Privacy Statement

INTRODUCTION

We are dedicated to protecting your personal information and will make every reasonable effort to handle collected information appropriately. All information collected will be handled with care in accordance with glboal standards for integrity and objectivity and respect for your privacy. GBIS endeavors to comply with all laws and regulations that apply to the gathering and use of personal information, including but not limited to Canada privacy laws. As used in this policy, “we” and “us” includes GBIS , subsidiaries and our staffs, employees, officers, directors, volunteer editors and reviewers, and vendors and independent contractors under contract with us. “GBIS Sites” includes the following: the web pages and content on the GBIS websites, journal sites, and the tools, software, submission systems, web forms, registration system, and any other means through which we interact with you.

Your use of and interaction with the GBIS sites constitutes your unconditional acceptance of the practices described in this privacy policy, as they may be modified from time to time. If you do not agree with and accept all of the practices described in this privacy policy, do not use the GBIS sites and do not provide or submit any personally-identifying information by means of or while using the GBIS sites. By providing personal information to us, you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy.

WHAT WE MAY COLLECT

Personal Information

While interacting with the GBIS Sites, we may request personal information from you, including but not limited to things such as your name, mailing address, email address, institutional name, telephone number, credit card or other payment information, and ORCID iD. Your provision of such information is strictly voluntary. You can generally visit the GBIS Sites without disclosing such information. If you are an author who is submitting or has submitted a manuscript or other research outputs to GBIS for our consideration or for posting on our sites or as a preprint, we will require you to provide the above types of information so that we may adhere to publishing standards, and where your paper is published or posted as a preprint, at least your name, affiliation, and ORCID iD will appear as part of the paper. Likewise, when you register on a GBIS site for updates or to receive other types of notifications from us, we will ask for your email address at a minimum to enable us to send you the information you have requested.

Technical Information

Additionally, by means of your interactions with the GBIS Sites, we may collect, have access to, store and use your computer’s IP address, the URL/domain name of any referring website, the time and date of your visit to the GBIS Sites, and certain information known as “clickstream data” to enable us to understand how people interact with the GBIS Sites, to analyze data for trends and statistics, to help diagnose and solve issues with the GBIS Sites and our technologies, products, and services, and to optimize the performance of the GBIS Sites. We also use session cookies, small data files stored in your browser so you don’t have to log in each time you visit any of our web pages. From time to time, we use software tools to play back user sessions for purposes of assessing our customers’ interactions with our software, and these sessions may be linked to your user account. If you do not want session cookies stored on your computer, you may be able to adjust your browser settings prevent this, but note that by not accepting cookies, some pages may not fully function and you may not be able to access certain information on the GBIS Sites.

Protection of Children

Use of the GBIS Sites is intended for adults at least eighteen (18) years of age, and we will not knowingly collect personally-identifying information from children under the age of thirteen (13).

HOW WE MAY USE AND DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION

Use by GBIS

GBIS uses your personal information as described above, and to customize your experience on the GBIS Sites and to facilitate our interactions with you, if any. Except as where necessary to provide services to you, such as to communicate with you regarding a manuscript you have submitted or to process a paper or to process payment of an article processing charge, GBIS staff do not typically take note of your personal information; the information is mainly stored on or by our computers, computer networks, servers, tools, and systems, as described above. In some cases, the applications or user interfaces you encounter while on our sites are managed by third parties, who may require that you provide your personal information and who have assured us of their compliance with applicable laws.

Potential Disclosure to Third Parties

We may disclose personal information as discussed above and as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this privacy policy to our employees and to third parties under contract with us such as vendors, volunteers, independent contractors, and consultants, to financial institutions for the purposes of facilitating payment of fees owed, web and technical support providers, other publishers and/or content hosting providers under contract with us, third parties authorized by you to receive such information, and as may be required or permitted by law. We may also share information regarding you and your manuscript or other research content as reasonably necessary with parties such as external editors, reviewers, community journal staff, curators, and channel managers.

No Sale or Leasing of Your Information

Except as described in this privacy policy, we will not disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent. We will not sell or lease your personal information to any third party. We may disclose aggregate demographic and statistical information with our business partners; this information is not specific to the identification of you as an individual.

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

If, in your interactions with the GBIS Sites, you are linked or directed to, or click on, a third party website, we cannot control what information you may provide to that party or on/at that website, or how that party may use or disclose any information you may provide to them. As such, we urge that you exercise caution before providing them with your personal information.

CONSENT TO RECEIVE EMAIL COMMUNICATIONS

Except in countries or jurisdictions where it is not be permitted by law, we may from time to time send you email communications regarding our business, products or services in response to your use of the GBIS Sites. By providing your email address, you consent to receive such communications, but you may opt out of receiving such communications by contacting us.

HOW TO CONTACT US REGARDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

If you wish to discuss what personal information we may have pertaining to you, or the handling or potential disclosure of the same, or you wish to withdraw consent regarding these matters, you may contact us by email at info(at)ccsenet(dot)org, and we will promptly address your inquiry.