PRIVACY POLICY

Kidney Cancer Journal(KCJ) is committed to protecting your personal information and will make every reasonable effort to handle collected information appropriately under the applicable regulations and guiding ethical principles. All information collected will be handled with care in accordance with KCJ’ standards for integrity and objectivity and respect for your privacy. KCJ endeavors to comply with all laws and regulations that apply to the gathering and use of personal information, including US privacy laws and the EU General Data Protection Regulation. This privacy policy describes the information we collect, the purposes for which it is used, and your choices regarding its use. As used in this privacy policy, “we” and “us” includes KCJ and our staff, employees, officers, directors, volunteer editors and reviewers, and vendors and independent contractors under contract with us. “KCJ Sites” includes the following: the web pages and content on the KCJ websites, journal sites, and KCJ or third party tools, software, submission systems, web forms, registration system, and any other means through which we interact with you.

  • What is Personal Data?
  • Information We Collect
  • Protection of Personal Information
  • Using and Disclosing Your Information
  • Data Retention
  • Third Party Websites
  • Sending you Email Communications
  • Changes to this Privacy Policy
  • Additional Terms for European Economic Area Residents
  • How to Contact Us Regarding Your Personal Information

WHAT IS PERSONAL DATA?

Personal Data (also referred to in this policy as Personal Information) means any information relating to a natural person (data subject) who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier, or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity of that person. The first line of the definition contains four elements that are the foundation of determining whether information should be considered as personal data:

  1. “any information”
  2. “relating to”
  3. “an identified or identifiable”
  4. “natural person”

INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Personal Information

The information collected may be used by KCJ for the purpose of providing you with the content you request, operating and improving the KCJ Websites, fostering a positive user experience, and delivering the products and services that we offer. We request personal information from you while interacting with the KCJ Sites, as follows:

  • When you register on a KCJ Site for updates or to receive other types of notifications from us, we will ask for your email address to enable us to send you the information you have requested.
  • If you want to submit a manuscript or other research output to KCJ for consideration or for posting on our sites or as a preprint, we will ask for the following information so that we may consider, process, and possibly publish your manuscript, in conformance with accepted publishing standards: your name, title, telephone number, email address, institution, department, address, and credit card or other payment information. You may voluntarily provide us with additional information to help us identify and contact you, such as your middle name, degree, preferred name, secondary phone number, fax number, position, state or province, and areas of interest or expertise. If you want to submit a public comment on our website, we will ask for the following information: email, first name, and last name. Your display name, which is auto-generated to include your first initial, last name and randomly selected number(s), will be made public along with your comment. If you request that your account be deleted, your comment will remain on our website but your display name will no longer be associated with your comment.
  • If you register on a KCJ Site, we will gather and store your username and password to identify you at sign-in and to administer your account.

Additionally, KCJ may process some basic personal information about you (email address, name and research interest) that is publicly available to register you as a potential reviewer and expert or to contact you about publishing with KCJ on a particular topic. If you do not wish to be contacted as a potential reviewer or for possible publication with KCJ, you can email us at privacy@kidney-cancer-journal. We will keep some of your personal information to recall your request not to be contacted in the future.

Finally, we may collect demographic information about you, such as gender and ethnic origin. We usually collect and use this information on an anonymized basis. If you provide demographic information to KCJ, you do so voluntarily and KCJ will collect, store and use your demographic information in accordance with this privacy policy.

PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use reasonable and appropriate physical, technical, and administrative safeguards to protect your information from unauthorized use, access, loss, misuse, alteration, or destruction. We endeavor to protect the personal information we receive, gather and store, by such means as password protection, firewalls and other means. We also require that third party service providers acting on our behalf or with whom we share your information also provide appropriate security measures in accordance with industry standards.

Transmissions over the internet are never entirely secure and we cannot guarantee the security of information you submit via a KCJ Site while it is in transit over the internet. Any such transmission of information by you over the internet is at your own risk.

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

If, in your interactions with the KCJ 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, and are not responsible for 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 and to review the third party’s privacy policy for information on its data processing practice.

Technical Information

By generally visiting or otherwise interacting with the KCJ Sites, we 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 KCJ Sites, and certain information known as “clickstream data” to enable us to understand how people interact with the KCJ Sites, to analyze data for trends and statistics, to help diagnose and solve issues with the KCJ Sites and our technologies, products, and services, and to optimize the performance of the KCJ Sites. We use click view data to provide statistics on articles such as number of views and downloads. We also use session cookies, as described below. From time to time, we use software tools to play back user sessions for our internal use in assessing our customers’ interactions with our software, and these sessions may be linked to your user account.

Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

KCJ and our third-party partners, such as analytics and advertising partners, use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect information.

What are (online) cookies?

A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard drive by a webpage server. We use cookies to deliver faster and more accurate results and a more personalized site experience.

  • Duration. Cookies can be “persistent” or “session” based. Persistent cookies remain on your computer after your browser is closed. Session cookies are deleted automatically once your browser is closed. KCJ only uses session cookies.
  • Category. First party cookies are served directly by us to your computer or device. Third-party cookies are served by a third party on our behalf. The KCJ Sites have both first party and third-party cookies.

Other Tracking Technologies

We also use technologies that are similar to cookies, such as tags. Tags are small portions of code which we use on the KCJ Sites to learn whether you have clicked on certain web content.

How KCJ Uses Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

  • Where necessary. These cookies are essential to operating the KCJ Sites. They help us, for example, remember that you have logged in, so you are not required to log in each time you visit the KCJ Sites.
  • For functionality. These cookies and other technologies remember your preferences, letting you navigate KCJ Sites efficiently.
  • For performance and analytics. These cookies and technologies analyze how the KCJ Sites are accessed, used, or performing to improve your user experience and to maintain, operate and continually improve the KCJ Sites. For example, we use Google Analytics on the KCJ Sites to collect: page url/page title and user browser/system information, which includes browser type, referrer, language, java/flash support, IP address, and ad-serving data.
  • For advertising. These cookies deliver contextual advertisements on the KCJ Sites and help third-parties serve you targeted advertisements based on your browsing history.

How to Manage Cookies and Analytics

To opt-out of our use of cookies, change your browser settings to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting cookies from websites you visit. Please note that by not accepting cookies, some pages may not fully function and you may not be able to access certain information on the KCJ Sites.

We also use a Google-provided tool called reCAPTCHA, which, on some form submissions, is intended to distinguish humans from robots in order to prevent spam and abuse of those forms. For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. To opt-out of Google Analytics, visit Google’s “How you can control the information collected by Google on these sites and apps” article available here.

“Do-Not-Track”

KCJ does not respond to web browser “Do-Not-Track” signals. We do not serve targeted advertisements on the KCJ Sites or otherwise engage in behavioral advertising at this time.

Children’s Privacy

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

HOW WE USE AND DISCLOSE YOUR INFORMATION

KCJ uses your personal information as described in the “INFORMATION WE COLLECT” section, to customize your experience on the KCJ Sites and facilitate our interactions with you.

If you are an author, we use your personal information for the purpose of processing, reviewing, communicating about, facilitating editorial review and peer review, for publishing, and to facilitate payment of article processing charges. If you are an editor or reviewer, we use your personal information to contact you about your potential or actual role as an editor or reviewer, to request and facilitate your review and handling of manuscripts, and to update you on news and developments at KCJ as it may affect your work with us.

If an author chooses to publish their peer review history, we make the manuscript review process available to the public when an article is published, including the contents of emails and other communications between reviewers, editors and authors via a KCJ Site. If you write a blog for the KCJ blog, your name and biography (as provided by you) will be made public.

We may also use your personal information to assist with improving the peer review system and scientific communication, as part of KCJ’s ongoing research program on the processes we use in the course of manuscript handling. If you provide demographic information to KCJ as described in the “INFORMATION WE COLLECT” section above, then we usually collect and use this information on an anonymized basis so that you will not be identified from it unless we tell you otherwise. We will use that information only for internal diversity tracking purposes. If you simply visit KCJ Sites to read content, we will use information such as your URL and cookies to provide a good experience, as described in the “INFORMATION WE COLLECT” section. We may also collect your name, email, address and phone number at conferences or events.

Disclosure to Third Parties

If you submit a manuscript or other research content to us for possible publication, we will send the title and abstract of your manuscript, and your name, to one or more potential external/volunteer editors and reviewers to gauge their interest in reviewing your content. If they agree to review your content, we will send them your full manuscript and any revisions and relevant comments you have provided. If your manuscript is accepted for publication, we share information about you, your manuscript, or other research content as reasonably necessary with volunteer curators and channel managers. In addition to volunteer curators and channel managers, we may share the foregoing information with journalists prior to publication for the purpose of promoting your work.

If you choose to publish your manuscript as a preprint, we send your manuscript to our preprint partner(s) for posting of your manuscript.

If a paper is published or posted as a preprint, the following information appears as part of the paper: author’s name, role, email address, affiliation, any competing interests, editor’s name, and affiliation. The foregoing information will also be included in the article XML and syndicated to third parties. If an author chooses to publish their peer review history, then the contents of emails and other communications between reviewers, editors and authors via a KCJ Site will be made public. If you are a reviewer and provide us with your consent, we will disclose your name as part of the peer review history when an article is published and the author has chosen to publish the peer review history. To remove your name from the peer review history after disclosure to the public, you can email privacy@kidney-cancer-journal.com.

We may also disclose personal information as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this privacy policy to other third parties, as follows:

  • Vendors, independent contractors, and consultants to enable us to provide products and services, such as financial institutions (for facilitating payment of fees owed), web and technical support providers (such as hosting providers and customer service and support providers), and third parties who provide syndication and preprints
  • Other publishers
  • To respond to claims asserted against us or comply with legal process (e.g., subpoenas or warrants), or lawful requests from government or law enforcement authorities (as required to meet national security or law enforcement requirements), and to enforce or comply with our agreements, terms of use, and this privacy policy
  • Third parties that conduct research for KCJ to improve the peer review system and scientific communication
  • To comply with applicable law, or as required or permitted by law
  • Where it is in our legitimate interests, under relevant law, to run, grow and develop our organization in order to expand the impact of science and medicine
  • If we sell any business or assets, we may disclose your personal information to the buyer of such business or assets
  • If substantially all of our or any of our affiliates’ assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal information held by us will be one of the transferred assets
  • To protect the safety of any person or to prevent any illegal activity
  • To protect the rights, property, or safety of KCJ, our staff, our users or other persons. This may include exchanging personal information with other organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction
  • To uphold the integrity of research in cases of suspected research integrity breaches
    • 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. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third party services or applications. We recommend carefully reviewing the user terms and privacy statement of each third party service, website, and/or application prior to use.

      KCJ will never disclose demographic information, described in the “INFORMATION WE COLLECT” section above, to third parties, unless it has been anonymized or otherwise deidentified.

      No Sale or Leasing of Your Information

      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.

      DATA RETENTION

      We keep your personal information for as long as is necessary to provide services to you, and for as long as your account and/or registration with KCJ is active. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce our agreements.

      SENDING YOU EMAIL COMMUNICATIONS

      Except in countries or jurisdictions where it is not being 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 KCJ Sites. Email communications will be sent on an opt out basis to any recipient who has registered or signed up for KCJ services and did not opt out.

      Where required by law, we may process your personal information for marketing purposes on the basis of your consent.

      You can opt out of receiving such communications at any time by using the unsubscribe link(s) in emails we send you or by emailing us at privacy@kidney-cancer-journal.com. You can opt out of receiving such communications by using the unsubscribe link(s) in emails we send you or by emailing us at privacy@kidney-cancer-journal.com.

      CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

      KCJ may make changes to this privacy policy from time to time. Changes to this privacy policy will be made by updating this page. Please visit this privacy policy regularly to read the current version. If there are material changes to how we use your personal information, we will endeavor to provide you with reasonable notice of such changes to your email address of record.

      Cross Border Transfers

      KCJ is headquartered in the United States and service providers both in the United States and throughout the world. As such, KCJ and our service providers may transfer your personal information to, or access it in, jurisdictions that may not provide equivalent levels of data protection as your home jurisdiction. To the extent required by applicable law, KCJ will take measures to protect the cross-border transfer of your information.

      If you are located outside the U.S., by submitting personal information to us, you understand this information will be transferred to KCJ in the U.S., which may not have equivalent privacy and data protection laws to the country in which you reside. If you do not want your personal information transferred to the U.S., please do not submit any information to us or use our services.

      Legal Basis for Use of Your Information

      The information we require, as identified in the “INFORMATION WE COLLECT” section of this privacy policy, is processed under the following legal basis:

      KCJ’s legitimate interests. This includes:

      • to enable KCJ to provide our products and services to you
      • finding and contacting qualified reviewers to ensure the high level of articles published in a KCJ journal, as applicable
      • contacting authors and other academics to ensure they are aware when KCJ is calling for papers for relevant journals
      • to ensure compliance with publishing standards
      • for marketing to individuals at businesses/corporate addresses and to our subscribers, market research and business development
      • for analytics, to gather metrics to better understand how users use the KCJ Sites, to evaluate and improve the KCJ Sites, and to provide KCJ’ users with this information, where applicable
      • to provide information on KCJ publication fees and other relevant terms with institutions or consortia, where applicable
      • to prevent fraud and other illegal activity
      • the legitimate interests of others (for example, to ensure the security of our website)
      • to comply with legal obligations, as part of our general business operations, and for other internal business administration purposes
      • if we collect demographic information from you (such as gender and ethnic origin) in order to carry out diversity monitoring and such information is not collected in an anonymous format, then we rely on our legitimate interest to do so.
      • Consent. Where required by law, we may process your personal information in some cases for marketing purposes on the basis of your consent (which you may withdraw at any time after giving it, as described in this privacy policy). Otherwise, email communication will be sent on an opt out basis to any recipient who has registered or signed up to KCJ services and did not opt out.
      • Contractual obligations. For the performance of contractual obligations between you and KCJ, including the KCJ Terms of Use.

      YOUR RIGHTS

      Deletion of Personal Information

      You may be entitled to request that we delete your personal information. If you wish to exercise this right, please submit your request at privacy@kidney-cancer-journal.com. Your personal information will be deleted but we will retain your request to delete to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim and for our legitimate interest, as described in the “LEGAL BASIS FOR USE OF YOUR INFORMATION” section, in recalling your request to delete. If you are an author and have submitted a manuscript or other research outputs to KCJ, or you are an editor or reviewer that has reviewed manuscripts or other research outputs submitted to KCJ, your personal data will be deleted except for that personal data that is necessary for KCJ to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim; for archiving scientific research; and for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information. Such personal data includes your name, institutional affiliation, title and email address. If your article has been published or posted as a preprint, the following additional personal data will be retained for purposes of archiving scientific research: author’s role, ORCID iD, and any competing interests.

      Access, Update, Data Portability and Other Rights

      You may also be entitled to access your information, update your personal information which is out of date or incorrect, restrict use of your personal information in certain specific circumstances, place a data portability request (applicable only when we use your personal information on the basis of your consent or performance of a contract, and where our use of your information is carried out by automated means), and ask us to consider any valid objections which you have to our use of your personal information where we process it on the basis of our or another person’s legitimate interest. Requests should be directed to privacy@kidney-cancer-journal.com.

      We will consider all such requests and provide our response within a reasonable period (but no longer than 30 days from our receipt of your request unless we tell you we are entitled to a longer period under applicable law). We may require you to verify your identity before we respond to any of your requests. Certain personal information may be exempt from such requests in certain circumstances, as provided for in this privacy policy.

      HOW TO CONTACT US REGARDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

      If you have any questions about this privacy policy, you may contact us privacy@kidney-cancer-journal.com

      Your use of the KCJ and related websites shall indicate your understanding and acceptance of the terms of this Privacy Statement. If you do not agree with all the terms herein, you should not use the KCJ and related websites or services.