Privacy Policy

Scope

1. This website is made available by MDPI AG, Grosspeteranlage 5, 4052 Basel, Switzerland (“MDPI”) as the controller within the meaning of Art. 4 of the GDPR. MDPI is an open access publisher and provides platforms for open scientific exchange. JAMS, owned by MDPI, is a publishing platform for external publishing houses to manage their manuscripts (“JAMS”). The following privacy policy applies to the use of the journal and publisher websites hosted by JAMS. Regarding additional general and data privacy information about the data processing activity beyond the use of JAMS of the respective journal or publisher, please check their corresponding information and policies.
2. In the event of any data protection-related inquiry regarding the use of JAMS, you can contact us at dataprotection@mdpi.com or you can reach our data protection officer Mr. Simon Brandmeier at dpo@sbmconsulting.de.
3. This privacy policy informs you in accordance with Art. 12 ff. GDPR about how we handle your personal data when you use our website or services offered through our website. In particular, it explains which data we collect and what we use it for. It also informs you about how and for what purpose this is done.
4. The protection of your personal data is important to us, especially with regard to safeguarding your personal rights when processing and using this information. Depending on your use of this website or our services, various personal data are processed depending on the type and scope of use. Personal data is information that relates to an identified or identifiable natural person (hereinafter "data subject"); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified directly or indirectly (e.g., by means of association with an online identifier). This includes information such as the name, address, email, telephone number, and date of birth.

Automated data collection and processing by the browser

1. As with any website, our server automatically and temporarily collects information in the server log files that are transmitted by the browser while you are browsing through our website. Depending on the settings of your browser the following data are collected:
   • IP address of the requesting computer
   • The internet page from which you visit us (referrer URL)
   • Date, time, and duration of the server session
   • Browser type and version
   • Type of end device and operating system used by the requesting computer
2. The storage of server log files is necessary for technical reasons to provide a functional website and to ensure system security. This also applies to the storage of your IP ad-dress, which is necessary and, under further conditions, can at least theoretically enable an assignment to your person. In addition to the above-mentioned purposes, we use server log files solely for the purpose of designing and optimizing our website in line with demand, purely for statistical purposes and without any reference to your person. A per-sonal evaluation of the server log files does not take place. This data is not merged with other data sources. The access data collected in connection with the use of our website is only stored for the period of time for which this data is required to achieve the afore-mentioned purposes. Your IP address is stored on our web server for a maximum of two years. For data, which is stored through the use of cookies, please see section 3 below.
3. If you visit our website to find out about or use our range of products and services, the basis for the temporary storage and processing of the server log files is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR (legal basis), which permits the processing of data for the fulfilment of a contract or for the execution of pre-contractual measures. In addition, Art. 6 para. 1 sen-tence 1 lit. f GDPR serves as the legal basis for the temporary storage of technical ac-cess data. Our legitimate interest in this regard is to be able to provide you with a tech-nically functioning and user-friendly website and to ensure the security of our systems.

Cookies and tracking tools used on our website

1. This website uses cookies and other tracking technologies. Cookies are small text files that contain an identification number. Cookies are stored on your computer, tablet or smartphone (“device”) when you call up our website. If you call up our website again, your device can be recognised based on this identification number.
2. When you visit our website for the first time you will be asked whether you wish to give your consent, that cookies that collect personal data may be set. You can give your con-sent for all cookies (button “Allow all”), select the cookie categories (Preferences, Statis-tics, Marketing) you want to accept and select the “Allow selection” button or by clicking on the “Show details” button to make more user-defined settings. There you can decide by activating or by setting a check mark whether you give your consent for certain ser-vices or for certain categories of services or refuse consent for certain services. Consent is voluntary and you can revoke it at any time by clicking on the Cookiebot icon in the left corner at the bottom of our website (so-called footer) with effect for the future.
3. Cookies
   1. Categories of cookies Depending on the function and purpose of the data processing taking place, we categorise the cookies used on our website into the following three categories:
      1. Preferences:
         Referred to as "functionality cookies," these cookies enable a website to remember previous user choices, such as preferred language, or username and password for automatic login.
      2. Necessary:
         These cookies are necessary to provide you with website functions and to fulfil our legal obligations. The legal basis for the processing of your personal data is our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR) to make our website usable for you and to fulfil our legal obligations (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. c GDPR)
      3. Statistics:
         We use these cookies for statistical analysis purposes to statistically rec-ord the use of our website. Statistics cookies help us to improve our web-site and to offer you content that is of particular relevance to you. The legal basis for the processing of your personal data is your consent pur-suant to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR, which you can give via our cookie banner. Your consent is always voluntary and is not required for the use of the website itself.
      4. Marketing:
         We use these cookies for marketing purposes, for example to provide you with a better personal experience on our websites. The legal basis for the processing of your personal data is your consent pursuant to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR, which you can give via our cookie banner. Your consent is always voluntary and is not required for the use of the website itself.
   2. Storage period of cookies
      Session cookies are deleted after closing the browser. We also use persistent (“permanent”) cookies. Details on the storage period can be found in the cookie management tool
   3. Individual cookies
      For details regarding the individual cookies used, please refer to the “show de-tails” section of our cookie tool. You can find it at any time by clicking on the Cookiebot icon on the left side at the bottom of our website.

Data Collection and Processing of Voluntarily Provided Data

1. Contact Form or General Contact
   If you send us enquiries via the contact form or via one of the specified contact options, your message including the contact data you provide there will be stored and processed accordingly for the purpose of processing and answering the enquiry and in the event of follow-up questions. We do not pass this data on to third parties unless this is necessary within the scope of processing and answering your contact enquiry or you have given us your corresponding consent.
   If you contact us in the context of an existing contractual relationship or contact us in advance for information about our range of services or our other services, the data and information you provide will be processed for the purpose of processing and answering your contact enquiry in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR (legal basis), and otherwise to safeguard our legitimate interests in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1. Lit. f GDPR for the proper answering of contact enquiries.
   The data you enter in the contact form will remain with us until the purpose for stor-ing/processing the data no longer applies and mandatory retention periods (in particular any retention obligations under commercial or tax law) have been fulfilled
2. User Accounts
   To make use of JAMS services (e.g. reviewing or submitting a manuscript), you will have to register a user account on one of the journal or publisher websites, which uses JAMS. JAMS processes information under the direction of its clients (publishers, journals), and has no direct relationship with the individuals whose personal data it processes. JAMS helps its clients to provide the necessary information to inform their users about the na-ture and purpose of JAMS usage and the collected information, if required. During reg-istration we will ask you to provide some personal information, including, but not limited to, your name, valid e-mail address, phone number, password, title and country/region. Other data which users can optionally add is: organization, department, address, city and zip code. Also, your IP address will be stored as part of your registration and each time you log into our services. We collect personal data when you sign-up for a JAMS account, create or modify user information or provide any other related information to access or utilize JAMS platform.
   Data you provide during your registration will also be shared with the respective client and any data you submit using JAMS will be processed on behalf of our clients and we do not have a direct relationship with the individuals whose personal data we process. The use of this data which is available to our clients is subject to the clients responsibility. Further information can be found in their own privacy policy.

Disclosure to third parties

1. Beside the processing of your data by the respective journal or publisher, we pass on at least some of your data that we collect in accordance with the aforementioned paragraphs to processors. These process your data only on our instructions and not for their own purposes (Art. 28, 19, GDPR). These are companies that can be as-signed to the following categories:
   • Third party online databases to share article data
   • IT service providers
2. If we transfer data to recipients in a third country (located outside the European Eco-nomic Area, “EEA”), you will learn about this from the information on the recipi-ents/categories of recipients and the underlying legal basis in accordance with Article 46 (2) of the Data Protection Regulation as part of the description of the respective data processing. Some third countries are certified by the European Commission through so-called adequacy decisions as having a data protection standard that is comparable to the level in the European Economic Area. You can find a list of these countries at https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/interna-tional-dimension-data-protection/adequacy-decisions_en. If a country does not have a comparable data protection standard, we ensure that data protection is sufficiently guaranteed by other measures. This is possible, for example, through binding corpo-rate rules, standard contractual clauses of the European Commission for the protec-tion of personal data, certificates or recognized codes of conduct. Otherwise, we do not transfer your personal data to countries outside the EU or the EEA or to interna-tional organisations, unless expressly stated otherwise in this privacy policy.

Duration of storage

• Fulfilment of legal storage obligations (in particular due to commercial or tax law)
• preservation of evidence, considering the statute of limitations.

Your rights

• Rght to access
• Right to rectification or erasures
• Right to restriction of processing
• Right to object to processing
• Right to data portability