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This policy was last updated on 13th February 2025.

This is ���ϳԹ���'s privacy policy (hereafter referred to as “policy”) for the submission to publication ecosystem and all online forms, platforms and systems supporting the publication process for books, proceedings, series, multimedia, etc.

Certain personal data as described in this policy is gathered through the use of the submission to publication workflow and controlled by the ���ϳԹ��� Group () publishing legal entity of the content (hereafter referred to as “Publisher” or “we”) to which you submit.

• ���ϳԹ��� B.V., Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 GX Dordrecht, The Netherlands
• ���ϳԹ��� AG & Co. KGaA, Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
• Springer-Verlag GmbH, Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin, Germany
• ���ϳԹ��� Switzerland AG is located at Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

We will only use the personal data gathered during the submission to publication ecosystem as set out in this policy. Below you will find information on how we use your personal data, for which purposes your personal data is used, with whom it is shared, and what control and information rights you may have.

I. Summary of our processing activities

We publish scholarly journals, books, news and data. Some of this material is openly available, some of it is only available to subscribers. The following summary offers a brief overview of the data processing activities that are undertaken in the submission to publication ecosystem. You will find more detailed information under the indicated sections below.

In case of registration for one of our services, personal data will be processed in the scope of such services (see III).

• Your personal data will be used for statistical analysis that helps us to improve our services (see III).
• We will use your personal data and contact details to tell you about other publishing opportunities in your interest. You can opt out of these communications at any time (see III)
• Some of your personal data may be processed in the course of implementing a (peer) review procedure (see III).
• Your personal data may be disclosed to third parties (see V) that might be located outside your country of residence; potentially, different data protection standards may apply (see VI).
• We have implemented appropriate safeguards to secure your personal data (see VII) and retain your personal data only as long as necessary (see VIII).
• Under the legislation applicable to you, you may be entitled to exercise certain rights with regard to the processing of your personal data (see IX).

II. Definitions

• Personal data: means any information relating to a natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, or an online identifier.
• Processing: means any operation that is performed on personal data, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, cataloguing, storage, adaptation or any kind of disclosure or other use.
• Submission to publication ecosystem: means any webpages, platforms, systems, services, apps, etc. required to fulfil the publication of the Work.
• Controller: means the person who exercises overall control over the purposes and means of processing personal data.
• The Work: means all content published on behalf of the Author, whatever its media and form (including text, graphical elements, tables, videos and/or links).

III. Information we collect and how we use it

Our submission to publication ecosystem includes the following services: submission; (peer) review; content preparation and proofing; publication; data collection; distribution of published material and general notifications. In order to use the aforementioned services, you may be required to set up an initial account. Where optional paid services may be engaged, you will be prompted to set up an additional, or enhance an existing account.

With regard to the registration of an account (where required) and its subsequent use, we process the following information within our submission to publication ecosystem:

• Information that is provided during registration such as your name, user name, ORCID ID (if applicable) and email;
• Information in connection with an account sign-in facility, e.g. login and password details;
• Communications sent by you, e.g. via email or website communication forms
• Content files and covering letters provided by you;
• Grants, funding, membership, institution, society, committee registration
• Billing or invoicing information;
• Your publication record based on publicly available data;
• Any publishing agreements, terms and conditions, declarations and disclaimers as accepted by you
• Log of your activities in the submission to publication ecosystem in order to process the Work

We will process the personal data you provide in order to:

• Identify you at sign-in;
• Administer your account;
• Provide you with the services and information offered through the submission to publication ecosystem or that which you additionally request;
• Communicate with you;
• Provide information to you as a researcher/academic about other publishing opportunities with the ���ϳԹ��� group. You can stop these communications at any time by clicking the link in each email or contacting customer services;
• Communicate with you in your capacity as a current or potential (peer) reviewer, Editorial Board Member, or external Editor to provide information about the disciplines, products(s) and content you have worked on;
• To ensure the accuracy of content attribution and the quality and integrity of the content in the (peer) review process;
• Process payments. If applicable, based on local tax requirements and in certain circumstances, we may collect specific data required to process and pay royalties or fixed fees. This may include, but is not limited to, personal information, such as private address, tax information, social security number, and banking information necessary to identify and compensate individuals or entities entitled to such payments;
• If applicable, delivery address for shipment of our products;
• Provide you with information about services and products that you may be interested in. You can stop these communications at any time by clicking the link in each email or contacting customer services;
• Communicate with you in your capacity as a current or past user of the system to invite you to volunteer your feedback for research designed to improve our services.

For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b of the EU/UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and for our legitimate interest in providing you assistance, optimising our services and preventing fraud, also provide info about products and services of interest to you Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

Your personal account registration data is, in the absence of exceptions within the specific services mentioned, retained for as long as your account is used. Content and communications, associated with submissions, reviews or decisions made by an account holder, will be kept on file. Content may be engaged in relation to the services provided and in the interests of the integrity of published material. Such a decision will be made under the oversight of the ���ϳԹ��� Research Integrity Group. The need for legal actions within the services or payment problems can lead to a longer retention of your personal data.

In order to ensure the high quality of our publications, as well as the significance of the scientific research published, we have implemented a (peer) review procedure.

In order to find and contact suitable and qualified (peer) reviewers to review within the relevant research community, editors and administrators may create a profile using your publication record based on publicly available data and some of your basic personal data (i.e. email address, name and research interest) to register you for our (peer) review System. The legal basis for processing your personal data is the Publisher’s or the respective editor’s legitimate interest in finding and contacting suitable and qualified (peer) reviewers to ensure the high level of content published, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

If you do not wish to be contacted any longer, you can contact us by sending an email to the email address provided in the footer of any message sent. Alternatively, you may contact customerservice@springernature.com. Please note that we may keep some of your personal data in order to register your explicit wish to not be contacted in the future, and thus to prevent any future processing of your data in this regard. The legal basis for this is the Publisher and your legitimate interest in recalling your wish and preventing any future contacting, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

IV. Third party content links to third party websites

The submission to publication ecosystem and (peer) review system may contain links to third party websites, including our affiliates, retailers, service providers, Abstracting and Indexing services, scholarly societies. We are not responsible for the content and the data collection on respective third party websites; please check the privacy policy of respective websites for information of respective websites’ data processing activities.

V. Information sharing

Where personal data is disclosed to third parties for the purposes mentioned above the legal basis for the transfer of your personal data is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b and f GDPR. Some of the recipients may reside outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Data is only shared to the extent that it is needed to perform the service of (peer) review, and (peer) review is to be conducted within the security of the workflows which control these access permissions.

In the course of providing our (peer) review services, your data may be accessed by third parties. Granting access to your personal data and the respective processing activity will be based on our interest, and the legitimate interest of the Work, in successfully publishing high quality publications, and ensuring the quality and significance of the respective research published in our products, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

In order to do so we and/or the respective third party may process your personal data to find, contact, and evaluate suitable and qualified (peer) reviewers within the relevant research community. This also includes data sharing between us and the respective third party. For example, we may share reviewer and author data to publish the Work.

Please note that the publisher and the third party are independently responsible for the respective data processing conducted. We can neither limit the extent to which personal data is processed by the respective society nor do we regulate the processing’s purpose or the period your personal data will be retained. It is also possible that the above-mentioned third parties may disclose your personal data to their business partners, other third parties or authorities.

Your personal data will be transferred to and processed inside and outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). For further information on cross border data transfer, please refer to section VI.

With respect to Book Processing Charges (BPC) or Chapter Processing Charges (CPC) for open access publication; if you are an author we may share your personal data with third parties, such as your institution or employer. This is required to manage and approve payment of associated BPC/CPC in order to fulfil the publication of the Work, where applicable. By submitting your manuscript for consideration, you acknowledge that if you are recognised as affiliated to an institution or funder with a ���ϳԹ��� open access agreement, your name and contact details may be shared with a representative from that institution or funder in order for us to verify whether they agree to cover, in full or in part, the BPC/CPC that is payable upon editorial acceptance of submitted manuscripts. For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR, to fulfil our contractual obligations to you.

Should you choose not to follow the open access route to publication we may still share your personal data with the institution or funder you’re affiliated with. Importantly we will only do this post publication to ensure there’s no bearing on the evaluation of your submission prior to acceptance. The legal basis to share your data in this instance is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR, our legitimate interest to develop and improve our open access program to the benefit of authors and the scientific community generally.

Customer service, administrative, operational and systems support is provided by other entities of the ���ϳԹ��� Group and third party contractors (together “Contractors”). We may disclose your personal data to Contractors who assist us in providing the services we offer through the submission to publication ecosystem and (peer) review system. Such a transfer will be based on data processing agreements in accordance with Article 28 of the GDPR. Therefore, our Contractors will only use your personal data to the extent necessary to perform their functions and will be contractually bound to process your personal data only on our behalf and in compliance with our requests. Further services, provided by third party technology and service providers, are similarly bound by data processing agreements.

We may disclose anonymous aggregate statistics about users of the submission to publication ecosystem in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics will not include any personal data. We may provide aggregated data for inclusion in publishing metrics.

In the event that we undergo re-organisation or are sold to a third party, any personal data we hold about you may be transferred to that re-organised entity or third party in compliance with applicable law. We may disclose your personal data if legally entitled or required to do so (for example if required by law or by a court order). The legal basis for this will be Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. c GDPR (in conjunction with the respective national law).

Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DEI) Analysis

���ϳԹ��� is deeply committed to fostering a scientific community that supports and benefits from the talents of researchers from a wide range of backgrounds. In support of the advancement of diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) in research we may ask you to provide information related to gender and ethnicity, for example. This personal information will in no way be used when evaluating and handling your current or future submissions to ���ϳԹ���; this data will be aggregated and anonymised before being analysed and reported in order to improve our policies and processes. More details on the . By agreeing with the policy you give consent to the use of your personal data (under Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR)). You can remove your consent at any time in the future by contacting us.
We may work with third parties with expertise in the field of DEI data analysis. In these cases the third party acts as a data processor on our behalf with a data processing agreement in place to support this relationship. Including but not limited to .

VI. Cross border data transfers

Within the scope of our information sharing activities set out above, your personal data may be transferred to other countries (including countries outside the European Economic Area [EEA]) which may have different data protection standards from your country of residence. Please note that data processed in a foreign country may be subject to foreign laws and accessible to foreign governments, courts, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies. However, we will endeavour to take reasonable measures to maintain an adequate level of data protection when sharing your personal data with such countries.
In the case of a transfer outside of the EEA, this transfer is safeguarded by EU Model Clauses in accordance with Article 46 GDPR. You can find further general information about the aforementioned safeguards by following this link or contact our Group Data Protection Officer via customerservice@springernature.com for specific information on respective safeguards.

VII. Security

We have industry-standard security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control. For example, our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and amended as necessary and only authorised personnel have access to personal data. Whilst we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of information will never occur, we use all reasonable efforts to prevent it.

You should bear in mind that submission of information over the internet is never entirely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of information you submit via our website whilst it is in transit over the internet, and any such submission is at your own risk.

VIII. Data retention

We strive to keep our processing activities with respect to your personal data as limited as possible. In the absence of specific retention periods set out in this policy, your personal data will be retained only for as long as we need it to fulfil the purpose for which we have collected it and, if applicable, as long as required by statutory retention requirements.

IX. Your rights

Under the legislation applicable to this ecosystem, you may be entitled to exercise some or all of the following rights:

1. require (i) information as to whether your personal data is retained and (ii) access to and/or copies of your personal data retained, including the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned, and the data recipients as well as potential retention periods;
2. request rectification, removal or restriction of your personal data, e.g. because (i) it is incomplete or inaccurate, (ii) it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, or (iii) the consent on which the processing was based has been withdrawn;
3. refuse to provide and – without impact to data processing activities that have taken place before such withdrawal – withdraw your consent to processing of your personal data at any time;
4. object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, that your personal data shall be subject to processing. In this case, please provide us with information about your particular situation. After the assessment of the facts presented by you we will either stop processing your personal data or present you with the legitimate grounds for ongoing processing;
5. take legal actions in relation to any potential breach of your rights regarding the processing of your personal data, as well as to lodge complaints before the competent data protection regulators;
6. require (i) to receive the personal data concerning you, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and (ii) to transmit that data to another controller without hindrance from our side; where technically feasible you shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted directly from us to another controller; and/or
7. not to be subject to any automated decision making, including profiling (automatic decisions based on data processing by automatic means, for the purpose of assessing several personal aspects) which produce legal effects on you, or affects you with similar significance.

You may (i) exercise the rights referred to above or (ii) pose any questions or (iii) make any complaints regarding our data processing by contacting us using the contact details set out below.

X. Contacting us

Please submit any questions, concerns or comments you have about this privacy policy or any requests concerning your personal data by email to our Group Data Protection Officer. You can contact our Group Data Protection Officer via customerservice@springernature.com.

The information you provide when contacting us at customerservice@springernature.com will be processed to handle your request and will be erased when your request is completed. Alternatively, we will restrict the processing of the respective information in accordance with statutory retention requirements.

XI. Amendments to this policy

We reserve the right to amend this policy from time to time by updating our website respectively. Please visit the site regularly to ensure you have access to the most up-to-date policy.

Annex 1: Notes to external editors/reviewers

In the course of the collaboration between ���ϳԹ��� and external editors and reviewers, ���ϳԹ��� transfers personal data to the editors and reviewers. The editors and reviewers process this personal data in their own responsibility as independent controllers. Thus, the editors and reviewers have to comply with the applicable regulations of data protection law, in particular with respect to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This entails the following obligations with regard to the data processing:

1. Editors and reviewers need to respect the principles of lawfulness, fairness and transparency of the data processing and document their compliance with the applicable obligations. This means that personal data may only be processed for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and the processing shall be limited to what is absolutely necessary in relation to these purposes. Processing must be transparent to the persons whose data is processed, and persons whose data is processed may have certain rights, in particular with respect to access to or deletion and correction of such data. Personal data shall generally not be used for purposes other than the ones it was collected for.
2. Personal data may only be processed if permitted by a legal basis. For example, this is the case if an editor processes reviewer data to identify appropriate reviewers, invite and/or select them for assignment. Further, reviewers and editors may need to process author data to enable and foster effective communication between the different parties. Personal data should not be proliferated to third parties without a solid reason.
3. When processing personal data adequate measures should be implemented to ensure the protection and secrecy of the data. This includes measures to prevent that the data is accessed by unauthorised third parties, e.g. by using keys and/or passwords for the relevant systems and data encryption if possible, or that data is deleted or amended accidentally, e.g. by using backup systems. If the data is no longer needed for the purposes it was collected for, e.g. if the review is completed and the Work published, the data needs to be deleted/destroyed, unless there are grounds that justify longer retention. Those reasons may arise from editorial duties, documentation obligations and accounting or tax obligations.

Annex 2: Online Services and Tools

1. We use the following tools and services to enhance and improve the submission to publication workflow system. For more information on how personal data is processed please click on the respective links below:

2. This privacy policy describes the processing of personal data in relation to the ���ϳԹ��� submission to publication ecosystem only. For information on how we use your personal data more widely on our websites, including cookies, online advertising and ecommerce related tools, please see the appropriate homepage below:

Springernature - /gp/legal/privacy-statement
SpringerLink -