How Eldran collects, uses, shares, retains and protects personal information
1. Scope
This Privacy Policy explains how Eldran Academic Press processes personal information in connection with its publisher website, journal websites, manuscript-submission and peer-review platform, accounts, communications, billing, events, research-integrity work, and related services. It does not describe how an independent third party processes information under its own separate privacy notice.
2. Who is the controller?
For the activities described in this policy, the data controller is Eldran Academic Press. Correspondence may be sent to 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom or privacy@eldranacademic.com.
Privacy enquiries and data-protection requests may be sent to privacy@eldranacademic.com. Research-integrity matters should normally be sent to integrity@eldranacademic.com, although information submitted there may also be processed under this Privacy Policy.
3. The people whose information we may process
- website visitors and readers;
- registered account holders;
- authors, co-authors and contributors;
- reviewers, prospective reviewers and editorial board members;
- editors, guest editors and advisory-board members;
- corresponding institutions, funders, ethics bodies and research-integrity contacts;
- people paying or administering article processing charges;
- people contacting support, editorial, privacy, accessibility, billing or integrity teams;
- event registrants, speakers, attendees, sponsors and exhibitors;
- suppliers, contractors and professional advisers.
4. Categories of personal information
- Identity information: name, title, username, researcher identifiers such as ORCID iD, and identity-verification information where proportionate.
- Contact information: email address, telephone number, postal address and institutional contact details.
- Professional and academic information: affiliation, department, role, biography, research interests, expertise, publication record, editorial or reviewing history and professional profile links.
- Submission information: manuscript metadata, authorship, correspondence, declarations, funding, conflicts of interest, ethics information, suggested/excluded reviewers and related files.
- Peer-review and editorial information: invitations, responses, review reports, confidential comments, decisions, audit trails, conflict declarations and workflow history.
- Research-integrity information: allegations, evidence, identity checks, correspondence, institutional contacts, investigation records and outcomes.
- Billing information: payer name, institution, billing address, tax/VAT information, invoice status and transaction references. Eldran should avoid storing full payment-card details where a regulated payment provider processes them.
- Technical information: IP address, browser/device information, authentication logs, timestamps, security events and server logs.
- Usage information: page views, downloads, search actions and platform interactions, subject to the Cookie Policy and applicable consent requirements.
- Communication information: messages, support tickets, survey responses, preferences and consent records.
- Event information: registration details, attendance, dietary/accessibility needs where voluntarily supplied, and photographs/recordings where applicable and appropriately notified.
5. Information about research participants
Manuscripts, supplementary files, datasets or case material may contain information about research participants. Authors are responsible for ensuring that submission and publication comply with ethics, consent, anonymisation, privacy and applicable law. Eldran may process such information only as necessary to evaluate, publish, correct or investigate the scholarly work.
Authors should not submit directly identifying or sensitive participant information unless it is genuinely necessary for scholarly assessment or publication and appropriate ethics, consent and legal requirements have been satisfied.
6. How we obtain personal information
We obtain information directly from individuals when they register, submit, review, edit, pay, contact us, attend an event or change account settings. We may also receive information from co-authors, institutions, public scholarly records, ORCID or other researcher-identifier services, DOI and indexing infrastructure, research-integrity sources, event partners, service providers, or publicly available professional sources when necessary for reviewer/editor selection, identity verification, research integrity or scholarly record maintenance.
7. Purposes and lawful bases
| Purpose | Typical information | Typical lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Account creation and authentication | Identity, contact, account, technical logs | Contract or steps requested before a contract; legitimate interests in secure service operation |
| Manuscript submission and editorial handling | Submission, authorship, contact, professional and workflow data | Contract; legitimate interests in scholarly publishing and record keeping |
| Peer review and editorial participation | Expertise, invitations, conflicts, reports, decisions | Legitimate interests; contract where a specific appointment agreement applies |
| Research integrity and publication ethics | Submission records, identity, allegations, evidence, correspondence | Legitimate interests in protecting the scholarly record; legal obligation where applicable |
| Publication and dissemination | Author names, affiliations, ORCID, article metadata, acknowledgements, funding and licence data | Contract; legitimate interests in scholarly communication and permanent record keeping |
| APCs, invoices and accounting | Billing and transaction data | Contract; legal obligation; legitimate interests in financial administration |
| Support and correspondence | Contact details and message content | Contract where service-related; otherwise legitimate interests |
| Security, fraud prevention and abuse detection | Technical logs, account events, identity and access information | Legitimate interests in protecting systems, users and the scholarly process; legal obligation where applicable |
| Analytics and non-essential storage/access technologies | Usage, device and online identifiers | Consent where required by PECR/UK data-protection law |
| Newsletters and promotional email | Contact details, preferences and engagement | Consent or another lawful route where electronic-marketing law permits it |
| Events | Registration, attendance, communications and optional preferences | Contract/steps before contract; legitimate interests; consent for optional promotional uses where appropriate |
The lawful basis depends on the particular purpose and relationship. Eldran should document the basis used for each production workflow and should not rely on consent where the processing would continue regardless of whether consent is given.
8. Special category and other sensitive information
Some information may reveal health, ethnicity, political opinions, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, biometric/genetic information or other sensitive matters, particularly in research manuscripts, ethics documentation, accessibility requests or integrity complaints. Where Eldran itself processes special category personal data, it must identify both an Article 6 lawful basis and an applicable Article 9 condition, together with any additional requirements under the Data Protection Act 2018.
Sensitive information should be collected only where necessary and access should be restricted to personnel or experts who genuinely require it.
9. Publishing and public scholarly records
Publication necessarily makes certain information public, including author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs where supplied and verified, acknowledgements, funding statements, competing-interest statements, and other article metadata. Public scholarly metadata may be distributed to Crossref or other DOI agencies, libraries, repositories, search engines, indexing services, preservation services and research databases.
Because published scholarly records are intended to remain citable and verifiable, deletion rights do not necessarily require removal of accurate published authorship or bibliographic information where a lawful basis for continued retention applies. Corrections to inaccurate publication metadata should be handled through the journal’s correction procedures.
10. Reviewers and double-anonymous review
Eldran’s default review model is double-anonymous. Reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors as part of ordinary review, and author identity is withheld from reviewers through the anonymised review file where practicable. Author identity may nevertheless be known to authorised editorial personnel, and anonymity cannot be guaranteed where a preprint or other public information makes identity inferable.
Reviewer identity, reports, conflicts, invitations and editorial correspondence are processed to administer peer review, maintain auditability, recognise service where consented to, investigate misconduct and defend editorial decisions.
11. Research-integrity processing
Eldran may process information to detect, assess and investigate concerns such as plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, authorship manipulation, peer-review manipulation, citation manipulation, image concerns, undisclosed conflicts or unethical research. This may involve comparing information across submissions, public records and scholarly databases, and contacting institutions, ethics bodies, funders, other publishers or relevant authorities where appropriate.
Where an allegation cannot be substantiated, Eldran should still retain a proportionate record of the assessment where necessary to document that the concern was handled responsibly and to prevent repeated or abusive allegations.
12. Automated tools and human oversight
Eldran uses approved automated tools for mandatory plagiarism, text-similarity and AI-writing screening of every submitted manuscript, together with duplicate detection, security, spam prevention, metadata checks, image or reference screening, reviewer matching and workflow prioritisation. The manuscript checks are conducted through a licensed Turnitin (https://www.turnitin.com/products/similarity) or iThenticate (https://www.ithenticate.com/) service. Human editors assess the resulting indicators; the tools do not make final editorial or misconduct determinations.
Eldran does not intend to make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about authors, reviewers or editors solely by automated means without meaningful human involvement, unless a lawful and appropriately disclosed process is established.
13. Cookies, analytics and similar technologies
Eldran’s websites may use cookies, web storage, pixels, scripts or similar storage/access technologies. Strictly necessary technologies may operate without consent where the legal exemption applies. Non-essential analytics, preference or marketing technologies should be disabled until the required consent is obtained. Details are provided in the Cookie Policy and Cookie Settings interface.
14. Communications and direct marketing
Service communications necessary for an account, submission, review, editorial role, payment, security or registered event are not optional marketing messages. Promotional newsletters, calls for papers, event promotions and similar communications are sent only where there is an appropriate legal basis and the applicable electronic-marketing rules are satisfied.
Every promotional email should provide a practical unsubscribe mechanism. A minimal suppression record may be retained after opt-out so the preference can be honoured.
15. Who we share information with
Depending on the service, Eldran may share necessary information with:
- handling editors, Editors-in-Chief, reviewers and authorised editorial-board members;
- hosting, cloud, backup, email, helpdesk, security and infrastructure providers;
- payment, accounting and invoicing providers;
- ORCID and other identifier or identity services when users choose or require those integrations;
- Crossref or other DOI-registration and metadata-distribution services;
- libraries, archives, repositories, preservation networks, search engines and indexing/discovery services;
- analytics or consent-management providers where enabled;
- event platforms, venues, production providers and accessibility suppliers for registered events;
- professional advisers, insurers, auditors and accountants;
- institutions, funders, ethics bodies, other publishers or authorities where necessary for a legitimate integrity, legal or regulatory purpose.
Service providers acting as processors should be bound by appropriate data-protection, confidentiality and security terms. Where a recipient is an independent controller, its own privacy notice may also apply.
16. International transfers
Scholarly publishing is international. Editors, reviewers, authors, infrastructure providers and scholarly services may be located outside the United Kingdom. Where a transfer is a restricted transfer under UK data-protection law, Eldran should use an available lawful transfer mechanism, such as UK adequacy regulations or appropriate safeguards including the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or UK Addendum, together with any required transfer risk assessment/data protection test.
17. Retention
Eldran retains personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the stated purpose, the integrity of the scholarly record, dispute handling, security, accounting or legal obligations. The following schedule is the intended baseline and should be reflected in operational retention controls:
| Record category | Baseline retention approach |
|---|---|
| Published article metadata and version-of-record records | For as long as the publication is maintained and archived; core bibliographic records may be permanent. |
| Accepted-manuscript editorial and peer-review records | Normally publication life plus at least 10 years, subject to integrity and archival needs. |
| Rejected or withdrawn manuscript records | Normally 7 years after closure, unless an integrity, legal or dispute reason requires longer retention. |
| Reviewer/editor profile and service history | While active, then normally 5 years after the last substantive activity, with limited audit information retained longer where justified. |
| Research-integrity case files | Normally 10 years after closure or longer where an investigation, retraction, legal claim or institutional process remains relevant. |
| Invoices and accounting records | Normally at least 6 years where required for tax/accounting compliance; longer where law or an active dispute requires. |
| Support and routine correspondence | Normally up to 3 years after closure of the matter unless linked to a manuscript, complaint or legal issue. |
| Security and access logs | Typically 12 months unless a security incident or investigation requires longer. |
| Marketing consent and suppression records | Consent evidence while relied upon; suppression record retained as necessary to honour opt-out. |
| Event administration records | Normally 3 years after the event, subject to accounting, legal or consent-based media retention requirements. |
18. Security
Eldran should use technical and organisational measures appropriate to the risks, including role-based access, secure authentication, HTTPS, encryption where appropriate, backups, logging, patching, least-privilege administration, staff confidentiality, secure development practices and incident response. No internet service can guarantee absolute security.
19. Personal-data breaches
Eldran should maintain procedures to detect, contain, investigate and document personal-data breaches. Where a breach is reportable under UK data-protection law, the organisation must notify the Information Commissioner without undue delay and, where feasible, within 72 hours of becoming aware of it. Where the breach is likely to create a high risk to individuals, affected individuals must also be informed without undue delay where required by law.
20. Your data-protection rights
Depending on the circumstances and applicable law, individuals may have rights to be informed, access personal information, correct inaccurate information, request erasure, request restriction, receive portable data, object to certain processing, withdraw consent, and obtain safeguards in relation to certain automated decisions. These rights are not absolute and exemptions may apply, including where information must be retained to protect the scholarly record, legal claims, confidentiality of others, or research-integrity processes.
Requests should be sent to privacy@eldranacademic.com. Eldran may request proportionate information to verify identity before disclosing or changing personal data.
21. Privacy complaints and the ICO
If you believe Eldran has handled your personal information improperly, please contact privacy@eldranacademic.com so the matter can be investigated. UK data-protection law also provides a route to complain to the UK supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
- Information Commissioner’s Office: https://ico.org.uk/
- How to make a data-protection complaint: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/how-to-make-a-data-protection-complaint/
22. Children
Eldran’s scholarly publishing services are primarily designed for adult researchers and professionals. If a service is offered directly to children or is likely to be accessed by children, Eldran must assess the applicable UK children’s-data requirements and implement age-appropriate transparency and safeguards. Where consent is relied upon for an online service offered directly to a child under 13 in the UK, parental authorisation requirements may apply.
23. External websites
Eldran may link to external websites, repositories, standards, social platforms or scholarly services. Their processing is governed by their own privacy practices. Users should review those notices when following an external link or using an external integration.
24. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this policy when our services, vendors, laws or data practices change. The version and effective date will be shown at the top. Material changes will be recorded on the Summary of Changes page and, where appropriate, communicated directly to affected users before new processing begins.
External legal and regulatory resources
These links are provided for transparency and reference. If legislation or regulatory guidance changes, Eldran should update this policy and its operational procedures accordingly.
- ICO - Right to be informed: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/the-right-to-be-informed/
- ICO - Individual rights: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/individual-rights/
- ICO - Lawful basis: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/lawful-basis/
- ICO - International transfers: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/international-transfers/
- ICO - Personal data breaches: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/report-a-breach/personal-data-breach/personal-data-breaches-a-guide/
- ICO - Children’s information: https://ico.org.uk/childrensprivacy
- Data Protection Act 2018: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents
- Data (Use and Access) Act 2025: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/18/contents
25. Scholarly infrastructure and public metadata
After publication, public bibliographic information may be distributed to identifier, metadata, repository and discovery services so readers can find, cite and link to the scholarly record. Depending on the service and the operational arrangements then in place, this may include author names, affiliations, ORCID identifiers, article titles, abstracts, references, funding information, licence information, publication dates and persistent identifiers.
Eldran does not intentionally send confidential manuscripts, unpublished reviewer reports or hidden reviewer identities to public discovery services. External services act under their own terms and privacy information. A link to a service does not establish that an Eldran journal is indexed, certified or a member of that service.
- Crossref: https://www.crossref.org/
- Crossref DOI resolver: https://doi.org/
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/
26. Related policies
These pages provide the related publisher-level requirements and should be read together with this document where their subject matter applies.
- Terms and Conditions: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/terms/
- Events Terms and Conditions: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/events-terms/
- Summary of Changes: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/changes/
- Research Integrity: https://eldranacademic.com/policies/research-integrity/