Depending on how an individual interacts with JSOMER, the journal may process account, professional, editorial, publication, and technical information necessary for legitimate journal activities.

• identity and contact details, including name, email address, affiliation, country or territory, and ORCID iD;
• account credentials, professional profile, research interests, and reviewing expertise;
• manuscript, article, authorship, contributorship, funding, ethics, consent, data-availability, conflict-of-interest, and artificial-intelligence disclosures;
• submission and supplementary files, reviewer reports, editorial decisions, correspondence, proof corrections, and publication approvals;
• complaints, appeals, and research-integrity records;
• IP addresses, login records, access times, device or browser information, and other technical logs; and
• other information voluntarily supplied for a legitimate journal purpose.

Users should not upload personal or sensitive information that is unnecessary for manuscript evaluation, peer review, publication, or another legitimate journal activity.

JSOMER processes personal information to operate the journal and fulfill editorial, publishing, integrity, technical, and legal responsibilities. These purposes include:

• creating and managing user accounts;
• receiving, evaluating, reviewing, editing, producing, and publishing manuscripts;
• communicating with authors, reviewers, editors, and other contributors;
• selecting reviewers and managing double-blind peer review;
• recording editorial decisions and maintaining accountability;
• registering DOIs and distributing scholarly metadata;
• managing corrections, complaints, appeals, and integrity concerns;
• protecting accounts, maintaining website security, and resolving technical problems; and
• meeting applicable ethical, scholarly publishing, and legal obligations.

Personal information is not sold or provided to third parties for unrelated commercial marketing.

JSOMER uses double-blind peer review. Reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors during the ordinary review process. Manuscripts, reports, correspondence, and internal decision records are confidential.

Access is limited to persons with a legitimate role, including assigned editors and reviewers, authorized journal personnel, necessary production or technical providers, independent specialists consulted for ethical or methodological reasons, and competent institutions or authorities where disclosure is justified by a legitimate integrity, ethical, or legal concern.

Authors, reviewers, and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, or unpublished research data to unauthorized external artificial-intelligence systems.

A reviewer’s identity may be disclosed only with appropriate authorization, when required by law, when necessary for a legitimate investigation, or in another exceptional and properly justified circumstance.

When an article is accepted and published, information required for the scholarly record becomes public. This may include author names and order, affiliations, countries or territories, corresponding-author information, ORCID iDs, contributions, acknowledgments, funding and conflict disclosures, ethics and consent statements, Data Availability Statements, artificial-intelligence disclosures, article-history dates, licensing information, and relevant editorial-independence statements.

Published metadata may be distributed to Crossref, DOAJ, indexing and abstracting databases, scholarly search engines, repositories, library discovery systems, preservation services, and other legitimate scholarly infrastructures.

After metadata have been distributed, complete removal from every external service may not be technically possible. Material corrections are managed under the journal’s authorship and post-publication policies.

The journal platform or hosting infrastructure may process IP addresses, device and browser information, login and session activity, pages visited, access and download records, failed login attempts, error logs, and security events. These records support website operation, authentication, troubleshooting, cybersecurity, and aggregated usage statistics.

OJS may use cookies necessary for authentication, active sessions, interface or language preferences, and essential submission and editorial functions. Blocking essential cookies may prevent login, submission, peer review, or other platform functions from working correctly.

If JSOMER introduces nonessential analytics or tracking technologies, this statement will be updated and an appropriate user-choice mechanism will be provided where required.

JSOMER may share limited information with providers that support hosting, platform maintenance, email delivery, backup and security, DOI registration, similarity screening, copyediting, production, metadata distribution, indexing, repositories, and preservation. Providers should receive only the information reasonably necessary for the relevant function.

Because JSOMER serves an international scholarly community, personal information and public scholarly metadata may be processed or accessed in different countries for legitimate editorial, publishing, technical, indexing, preservation, integrity, or legal purposes.

JSOMER retains information for as long as reasonably necessary to operate the journal and preserve editorial and scholarly accountability.

User accounts

Account information may be retained while an account is active and for a reasonable period after inactivity or closure.

Submitted manuscripts

Submission files, reviewer reports, decisions, disclosures, ethics documentation, and relevant correspondence may be retained to document decisions, manage revisions, investigate concerns, resolve disputes, prevent duplicate submissions, protect peer-review integrity, and maintain accountability.

Published articles

Information forming part of a published article or its metadata may be retained permanently as part of the scholarly record.

Technical records

Security and technical logs may be retained for periods appropriate to operational, cybersecurity, troubleshooting, and legal needs.

Information that no longer needs to identify an individual may be deleted, restricted, aggregated, or anonymized where appropriate.

Subject to reasonable identity verification and applicable requirements, individuals may request information about data processed by JSOMER, access to or correction of personal information, account closure, deletion of information no longer necessary, restriction of particular processing, or removal from optional journal communications. Requests should be sent to editor@jsomer.org.

These requests are not absolute. JSOMER may retain information when necessary to preserve the scholarly record, document peer review and editorial decisions, investigate misconduct, resolve complaints or disputes, protect security, maintain DOI and publication metadata, comply with ethical or legal obligations, or establish and defend legitimate rights.

Closing an account does not automatically delete published authorship metadata, completed reviews, editorial decisions, or records required for scholarly accountability.

JSOMER seeks to use reasonable technical and administrative safeguards, including role-based access, authentication and password protection, HTTPS encryption, restricted administrative privileges, software maintenance, security logging, and appropriate backups.

No online system can guarantee absolute security. Users should protect their credentials, avoid account sharing, use strong passwords, and report suspicious activity promptly.

If JSOMER becomes aware of unauthorized access, loss, alteration, or disclosure of personal information, the journal will assess the incident and take reasonable containment, correction, and notification measures. Suspected incidents should be reported to editor@jsomer.org.

The JSOMER website may link to Crossref, ORCID, Creative Commons, institutional profiles, repositories, indexing databases, reporting-guideline websites, and other scholarly resources. External services operate under their own privacy and security policies. JSOMER is not responsible for an external service’s privacy practices merely because the journal provides a link.

JSOMER may update this statement in response to changes in OJS, service providers, workflows, security practices, scholarly communication services, or applicable privacy requirements. Material changes will be published on this page with an updated revision date.

This statement should be read together with the journal’s Ethical Principles and Publication Policy, Research Ethics and Informed Consent Policy, Research Data and Reproducibility Policy, Peer Review Policy, Reviewer Guidelines, Artificial Intelligence Policy, Authorship and Contributorship Policy, and Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern Policy.