest unusual or inconsistent patterns. This can include repeated time cap hits, high idle-time ratios, unusual timing patterns, frequent manual adjustments, overlapping timestamps, or discrepancies between logged time and expected task duration. Reviews may include checks on recent work or confirmation of account activity.