We at PeerJ (“PeerJ,” “we,” “us,” “our”) know that our users (“you,” “your”) care about how your personal information/data are used and shared, and we take your privacy seriously. We have always attempted to exceed industry standards when it comes to securing your data and will continue to do so. Please read the following to learn more about our Privacy Policy and security measures. Please also review our Terms of Use.

Our Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, store and use information about you when you use or interact with our websites, peerj.com and peerj.org (our website) and where we otherwise obtain or collect data about you. This Privacy Policy is effective from May 25th, 2018.


1. Summary

This section summarizes how we obtain, store and use information/data about you. It is intended to provide a very general overview only. It is not complete in and of itself and it must be read in conjunction with the corresponding full sections of this Privacy Policy.

  • Data controller: PeerJ Inc.
  • How we collect or obtain data about you:
    • when you provide it to us (e.g. by contacting us, uploading a manuscript, paying for our services, by signing up to our newsletter on our website)
    • from your use of our website, using cookies and similar technologies, and
    • occasionally, from third parties.
  • Information/data we may collect: your name, contact details, IP address, information from cookies, information about your computer or device (e.g. device and browser type), information about how you use our website (e.g. which pages you have viewed), the time when you view them and what you clicked on, the geographical location from which you accessed our website (based on your IP address), company name or business name (if applicable), VAT number (if applicable), payment information e.g. your credit card details (note we do not store this data, but our payment provider does in order to process any payments), research interests, and third-party account credentials (for example, your log-in credentials for X or other third-party sites). If you provide your third-party account credentials to us, you understand some content and/or information in those accounts ("Third-Party Account Information") may be transmitted into your account with us if you authorize such transmissions, and that Third-Party Account Information transmitted to our Website is covered by this Privacy Policy.
  • How we use your information: for administrative and business purposes (particularly to contact you and process payments for services or orders), to improve our business and website, to fulfil our contractual obligations, to advertise our services, to analyze your use of our website, in connection with our legal rights and obligations, and we may anonymize your Personal Information so that you cannot be individually identified, and provide that information to our partners.
  • Disclosure of your information to third parties: only to the extent necessary to run our business, to our service providers, to fulfil any contracts we enter into with you, and where required by law or to enforce our legal rights.
  • Do we sell your information to third parties (other than in the course of a business sale or purchase or similar event): No
  • How long we retain your data: for no longer than necessary, taking into account any legal obligations we have (e.g. to maintain records for tax purposes), any other legal basis we have for using your information (e.g. your consent, performance of a contract with you or our legitimate interests as a business) and certain additional factors described in the main section below entitled How long we retain your data. For specific retention periods in relation to certain information which we collect from you, please see the main section below entitled How long we retain your data.
  • How we secure your data: using appropriate technical and organizational measures such as: storing your information on secure servers, hashing and "salting" of passwords and never storing the plain text of a password, encrypting transfers of data to or from our servers using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, encrypting stored data and keeping the cryptographic keys on separate servers, encrypting payments you make on or via our website using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, and only granting access to your information where necessary.
  • Use of cookies and similar technologies: we use cookies and similar information-gathering technologies such as web beacons on our website including essential, functional, and analytical cookies. For more information, please visit our cookies policy.
  • Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area (for EU residents): we transfer your information outside of the European Economic Area, including to the following countries: USA. Where we do so, we will ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, for example, third parties we use who transfer your information outside the European Economic Area have self-certified themselves as compliant with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield.
  • Use of automated decision making and profiling: we do not use automated decision making or profiling.
  • Your rights in relation to your data:
    • to access your information and to receive information about its use
    • to have your information corrected and/or completed
    • to have your information deleted
    • to restrict the use of your information
    • to receive your information in a portable format
    • to object to the use of your information
    • to withdraw your consent to the use of your information
    • to complain to a supervisory authority
  • Sensitive personal information: we do not knowingly or intentionally collect what is commonly referred to as 'sensitive personal information'. Please do not submit sensitive personal information about you to us. For more information, please see the main section below entitled Sensitive Personal Information.

2. Our details

The data controller in respect of our website is PeerJ Inc. based in the USA. You can contact the data controller by writing to P.O. Box 910224, San Diego, CA 92191, USA; or sending an email to support@peerj.com.

The data controller's representative is PeerJ Limited located in the United Kingdom. You can contact the data controller's representative by sending an email to support@peerj.com.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact the data controller.

3. Changes to our Privacy Policy

We update and amend our Privacy Policy from time to time.

Minor changes to our Privacy Policy

Where we make minor changes to our Privacy Policy, we will update our Privacy Policy with a new effective date stated at the beginning of it. Our processing of your information will be governed by the practices set out in that new version of the Privacy Policy from its effective date onwards.

Major changes to our Privacy Policy or the purposes for which we process your information

Where we make major changes to our Privacy Policy or intend to use your information for a new purpose or a different purpose than the purposes for which we originally collected it, we will notify you by email (where possible) or by posting a notice on our website.

We will provide you with the information about the change in question and the purpose and any other relevant information before we use your information for that new purpose.

Wherever required, we will obtain your prior consent before using your information for a purpose that is different from the purposes for which we originally collected it.

4. Child Privacy

Because we care about the safety and privacy of children online, we comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA). COPPA and its accompanying regulations protect the privacy of children using the internet. We do not knowingly contact or collect information from persons under the age of 13. The website is not intended to solicit information of any kind from persons under the age of 13.

It is possible that we could receive information pertaining to persons under the age of 13 by the fraud or deception of a third-party. If we are notified of this, as soon as we verify the information, we will, where required by law to do so, immediately obtain the appropriate parental consent to use that information or, if we are unable to obtain such parental consent, we will delete the information from our servers.

5. Data we collect when you visit our website

We collect and use information from website visitors in accordance with this section and the section entitled Disclosure and additional uses of your data.


Web server log information

We use a third-party server to host our website called Amazon Web Services (AWS), the privacy policy of which is available at https://aws.amazon.com/privacy/. Our website server automatically logs the IP address you use to access our website as well as other information about your visit such as the pages accessed, information requested, the date and time of the request, the source of your access to our website (e.g. the website or URL (link) which referred you to our website), and your browser version and operating system.

Our server is located in the USA and, accordingly, your information is transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA) if your are resident there. For further information on the safeguards used, please see the section of this privacy policy entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.

Additionally, we use Sentry to log technical error details, including the type of error, the webpage on which it occurred, and the IP address of the device, to enhance our website's reliability and user experience.


Use of website server log information for IT security purposes

We collect and store server logs to ensure network and IT security and so that the server and website remain secure. This includes analyzing log files to help identify and prevent unauthorised access to our network, the distribution of malicious code, denial of services attacks and other cyber attacks, by detecting unusual or suspicious activity.

Unless we are investigating suspicious or potential criminal activity, we do not make, nor do we allow our hosting provider to make, any attempt to identify you from the information collected via server logs.

Legal basis for processing: compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject (Article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legal obligation: we have a legal obligation to implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk of our processing of information about individuals. Recording access to our website using server log files is such a measure.

Legal basis for processing: our and AWS's legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interests: we and AWS have a legitimate interest in using your information for the purposes of ensuring network and information security.


Use of website server log information to analyze website use and improve our website

We use the information collected by our website server logs to analyze how our website users interact with our website and its features. For example, we analyze the number of visits and unique visitors we receive, the time and date of the visit, the location of the visit and the operating system and browser used.

We use the information gathered from the analysis of this information to improve our website. For example, we use the information gathered to provide "Article-level metrics" on publications, change the information, content and structure of our website and individual pages based according to what users are engaging most with and the duration of time spent on particular pages on our website.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest: improving our website for our website users and getting to know our website users' preferences so our website can better meet their needs and desires


Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are data files which are sent from a website to a browser to record information about users for various purposes.

We use cookies and similar technologies on our website, including essential, functional, analytical and web beacons. For further information on how we use cookies, please see our cookies policy.

You can reject some or all of the cookies we use on or via our website by changing your browser settings, but doing so can impair your ability to use our website or some or all of its features. For further information about cookies, including how to change your browser settings, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org or see our cookies policy.

6. Data we collect when you contact us

We collect and use information from individuals who contact us in accordance with this section and the section entitled Disclosure and additional uses of your data.


Email

When you send an email to any of our email addresses we collect your email address and any other information you provide in that email (such as your name, telephone number and the information contained in any signature block in your email).

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest(s): responding to enquiries and messages we receive and keeping records of correspondence.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: where your message relates to us providing you with goods or services or taking steps at your request prior to providing you with our goods and services (for example, providing you with information about such goods and services), we will process your information in order to do so.

Transfer and storage of your emails

We use third-party email providers to store and receive emails you send us. Our third-party email providers are Gmail by Google Inc. (located in the USA) and Freshworks Inc. (located in the USA). For more information see Google's privacy policy, and Freshwork's privacy policy.

Emails you send us will be stored outside the European Economic Area on our third-party email provider's servers in the USA, within the EU, or possibly in servers within your country. For further information please see the section of this privacy policy entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.


Contact forms

When you contact us using our contact forms, we collect information such as your name, email address, and IP address. We also collect any other information you provide to us when you complete the contact forms (e.g. phone number).

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest(s): responding to enquiries and messages we receive and keeping records of correspondence.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: where your message relates to us providing you with goods or services or taking steps at your request prior to providing you with our goods and services (for example, providing you with information about such goods and services), we will process your information in order to do so.

Transfer and storage of your contact form information

Messages or feedback you send us via contact forms may be stored outside the European Economic Area on our third-party hosting servers, customer support & product development servers (Freshworks, GitHub, ProductBoard and Miro), and/or email provider's servers in the USA, within the EU, or possibly in servers within your country. For third-party privacy policies: see Amazon Web Services privacy policy, GitHub's privacy policy, Google's privacy policy, Freshwork's privacy policy, ProductBoard privacy policy and Miro privacy policy. For further information please see the section of this privacy policy entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.


Phone

When you contact us by phone, we collect your phone number and any information provided to us during your conversation with us.

We do not record phone calls.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation)

Legitimate interest(s): responding to enquiries and messages we receive and keeping records of correspondence.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: where your message relates to us providing you with goods or services or taking steps at your request prior to providing you with our goods and services (for example, providing you with information about such goods and services), we will process your information in order to do so.

Transfer and storage of your information

Information about your call, such as your phone number and the date and time of your call, is processed by our third-party telephone service provider, Vonage located in the USA. Their privacy policy is located here.

Information about your phone call will be stored by our third-party telephone service provider in the USA. For EU residents, further information about the safeguards used when your information is transferred outside the European Economic Area can be found in the section entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.


Post

If you contact us by post, we will collect any information you provide to us in any postal communications that you send us.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation)

Legitimate interest(s): responding to enquiries and messages we receive and keeping records of correspondence.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: where your message relates to us providing you with goods or services or taking steps at your request prior to providing you with our goods and services (for example, providing you with information about such goods and services), we will process your information in order to do so.

7. Data we collect when you interact with our website

We collect and use information from individuals who interact with particular features of our website in accordance with this section and the section entitled Disclosure and additional uses of your data.


E-Newsletter & emailed Content Alerts

When you sign up for our e-newsletter or content alerts on our website or opt to receive news, offers, and publishing statistics from us by entering your email address and clicking subscribe, we collect your email address (and name if signing up for an account).

Legal basis for processing: your consent (Article 6(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Consent: you give your consent to us sending you our e-newsletter by signing up to receive it using the steps described above.

Transfer and storage of your information

We use two third-party services to send out our e-newsletter and administer our mailing lists:

We also use a third-party email service to send you daily or weekly content alerts, Mandrill, owned by Mailchimp Inc. located in the USA. You can read Mailchimp's privacy policy here.

Information you submit to subscribe to our e-newsletter will be stored by our third-party email provider, Mixpanel Inc. in the USA. Information submitted for our content alerts will be stored by our third-party email provider, Mailchimp Inc. in the USA, as well us by us in our database via our hosting provider, AWS. For EU residents, further information about the safeguards used when your information is transferred outside the European Economic Area can be found in the section entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.

Use of web beacons and similar technologies in emails

We use technologies such as web beacons (small graphic files) in the emails we send to allow us to ensure that our emails are being delivered as expected.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation)

Legitimate interest(s): ensuring that e-newsletters and content alerts are delivered as expected by end users.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).


Registering an account at PeerJ

When you register and create an account on our website, we collect the following information: name, email address, IP address and Country, and your password (note: this is never stored in plain text, but as a secure hash. Your original password cannot be recovered, only reset).

If you do not provide the mandatory information required by the registration form, you will not be able to register or create an account on our website.

Additionally, we have registration fields that are optional: your academic level, journal preference, whether you would like to receive content alerts, and whether you would like to sign up to our e-newsletter, offers, and publication metrics.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest: registering and administering accounts on our website to submit a manuscript, review or edit a manuscript, comment on articles and facilitate the running and operation of our business.

Transfer and storage of your information

Information that you submit to us via the registration form on our website will be stored in the USA on our third-party hosting provider's servers (AWS) in the USA. Their privacy policy is available at Amazon Web Services privacy policy.

For further information about the safeguards used when your information is transferred to the USA or outside the European Economic Area, see the section of this privacy policy below entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.

8. Data we collect when you make a payment

We collect and use information from individuals who make payments on our website in accordance with this section and the section entitled Disclosure and additional uses of your data.


Information collected when you make a payment

Mandatory information

When you place an order for services we collect your name, billing address, company or institution name if applicable, VAT number (if applicable), grant number (if applicable), and any additional references that you optionally provide to be shown on the receipt.

If you do not provide this information, you will not be able to purchase services from us on our website or enter into a contract with us.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: we need the mandatory information collected by our checkout form to establish whom the contract is with and to contact you to fulfil our obligations under the contract, including sending you receipts and order confirmations.

Legal obligation: we have a legal obligation to issue you with an invoice for the goods and services you purchase from us where you are VAT registered and we require the mandatory information collected by our checkout form for this purpose. We also have a legal obligation to keep accounting records, including records of transactions.


Optional information

We may also collect optional information from you, such as how you heard about us and may ask if you would like to receive our e-newsletter, offers, publication metrics updates, and other news.

If you do not supply the optional information requested at checkout, then we will not be able to contact you about publication offers or other news.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interests: finding out how an author heard about us in order to understand how well our business is performing.

Legal basis for processing: your consent (Article 6(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interests: you consent to us processing any optional information you provide by submitting that information to us.


Processing your payment

If your peer-reviewed manuscript is accepted for publication, or for other services and donations, then you will need to make a payment. In order to process your payment we use Stripe Inc.

Stripe collects, uses and processes your information, including payment information, in accordance with their privacy policies. You can access its privacy policy at Stripe checkout privacy policy.

Transfer and storage of your information

Stripe Inc. is located in the USA. Information relating to the processing of your payment may be stored in the USA. If relevant to you, for further information about the safeguards used when your information is transferred outside the European Economic Area, see the section of this privacy policy below entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: to fulfil your contractual obligation to pay for the goods or services you have ordered from us.


Marketing communications

At checkout you might be given the option to receive marketing communications from us.

Our similar services

If marketing communications (only related to goods or services already purchased) are presented to you at checkout, then you can opt-out from receiving these offers by ticking a box to opt-out. Otherwise, we may send you marketing communications in relation to similar goods and services if you do not opt-out from receiving them.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation). We use a very specific legal provision known as a "soft" opt-in, which allows us to market goods or services that are similar to those you already purchased, so long as you can opt-out at any time.

Legitimate interests: direct marketing and advertising our products and services.

9. How we collect or obtain data about you from third parties

This section sets out how we obtain or collect information about you from third parties.


Information received from third parties

Generally, we do not receive information about you from third parties. It is of course possible that third parties with whom we have had no prior contact may provide us with information about you. If we receive information about you from a third-party in error and/or we do not have a legal basis for processing that information, we will delete your information.


Information obtained by us from third parties

In certain circumstances (for example, to verify the information we hold about you or obtain missing information we require to provide you with a service) we will obtain information about you from certain publicly accessible sources, both EU and non-EU, such as: online customer databases, business directories, media publications, social media, and websites (including your own website if you have one).

We may also receive information about you from individuals using our services, such as authors, Academic Editors, and reviewers invited to review a manuscript.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: where you have entered into a contract or requested that we enter into a contract with you, in certain circumstances, we will obtain information about you from public sources in order to enable us to understand your research or business and provide services to you or services to a sufficient standard.

For example, we would obtain and/or verify your email address from your website or from a directory where you ask us to send you information by email but we do not possess the information or we need to confirm that we have recorded your email address correctly.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interests: in certain circumstances, we will have a legitimate interest in obtaining information about you from public and private sources. For example, if you have infringed or we suspect that you have infringed any of our legal rights, we will have a legitimate interest in obtaining and processing information about you from such sources in order to investigate and pursue any suspected or potential infringement.

10. Disclosure and additional uses of your data

This section sets out the circumstances in which will disclose information about you to third parties and any additional purposes for which we use your information.


Disclosure of your information to service providers

We use a number of third parties to provide us with services which are necessary to run our business or to assist us with running our business and who process your information for us on our behalf. These include the following, all of which may transfer and store data in the USA:

Your information will be shared with these service providers where necessary to provide you with the service you have requested, whether that is accessing our website or ordering goods and services from us.

We do not display the identities of all of our service providers publicly by name for security reasons. If you would like further information about the identities of our service providers, however, please contact us directly via support@peerj.com and we will provide you with such information where you have a legitimate reason for requesting it.

Legal basis for processing: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest relied on: where we share your information with these third parties in a context other than where is necessary to perform a contract (or take steps at your request to do so), we will share your information with such third parties in order to allow us to run and manage our business efficiently.

Legal basis for processing: necessary to perform a contract and/or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract (Article 6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Reason why necessary to perform a contract: we may need to share information with our service providers to enable us to perform our obligations under that contract or to take the steps you have requested before we enter into a contract with you.


Disclosure of your information to other third parties

We disclose your information to other third parties in specific circumstances, as set out below.

Providing information to third parties such as Google Inc, PubMed (hosted by the US National Library of Medicine), other scholarly index services, and long-term archiving providers Clockss and Portico. Google collects information through our use of Google Analytics on our website. Google uses this information, including IP addresses and information from cookies, for a number of purposes, such as improving its Google Analytics service. Information is shared with Google on an aggregated and anonymous basis. To find out more about what information Google collects, how it uses this information and how to control the information sent to Google please see Google's partner page. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the browser plugin here.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interests: meeting our contractual obligations to Google under our Google Analytics Terms of Service.

Transfer and storage of your information Information collected by Google Analytics is stored outside the European Economic Area on Google's servers in the USA. For further information about the safeguards used if and when your information is transferred outside the European Economic Area, see the section of this privacy policy below entitled Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area.



We may also share your information with third parties, which are either related to or associated with the running of our business, but only where it is necessary for us to do so. These third parties may include our accountants, advisors, or independent contractors. Further information on each of these third parties is set out below.

Accountants & Auditors

We occasionally may need to share information with our accountants or auditors for tax purposes. For example, by sharing invoices we issue and receive with our accountants for the purpose of completing tax returns and our end of year accounts. For security, we do not publicly provide the details of our accountants.

Advisors

Occasionally, we obtain advice from advisors, such as academics, university administrators, ethics committees, accountants, financial advisors, and lawyers. We will share your information with these third parties only where it is necessary to enable these third parties to be able to provide us with the relevant advice.

Business partners

Business partners are businesses we work with which provide goods and services which are complementary to our own or which allow us to provide goods or services which we could not provide on our own. We share information with our business partners where you have requested services, which they provide whether independently from, or in connection with or own services.

Independent contractors

We use independent contractors in our business. Your information will be shared with independent contractors only where it is necessary for them to perform the function we have hired them to perform in relation to our business.


Sharing your information with a prospective or actual purchaser or seller in the context of a business or asset sale or acquisition by us, a merger or similar business combination event, whether actual or potential.

Legal basis for processing: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest(s): sharing your information with a prospective purchaser, seller or similar person in order to allow such a transaction to take place.


Disclosure and use of your information for legal reasons

Indicating possible criminal acts or threats to public security to a competent authority

If we suspect that criminal or potential criminal conduct has occurred, we will in certain circumstances need to contact an appropriate authority, such as the police. This could be the case, for instance, if we suspect that fraud or any crime has been committed, or if we receive threats or malicious communications towards us or third parties.

We will generally only need to process your information for this purpose if you were involved or affected by such an incident in some way.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interests: preventing crime or suspected criminal activity (such as fraud).

In connection with the enforcement or potential enforcement our legal rights

We will use your information in connection with the enforcement or potential enforcement of our legal rights. Our legal rights may be contractual (where we have entered into a contract with you) or non-contractual (such as legal rights that we have under copyright law or tort law).

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest: enforcing our legal rights and taking steps to enforce our legal rights.

In connection with a legal or potential legal dispute or proceedings

We may need to use your information if we are involved in a dispute with you or a third-party for example, either to resolve the dispute or as part of any mediation, arbitration or court resolution or similar process.

Legal basis for processing: our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legitimate interest(s): resolving disputes and potential disputes.

For ongoing compliance with laws, regulations and other legal requirements

We will use and process your information in order to comply with legal obligations to which we are subject. For example, we may need to disclose your information pursuant to a court order or subpoena if we receive one.

Legal basis for processing: compliance with a legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation).

Legal obligations: legal obligations to disclose information which are part of the laws of where PeerJ Inc. and its subsidiaries operate.

11. How long we retain your data

This section sets out how long we retain your information. We have set out specific retention periods where possible. Where that has not been possible, we have set out the criteria we use to determine the retention period.


Retention periods

Manuscript data and files

  • Unsubmitted manuscripts: Up to two years from your last update, or until you delete the data.
  • Submitted and unpublished manuscripts: Up to five years from your last update to comply with our implicit contract with you and for legal purposes (e.g. should fraud need to be investigated).
  • Published manuscripts: Indefinitely as they are part of the scientific and public record, and to fulfill our contract with you.

Server log information: we retain information on our server logs for as long as we need to process aggregated and de-identified publication metrics (downloads, article page views) + 12 months.

Payment information: when you place an order for goods and services, we retain that information for six years following the end of the financial year in which you placed your order, in accordance with our legal obligation to keep records for tax purposes.

Web profile account information: we retain your web profile account information for as long as you decide to maintain an account (i.e. until you ask us to delete it) or longer if needed for legal reasons (e.g. investigating fraud). Information related to authoring, reviewing, or editing a manuscript will be retained in accordance with our manuscript retention periods above. Spam/fake accounts are subject to immediate removal.

Content alerts and E-newsletters: we retain the information you used to sign up for our content alerts or e-newsletter for as long as you remain subscribed (i.e. you do not unsubscribe) or if we decide to cancel the services, whichever comes earlier.


Criteria for determining retention periods

In any other circumstances, we will retain your information for no longer than necessary, taking into account the following:

  • the purpose and use of your information both now and in the future (such as whether it is necessary to continue to store that information in order to continue to perform our obligations under a contract with you or to contact you in the future
  • whether we have any legal obligation to continue to process your information (such as any record-keeping obligations imposed by relevant law or regulation)
  • whether we have any legal basis to continue to process your information (such as your consent)
  • the levels of risk, cost and liability involved with our continuing to hold the information
  • how hard it is to ensure that the information can be kept up to date and accurate
  • any relevant agreed industry practices on how long information should be retained
  • any relevant surrounding circumstances (such as the nature and status of our relationship with you).

12. How we secure your data

We take appropriate technical and organizational measures to secure your information and to protect it against unauthorized or unlawful use and accidental loss or destruction, including:

  • only sharing and providing access to your information to the minimum extent necessary, subject to confidentiality restrictions where appropriate, and on a de-identified basis wherever possible
  • using secure servers to store your information (i.e. data are encrypted)
  • verifying the identity of any individual who requests access to information prior to granting them access to information
  • using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software to encrypt any information you submit to us via any forms on our website and any payment transactions you make on or via our website
  • only transferring your information via closed system or encrypted data transfers
  • never storing your passwords in plain text. i.e. they are hashed and salted, as well as encrypted with all other data in the database

Transmission of information to us by email

Transmission of information over the internet is not entirely secure, and if you submit any information to us over the internet (whether by email, via our website or any other means), you do so entirely at your own risk.

We cannot be responsible for any costs, expenses, loss of profits, harm to reputation, damages, liabilities or any other form of loss or damage suffered by you as a result of your decision to transmit information to us by such means.

13. Transfers of your data to the USA & outside the European Economic Area

Your information will be transferred and stored outside the European Economic Area (EEA) in the circumstances set out below. We will also transfer your information outside the EEA or to an international organization in order to comply with legal obligations to which we are subject (compliance with a court order, for example). Where we are required to do so, we will ensure appropriate safeguards and protections are in place.

Server log information

Information collected when you visit our website is transferred outside of the EEA and stored on the servers of our hosting partner AWS. You can review the AWS privacy policy.

Country of storage: USA. The USA is not subject to an adequacy decision by the European Commission.

Safeguards used: AWS has self-certified its compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield.

Contact forms & other data submitted through our website

All data submitted by you via our website is transferred outside of the EEA and stored on the servers of our hosting partner AWS. In addition, we use user feedback about website bugs or service issues to help improve our website and correct issues related to our contract with you. That feedback may be manually entered by staff into our customer feedback and product development portals at GitHub, ProductBoard and Miro. You can review their policies at: AWS privacy policy, GitHub privacy policy, ProductBoard privacy policy and Miro privacy policy

Country of storage: USA. The USA is not subject to an adequacy decision by the European Commission.

Safeguards used: self-certified compliance

Email

Information you submit to us by email is transferred outside the EEA and stored on our third-party email provider's servers. Our third-party email providers are Gmail (by Google, Inc.) and Freshworks, Inc. Gmail Privacy Policy | Freshworks Privacy Policy.

Additionally, when we send you email (e.g. manuscript updates, e-newsletters and content alerts) we may use web beacons. We use beacons to measure delivery rates, which are important in providing our service to you. For example, if email is not delivered then we need to investigate why not. The data from these web beacons may be transferred outside of the EEA to the USA from your own mailserver. These data are stored by our outbound email providers Brevo (formerly SendinBlue), Mixpanel, Inc. and Mailchimp, Inc. (via its Mandrill service). Brevo Privacy Policy | Mixpanel Privacy Policy | Mailchimp Privacy Policy.

Country of storage: USA. The USA is not subject to an adequacy decision by the European Commission.

Safeguards used: Our email providers who have self-certified their compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield:

Payments

When you make a payment your credit or debit card details will be sent directly to our payment processor, Stripe, Inc. We do not store your card details on our own severs for security reasons and to adhere to banking compliance laws in the USA. Our payment processor is authorized to hold these details until you choose to delete them. Stripe, Inc. Privacy Policy

Country of storage: USA. The USA is not subject to an adequacy decision by the European Commission.

Safeguards used: Stripe, Inc. has self-certified their compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield.

Google Analytics & Mixpanel (website usage)

Information collected by Google Analytics and Mixpanel (your IP address and actions you take in relation to our website) is transferred outside the EEA and stored on Google's (or Mixpanel's) servers. Google Privacy Policy | Mixpanel Privacy Policy.

Country of storage: USA. The USA is not subject to an adequacy decision by the European Commission.

Safeguards used: Google and Mixpanel have self-certified their compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is an approved certification mechanism under Article 42 of the General Data Protection Regulation, which is permitted under Article 46(2)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation. Access the European Commission decision on the adequacy of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield.

14. Your rights in relation to your data

Subject to certain limitations on certain rights, you have the following rights in relation to your information, which you can exercise by writing to P.O. Box 910224, San Diego, CA 92191, USA; or sending an email to support@peerj.com.

  • to request access to your information and information related to our use and processing of your information
  • to request the correction or deletion of your information
  • to request that we restrict our use of your information
  • to receive information which you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format (e.g. a CSV file) and the right to have that information transferred to another data controller (including a third-party data controller)
  • to object to the processing of your information for certain purposes (for further information, see the section below entitled Your right to object to the processing of your information for certain purposes)
  • to withdraw your consent to our use of your information at any time where we rely on your consent to use or process that information. Please note that if you withdraw your consent, this will not affect the lawfulness of our use and processing of your information on the basis of your consent before the point in time when you withdraw your consent.

(EU residents) In accordance with Article 77 of the General Data Protection Regulation, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State of your habitual residence, place of work or of an alleged infringement of the General Data Protection Regulation.

Further information on your rights in relation to your personal data as an individual in the EU

The above rights are provided in summary form only and certain limitations apply to many of these rights. For further information about your rights in relation to your data, including any limitations which apply, please visit the following pages on the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website:

Verifying your identity where you request access to your information

Where you request access to your information, we are required by law to use all reasonable measures to verify your identity before doing so. These measures are designed to protect your information and to reduce the risk of identity fraud, identity theft or general unauthorised access to your information.

How we verify your identity

Where we possess appropriate information about you on file, we will attempt to verify your identity using that information.

If it is not possible to identify you from such information, or if we have insufficient information about you, we may require original or certified copies of certain documentation in order to be able to verify your identity before we are able to provide you with access to your information.

We will be able to confirm the precise information we require to verify your identity in your specific circumstances if and when you make such a request.

15. Your right to object to the processing of your information for certain purposes

You have the following rights in relation to the processing of your information, which you can exercise by writing to P.O. Box 910224, San Diego, CA 92191, USA; or sending an email to support@peerj.com.

  • to object to our using or processing your information where we use or process it in order to carry out a task in the public interest or for our legitimate interests, including 'profiling' (i.e. analyzing or predicting your behaviour based on your information) based on any of these purposes
  • to object to our using or processing your information for direct marketing purposes (including any profiling we engage in that is related to such direct marketing)

You may also exercise your right to object to our using or processing your information for direct marketing purposes by:

  • clicking the unsubscribe link contained at the bottom of any marketing email we send to you and following the instructions which appear in your browser following your clicking on that link
  • sending an email to support@peerj.com, asking that we stop sending you marketing communications or by including the words "OPT OUT"

For more information on how to object to our use of information collected from cookies and similar technologies, please see our cookies policy page.

16. Sensitive Personal Information

'Sensitive personal information' is information about an individual that reveals their racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic information, biometric information for the purpose of uniquely identifying an individual, information concerning health or information concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation.

We do not knowingly or intentionally collect sensitive personal information from individuals, and you must not submit sensitive personal information to us.

If, however, you inadvertently or intentionally transmit sensitive personal information to us, you will be considered to have explicitly consented to us processing that sensitive personal information under Article 9(2)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulation. We will use and process your sensitive personal information for the purposes of deleting it.

17. California Do Not Track Disclosures

"Do Not Track" is a privacy preference that users can set in their web browsers. When a user turns on a Do Not Track signal in their browser, the browser sends a message to websites requesting that they do not track the user.

We do not track your online browsing activity on other online services over time and we do not knowingly permit third-party services to track your activity on our website (except for Google Analytics and Mixpanel, as described previously).

As we do not share this type of data with third-party services or permit this kind of third-party data collection for any of our users, AND we do not track our users on third-party websites ourselves, we do not need to respond differently to an individual browser's Do Not Track setting. You can learn how to disable the aggregated and de-identified tracking through our cookie policy page.

Note: we retain soon-to-expire and expired privacy policy versions for record keeping. This version is due to expire May 25th, 2018.

We at PeerJ (“PeerJ,” “we,” “us,” “our”) know that our users (“you,” “your”) care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we take your privacy seriously. Please read the following to learn more about our Privacy Policy. By visiting or using the Website or Services in any manner, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use, and share your information in the following ways. Any capitalized terms used herein without definition shall have the meaning given to them in the PeerJ Terms of Use.

I. WHAT DOES THIS PRIVACY POLICY COVER?

This Privacy Policy covers our treatment of personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) that we gather when you are accessing or using our Website. This policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control, or to individuals that we do not employ or manage.

We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register for the Services (as that term is defined in our Terms of Use. If you are under 13, please do not attempt to register for the Services or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to us or on the Services. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at accounts@peerj.com.

II. WHAT INFORMATION DOES PEERJ COLLECT?

We gather various types of Personal Information from our users, as explained more fully below. We may use this Personal Information to personalize and improve our services, to allow our users to set up a user account and profile, to contact users, to fulfill your requests for certain products and services, to analyze how users utilize the Website, and as otherwise set forth in this Privacy Policy. We may share certain types of Personal Information with third parties (described in this Section and in Section III below). We collect the following types of information:

A. Information You Provide to Us:

We receive and store any information you knowingly provide to us. For example, we collect Personal Information such as your name, email address, phone number, browser information, research interests, and third party account credentials (for example, your log-in credentials for Facebook or other third party sites). If you provide your third party account credentials to us, you understand some content and/or information in those accounts (“Third Party Account Information”) may be transmitted into your account with us if you authorize such transmissions, and that Third Party Account Information transmitted to our Website is covered by this Privacy Policy. You can choose not to provide us with certain information, but then you may not be able to register with us or to take advantage of some of our features. We may anonymize your Personal Information so that you cannot be individually identified, and provide that information to our partners.

B. Information Collected Automatically:

  • Whenever you interact with our Website, we automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser including your IP address, “cookie” information, and the page you requested. “Cookies” are identifiers we transfer to your computer or mobile device that allow us to recognize your browser or mobile device and tell us how and when pages in our Website are visited and by how many people. You may be able to change the preferences on your browser or mobile device to prevent or limit your computer or device’s acceptance of cookies, but this may prevent you from taking advantage of some of our Website’s features. Also, if you click on a link to a third party website, such third party may also transmit cookies to you. This Privacy Policy does not cover the use of cookies by any third parties.
  • When we collect usage information (such as the numbers and frequency of visitors to the Website), we only use this data in aggregate form, and not in a manner that would identify you personally. For example, this aggregate data tells us how often users use parts of the Website, so that we can make the Website appealing to as many users as possible. We may also provide this aggregate information to our partners; our partners may use such information to understand how often and in what ways people use our Website, so that they, too, can provide you with an optimal experience. We never disclose aggregate information to a partner in a manner that would identify you personally.

C. E-mail and Other Communications:

We may contact you, by email or other means; for example, we may communicate with you about your article submissions or your use of the Website. Also, we may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us. This confirmation helps us make emails more interesting and improve our service. If you do not want to receive email or other mail from us, please indicate your preference by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email. Even after you unsubscribe we may still email you some to facilitate your service. Please note that if you do not want to receive legal notices from us, those legal notices will still govern your use of the Website, and you are responsible for reviewing such legal notices for changes.

III. WILL PEERJ SHARE ANY OF THE PERSONAL INFORMATION IT RECEIVES?

We share your Personal Information in personally identifiable form with third parties as described below.

A. Data Analytics: We may provide third parties access to information regarding the popularity of certain areas of our site, articles, and topics. This information will be provided on an anonymized and aggregated basis.

B. Affiliated Businesses and Third Party Websites We Do Not Control: In certain situations, businesses or third party websites we’re affiliated with may sell items or provide services to you through the Website (either alone or jointly with us). You can recognize when an affiliated business is associated with such a transaction or service, and we will share your Personal Information with that affiliated business only to the extent that it is related to such transaction or service. One such service may include the ability for you to automatically transmit Third Party Account Information to your Website profile or to automatically transmit information in your Website profile to your third party account. We have no control over the policies and practices of third party websites or businesses as to privacy or anything else, so if you choose to take part in any transaction or service relating to an affiliated website or business, please review all such website’s or business’s policies.

C. Agents: We employ other companies and people to perform tasks on our behalf and need to share your information with them to provide products or services to you. Unless we tell you differently, our agents do not have any right to use the Personal Information we share with them beyond what is necessary to assist us.

D. User Profiles and Submissions: Certain user profile information, including without limitation a user’s name, location, and any video or image content that such user has uploaded to the Website, may be displayed to other users to facilitate user interaction within the Website or address your request for PeerJ’s services. Your account privacy settings allow you to limit the other users who can see the Personal Information in your user profile and/or what information in your user profile is visible to others. Any content you upload to your public user profile, along with any Personal Information or content that you voluntarily disclose online in a manner other users can view (on discussion boards, in messages, and chat areas, etc.) becomes publicly available, and can be collected and used by others. Your user name may also be displayed to other users if and when you send messages or comments or upload images or videos through the Website and other users can contact you through messages and comments. Additionally, if you sign into the Website through a third party social networking site or service, your list of “friends” from that site or service may be automatically imported to the Website, and such “friends,” if they are also registered users of the Website, may be able to access certain non-public information you have entered in your Website user profile. Again, we do not control the policies and practices of any other third party site or service.

E. Business Transfers: We may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, customer information is typically one of the business assets that would be transferred. Also, if we (or substantially all of our assets) are acquired, or if we go out of business, enter bankruptcy, or go through some other change of control, Personal Information would be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by a third party.

F. Protection of PeerJ and Others: We reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information that we reasonably believe is necessary to comply with law or court order; enforce or apply our conditions of use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of PeerJ, our employees, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

G. With Your Consent: Except as set forth above, you will be notified when your Personal Information may be shared with third parties in personally identifiable form, and will be able to prevent the sharing of this information.

IV. IS PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT ME SECURE?

Your account is protected by a password for your privacy and security. If you access your account via a third party site or service, you may have additional or different sign-on protections via that third party site or service. You must prevent unauthorized access to your account and Personal Information by selecting and protecting your password appropriately and limiting access to your computer or device and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account.

We endeavor to protect the privacy of your account and other Personal Information we hold in our records, but we cannot guarantee complete security. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information at any time.

The Website may contain links to other sites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and/or practices on other sites. When following a link to another site you should read that site’s privacy policy.

V. WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION CAN I ACCESS?

Through your account settings, you may access, and, in some cases, edit or delete the following information you’ve provided to us:

  • name and password
  • email address
  • location
  • user profile information

The information you can view, update, and delete may change as the Website changes. If you have any questions about viewing or updating information we have on file about you, please contact us at support@peerj.com.

VI. WHAT CHOICES DO I HAVE?

  • You can always opt not to disclose information to us, but keep in mind some information may be needed to register with us or to take advantage of some of our special features.
  • You may be able to add, update, or delete information as explained in Section V above. When you update information, however, we may maintain a copy of the unrevised information in our records. You may request deletion of your account by contacting us at accounts@peerj.com. Please note that some information may remain in our records after your deletion of such information from your account. We retain information needed to ensure the permanent scientific record of any published articles, reviews, and comments. We may use any aggregated data derived from or incorporating your Personal Information after you update or delete it, but not in a manner that would identify you personally.

VII. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. Use of information we collect now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used. If we make changes in the way we use Personal Information, we will notify you by posting an announcement on our Website or sending you an email. You are bound by any changes to the Privacy Policy when you use the Website after such changes have been first posted.

VIII. QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS

If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy policies, please send us a detailed message to support@peerj.com, and we will try to resolve your concerns.

Effective Date:12 June, 2012