Privacy Policy

Last updated: 28 August 2025

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP respects the privacy of authors, reviewers, editors, readers, website visitors, and other individuals who interact with its journals and publishing services. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, disclose, and protect personal data.

This policy applies to all journals, websites, manuscript-submission facilities, editorial systems, contact forms, mailing services, and other publishing activities operated by TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP.

1. Data Controller

The controller responsible for processing personal data is:

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP
Allee 1
45143 Essen
Germany

Privacy-related enquiries and requests may be sent by post to the above address or through the official Contact page of TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP.

2. Scope of This Policy

This Privacy Policy applies when an individual:

visits a publisher or journal website;
creates or uses an account;
submits a manuscript;
acts as an author, co-author, reviewer, editor, or editorial-board member;
submits an enquiry, complaint, correction, appeal, or allegation;
subscribes to journal announcements or publication updates;
participates in a survey, event, or other publishing activity; or
otherwise communicates with TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP.

3. Personal Data We Collect

Depending on the nature of an individual’s interaction with us, we may collect the following categories of personal data:

name, title, username, password, and account information;
email address, telephone number, postal address, and other contact details;
institutional affiliation, department, country, position, and professional biography;
academic qualifications, research interests, subject expertise, and publication history;
researcher identifiers, such as an ORCID iD, when voluntarily provided;
author names, affiliations, contributions, acknowledgements, funding statements, and competing-interest declarations;
submitted manuscripts, supplementary files, datasets, figures, tables, cover letters, and revisions;
peer-review reports, editorial assessments, recommendations, decisions, and related correspondence;
information contained in complaints, appeals, corrections, retractions, or research-integrity investigations;
mailing-list preferences and communication records;
IP address, browser type, device information, operating system, access time, referring page, and server-log information; and
cookie preferences and information collected through permitted website technologies.

All journals published by TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP operate under the Diamond Open Access model and do not charge article processing charges. We therefore do not ordinarily collect payment-card or billing information in connection with manuscript submission, peer review, acceptance, or publication.

4. Sources of Personal Data

We generally obtain personal data directly from the individual concerned. We may also receive information from:

a corresponding author submitting information about co-authors;
editors, reviewers, editorial-board members, or journal staff;
academic institutions and publicly accessible scholarly profiles;
bibliographic, researcher-identifier, indexing, DOI-registration, or archiving services;
individuals submitting complaints or research-integrity concerns; and
technical service providers supporting our websites and publishing systems.

A corresponding author who provides personal data relating to co-authors must ensure that those individuals have been appropriately informed about the submission and the processing of their personal data.

5. Purposes of Processing

We may process personal data for the following purposes:

operating and maintaining publisher and journal websites;
creating, authenticating, and managing user accounts;
receiving, recording, and evaluating manuscript submissions;
conducting editorial screening and single-blind peer review;
selecting and inviting qualified reviewers and editors;
communicating editorial decisions, revision requests, proofs, and publication information;
copyediting, typesetting, producing, publishing, correcting, and archiving articles;
registering DOIs and distributing bibliographic metadata;
submitting journal and article information to indexing, abstracting, discovery, and preservation services;
detecting plagiarism, duplicate publication, manipulation, fraud, and other threats to research integrity;
investigating complaints, appeals, authorship disputes, ethical concerns, and alleged misconduct;
maintaining the accuracy and integrity of the scholarly record;
protecting websites, publishing systems, accounts, and users from misuse or unauthorized access;
responding to enquiries and administrative requests;
sending newsletters or journal announcements where consent has been obtained or another lawful basis applies;
complying with legal, regulatory, contractual, and professional obligations; and
establishing, exercising, or defending legal claims.

6. Legal Bases for Processing

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP processes personal data only when a lawful basis applies. Depending on the activity, processing may be based on:

Consent: where an individual has consented to optional cookies, mailing-list communications, surveys, or another specific activity. Consent may be withdrawn at any time.
Performance of a contract or pre-contractual steps: where processing is necessary to manage accounts, manuscript submissions, publication arrangements, or agreed publishing services.
Compliance with a legal obligation: where processing is required under applicable law, a court order, or a binding regulatory requirement.
Legitimate interests: where processing is necessary for scholarly publishing, peer review, editorial management, research-integrity protection, website security, fraud prevention, record keeping, service improvement, or the defence of legal rights, provided that those interests are not overridden by the individual’s rights and freedoms.

7. Manuscript Submission and Peer Review

Personal data supplied during manuscript submission are used to administer the editorial and publication process. Author names, affiliations, contact information, contribution statements, funding information, competing-interest declarations, and manuscript files may be made available to the journal’s editors and authorized editorial personnel.

All TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP journals use a single-blind peer-review process. The identities and affiliations of authors are normally disclosed to reviewers. Reviewer identities are normally kept confidential from authors and from the public, unless disclosure is authorized by the reviewer, required by law, or necessary for a properly conducted investigation.

Editors and reviewers must treat unpublished manuscripts, review reports, editorial correspondence, and associated personal data as confidential. Such information must not be used for personal advantage or disclosed to unauthorized persons.

Relevant manuscript and reviewer information may be processed by authorized editors, reviewers, journal staff, technical providers, plagiarism-detection services, language editors, copyeditors, typesetters, and production personnel where necessary for the publishing process.

8. Information Published with Articles

When an article is accepted, certain information is intentionally made public as part of the scholarly record. This may include:

author names;
institutional affiliations;
corresponding-author contact information;
ORCID identifiers;
author-contribution statements;
funding and acknowledgement information;
competing-interest declarations; and
biographical information voluntarily approved for publication.

Published articles are openly available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. Published author information and bibliographic metadata may be distributed to DOI-registration agencies, libraries, repositories, indexing services, archiving systems, and scholarly search platforms.

Because published articles form part of the permanent scholarly record, removing published author names or essential bibliographic information may not always be possible. Requests for correction will be considered in accordance with applicable law, publishing-ethics standards, and the need to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record.

9. Sensitive and Special-Category Data

Authors must not include unnecessary personal, confidential, or sensitive information in manuscripts or supplementary files. Where research involves human participants or personal data, authors are responsible for obtaining all required ethics approvals, permissions, and informed consent and for applying appropriate anonymization or pseudonymization.

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP may process sensitive information contained in submitted material only where necessary for editorial assessment, publication, ethical review, or legal compliance and where such processing is permitted by applicable law.

10. Website Logs and Technical Data

When a person accesses our websites, our servers may automatically record technical information such as the IP address, date and time of access, requested page, browser type, operating system, referring website, and server response.

This information may be processed to:

deliver website content;
maintain website stability and security;
identify technical problems;
prevent unauthorized access, abuse, and cyberattacks; and
generate limited operational statistics.

Server-log information is not used to identify visitors unless this is necessary to investigate misuse, protect our systems, comply with the law, or establish or defend legal claims.

11. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our websites may use cookies or similar technologies that are strictly necessary to provide requested functions, maintain sessions, secure user accounts, remember privacy preferences, and operate manuscript-submission facilities.

Where analytics, advertising, embedded media, social-media functions, or other non-essential technologies are used, they will be activated only where an appropriate legal basis exists and, where required, after the visitor has provided consent.

Visitors may accept, reject, or manage optional cookies through the cookie-consent controls made available on the website. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.

Blocking strictly necessary cookies may prevent certain account, submission, authentication, or security functions from working correctly.

12. Email Communications and Announcements

We may send administrative messages that are necessary for manuscript handling, peer review, editorial decisions, account security, corrections, journal operations, or other requested services.

Promotional messages, newsletters, calls for papers, and general journal announcements will be sent only where consent or another lawful basis applies. Recipients may unsubscribe from optional communications by using the unsubscribe facility included in the message or by contacting the publisher.

Unsubscribing from promotional communications does not prevent us from sending necessary administrative or editorial messages connected with an active submission, review assignment, editorial role, or legal obligation.

13. Disclosure of Personal Data

Personal data may be disclosed, where necessary, to:

journal editors and authorized editorial personnel;
peer reviewers and editorial-board members;
website-hosting and manuscript-management providers;
email, cloud-storage, cybersecurity, and technical-support providers;
plagiarism-detection and research-integrity services;
copyeditors, language editors, typesetters, and production providers;
DOI-registration, indexing, abstracting, repository, and archiving services;
professional advisers, auditors, insurers, and legal representatives;
research institutions or ethics bodies when investigating a substantiated integrity concern; and
courts, law-enforcement agencies, regulators, and public authorities where disclosure is legally required.

Service providers that process personal data on our behalf are required, where applicable, to act under appropriate contractual, confidentiality, security, and data-protection obligations.

14. Sale of Personal Data

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP does not sell or rent personal data. Personal data are not disclosed to third parties for their independent direct-marketing activities without an appropriate legal basis.

15. International Data Transfers

Scholarly publishing is international. Authors, reviewers, editors, service providers, indexing services, and archiving systems may be located outside Germany or the European Economic Area.

Where personal data are transferred to a country outside the European Economic Area, TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP will use a lawful transfer mechanism where required. This may include:

a European Commission adequacy decision;
approved standard contractual clauses;
appropriate contractual and organizational safeguards; or
another transfer mechanism permitted by applicable data-protection law.

Additional information about applicable safeguards may be requested through the publisher’s official Contact page.

16. Data Retention

Personal data are retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes for which they were collected, including editorial administration, scholarly-record preservation, research-integrity review, legal compliance, dispute resolution, and the defence of legal claims.

Retention periods may depend on:

whether a manuscript was accepted, rejected, withdrawn, or published;
the need to maintain an editorial audit trail;
the possibility of duplicate-submission or misconduct investigations;
contractual, legal, regulatory, or archiving requirements;
the sensitivity and volume of the information;
the existence of a complaint, appeal, dispute, or legal claim; and
the continuing need to preserve the scholarly record.

Published articles, publication metadata, corrections, retractions, and related records may be retained permanently because they form part of the scholarly record.

When personal data are no longer required, they will be deleted, anonymized, or securely restricted, subject to applicable legal and archival requirements.

17. Data Security

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP applies appropriate technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure, misuse, or access.

Measures may include access controls, authentication, role-based permissions, secure transmission, backups, malware protection, system monitoring, confidentiality requirements, staff guidance, and procedures for responding to security incidents.

No internet-based service can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Users are responsible for protecting their login credentials and should notify the publisher promptly if they suspect unauthorized access to their accounts.

18. Personal Data Breaches

Where a personal data breach occurs, TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP will assess the nature and likely consequences of the incident and take appropriate remedial measures.

The competent supervisory authority and affected individuals will be notified where notification is required by applicable data-protection law.

19. Individual Data-Protection Rights

Subject to the conditions and limitations established by applicable law, individuals may have the right to:

request confirmation of whether their personal data are being processed;
obtain access to their personal data;
request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information;
request deletion of personal data;
request restriction of processing;
receive certain personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format;
request transmission of eligible data to another controller;
object to processing based on legitimate interests;
withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent;
object to direct marketing; and
submit a complaint to a competent data-protection supervisory authority.

These rights are not absolute. A request may be limited where processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, protect the rights of others, establish or defend legal claims, maintain confidentiality, or preserve the integrity of the scholarly record.

Before acting on a request, we may ask for information reasonably necessary to confirm the requester’s identity and protect personal data from unauthorized disclosure.

20. Right to Object

Where processing is based on legitimate interests, an individual may object on grounds relating to that individual’s particular situation. We will stop the relevant processing unless we demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override the individual’s interests, rights, and freedoms or unless processing is required for the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims.

An individual may object to direct-marketing processing at any time. After such an objection, the individual’s personal data will no longer be used for direct marketing.

21. Withdrawal of Consent

Where processing is based on consent, consent may be withdrawn at any time through the relevant website settings, an unsubscribe facility, or a request sent to the publisher.

Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the consent was withdrawn. It may, however, prevent us from providing an optional service that depends on the relevant processing.

22. Automated Decision-Making

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP does not make final manuscript acceptance or rejection decisions solely through automated processing.

Software may be used to support similarity screening, technical checks, reviewer identification, security monitoring, or administrative processing. Editorial decisions remain subject to appropriate human assessment and oversight.

23. Children’s Privacy

Our journal websites and scholarly publishing services are intended primarily for researchers, academics, professionals, students, institutions, and adult readers. They are not designed to collect personal data directly from children.

Where we learn that a child’s personal data have been collected without an appropriate lawful basis or authorization, we will take reasonable steps to delete or restrict the information.

24. Third-Party Websites and Services

Our websites may contain links to external websites, repositories, indexing services, researcher-identifier platforms, social networks, or other third-party services.

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP is not responsible for the privacy practices, security, or content of independent third parties. Users should review the privacy policies of external services before providing personal data to them.

25. Research-Integrity Investigations

Where credible concerns arise regarding authorship, plagiarism, data fabrication, peer-review manipulation, conflicts of interest, ethical approval, or other forms of possible misconduct, relevant personal data may be retained and shared with editors, institutions, ethics committees, funders, publishers, legal advisers, or competent authorities where necessary and lawful.

Information will be limited to what is reasonably necessary for the investigation, the protection of affected individuals, and the integrity of the scholarly record.

26. Changes to This Privacy Policy

TECHFORUM PUBLISHING GROUP may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in law, technology, publishing practices, website functions, or data-processing activities.

The revised version will be published on this page with an updated revision date. Material changes may also be communicated through the website or another appropriate method.

27. Contact and Privacy Requests

Questions, objections, requests to exercise data-protection rights, and concerns about the processing of personal data may be addressed to: