Privacy Policy

ARCHIVED 2020-05-01, DATE APPROXIMATE · VERSION 20200501_rev01 · COMPARED WITH 20191004_rev01

Full text changes — 20191004_rev01 to 20200501_rev01

COLOUR MARKS THE SEVERITY OF A FLAGGED CLAUSE · + AND − MARK ADDED AND REMOVED

 \. Do Not Track
 There are different ways you can prevent tracking of your online activity. One of them is setting a preference in your browser that alerts websites you visit that you do not want them to collect certain information about you. This is referred to as a Do-Not-Track ("DNT") signal. Please note that currently our website does not respond to these DNT signals from web browsers. At this time, there is no universally accepted standard for what a company should do when a DNT signal is detected.
 X. Information sharing
+Where personal data is disclosed to the following 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 EEA. For further information about cross border transfer in general and transfers outside of the EEA see XI.
+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 EEA. For further information about cross border transfer in general and transfers outside of the EEA see section on Cross border data transfers.
+We may disclose anonymous aggregate statistics about users of the website in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics will include no personal data.
+We may disclose your personal data to contractors who assist us in providing the services we offer through the website. Such a transfer will be based on data processing agreements (Art. 28 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.
+We may disclose your personal data to contractors who assist us in providing the services we offer through the website. Such a transfer will be based on data processing agreements. 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.
+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.
+In the event that we undergo re-organization or are sold to a third party, any personal data we hold about you may be transferred to that re-organized 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).
+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).
+.Peer Review and Author Services
+In the course of providing our peer review services, your data may be accessed by different members of the editorial team such as editors and assistant to the editorial office. To determine the locations of the Editorial board members, you may refer to a journal's homepage. Granting access to your personal data and the respective processing activity will be based on our and the legitimate interest of the respective society publishing the Journal in successfully publishing high quality articles and papers and ensuring the quality and significance of the respective research published in our journals, products and databases, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR. In order to do so we and/or the respective society 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 society. For example, we may share reviewer and author data to publish the journal.
+Please note that the society and we are independently responsible for the respective data processing conducted. We neither have the control of the extent to which personal data is processed by the respective society nor do we control the processing purpose or the period your personal data will be retained. It is also possible that the above-mentioned societies may disclose your personal data to their business partners, third parties or authorities. For further information on the data processing under the society's control please refer to the respective society's privacy notice.
+Your personal data will be transferred to and processed inside and outside of the EEA. For further information on cross border data transfer, please refer to section on Cross border data transfers.
+As an author we'll share your personal data with third parties, like your institution or employer. This is required to manage and approve payment of associated Article Publication Charges (APCs) in order to fulfill the publication of your manuscript. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) 1 lit. c GDPR.
+Customer service, administrative, operational and systems support is provided by other entities of the Springer Nature 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 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.
+\. Usage Reports
+We may disclose anonymous aggregate statistics about users of the website in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics will include no personal data. We also supply standardized usage reports to institutional customers, also known as Counter Reports. For more information on Counter Reports - https://www.projectcounter.org/code-of-practice-sections/usage-reports/
+**In addition to the above mentioned anonymous reports and by special arrangement:**
+When you read research journals and eBooks or use database products, we will process your personal data to create usage reports. For journals and eBooks this will include your full text HTML and PDF downloads, your IP address and potentially your email address. This data is necessary for the usage report as it provides information on the usage and overall interest in a particular journal or group of journals or eBooks.
+The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) 1 lit. f GDPR. We have a legitimate interest to assess and evaluate the use of our content to be able to improve our services. We will retain this data securely for ongoing internal analysis and future reference.
+We may share the usage data with licensee under whose license you are accessing and using our services, (e.g. your employer, the institution you are a member to, your university etc. "Licensee"). The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) 1 lit. f GDPR. The Licensee has a legitimate interest in using the usage data to assess and evaluate the economic efficiency of its license for our content. Based on this evaluation, the Licensee will be able to determine e.g. the necessity to obtain more licenses or reduce the number of licenses or to allocate costs internally. Further, the usage data may allow the Licensee to request contributions or funding. The Licensee is contractually limited to use using the usage data for no other purposes than these economic efficiency assessment purposes.
+In addition, we ourselves have a legitimate interest in enabling the Licensee to use the usage data to conduct respective evaluation and assessments is also in our interest as it makes our service more attractive for the Licensees.
+If the Licensee resides outside the EEA, the transfer is safeguarded by a Commission's adequacy decision such as the Privacy Shield or EU Standard Contractual Clauses. You can find further information about the aforementioned safeguards by contacting onlineservice@springernature.com.
+You may object to the transfer of the usage data to the Licensee at any time without reason by sending an email to onlineservice@springernature.com.
 XI. 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 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 endeavor 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 privacy the Privacy Shield and EU Model Clauses. You can find further information about the aforementioned safeguards by following this link [https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection\_en](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en)