Privacy & Cookies

Applies to the ESS Press book line: books, monographs, chapters, and conference proceedings. Journal articles and their user accounts are governed by the policies of the respective journals on their websites.

1) Principles and legal bases

ESS Press processes personal data in accordance with applicable law and the principles of lawfulness, minimization, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity, and confidentiality. We rely on legal bases comparable to the GDPR, including:

  • contract performance (publishing agreement, license to publish);
  • legitimate interests (peer-review administration, protecting the integrity of the scholarly record);
  • legal obligations;
  • consent — for optional communications (newsletters) and for “Analytics/Marketing” cookie categories.

2) What data we collect

During submission and production (authors/editors): name, position/affiliation, ORCID, contact details, biographical and bibliographic information, funding/support and funder role, COI declarations, author agreements, version history/correspondence, manuscript files and attachments (figures, data, permissions).

During peer review (reviewers): name, affiliation, contact details, areas of expertise, invitation/acceptance history, review reports, COI forms.

Web data: event logs (IP address, user agent, date/time), cookie preferences.

Financial/contractual: agreement details, invoices and payment records (minimum necessary fields only).

Special category data: generally not requested. Where research involves personal data of participants, relevant information and legal bases are documented in the Data Availability Statement and in ethics documentation (IRB/IACUC), where applicable.

3) Purposes of processing

  • editorial handling of manuscripts, organization and recordkeeping of peer review;
  • concluding and performing agreements, assigning identifiers (DOI/ISBN), publication and dissemination;
  • communications on status updates, rights requests, corrections/retractions;
  • service quality assurance, security, and abuse prevention;
  • website usage statistics (aggregated/anonymized analytics, where consent for cookies is provided).

4) Who we share data with

  • production contractors (editors, proofreaders, typesetters) under data-processing agreements;
  • infrastructure providers (hosting, email distribution, DOI registrars/metadata services);
  • authorities where required by law (tax/regulators);
  • for ethics cases — independent experts/boards (minimum necessary data only).

We do not sell personal data.

5) International transfers

Where data are transferred outside your jurisdiction, we apply appropriate safeguards (standard contractual clauses and additional security measures).

6) Retention periods

  • editorial records, agreements, correspondence: typically 5 years after publication/project closure (or longer where required by law or to preserve the scholarly record);
  • accounting records: as required by local law;
  • web analytics data (with consent): typically 24 months;
  • reviewer records (participation metadata): until a request for deletion/anonymization or until no longer required for editorial purposes.

7) Your rights

Subject to applicable law, you may request: access, rectification, restriction, portability, objection to legitimate interest processing, and erasure (except for data necessary to preserve the integrity of the published scholarly record and/or to meet legal obligations). Requests should be sent to policies@ess.press. We respond within a reasonable timeframe and explain cases where full erasure is not possible (e.g., publication metadata and the integrity of peer-review records).

8) Security

We apply technical and organizational measures, including: encryption in transit, role-based access control, activity logs, confidentiality obligations for staff/contractors, regular backups, and testing of recovery procedures.

9) Cookies

  • Strictly Necessary — essential site functions and form authentication; enabled by default.
  • Analytics — aggregated visit statistics (enabled only with consent).
  • Preferences/Marketing — not used by default; enabled only upon explicit opt-in.
  • You can change your settings via the cookie banner or in your browser settings. Declining Analytics does not affect access to content.

10) Contacts and complaints

Questions and data-subject requests: policies@ess.press