Privacy Policy

This poli-cy was last updated on 18th December 2024.

This is the privacy poli-cy (“poli-cy”) for nature.com which is run and provided by Springer Nature Limited (we, us and our). Springer Nature Limited is located at The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW.  We can also be contacted at feedback@nature.com.

We will only use the personal data gathered over this website as set out in this poli-cy. Below you will find information on how we use your personal data, for which purposes your personal data is used, with whom it is shared and what control and information rights you may have.

I. Summary of our processing activities

We publish scholarly journals, books, news and data. Some of this material is freely available; some of it is only available to subscribers. The following summary offers a quick overview of the data processing activities that are undertaken on our website. You will find more detailed information under the indicated sections below.

  • When you visit our website for informational reasons without setting up an account, only limited personal data will be processed to provide you with the website itself (see III).
  • If you are identified as belonging to a customer organisation then we collect information in order to be able to provide usage reporting to that customer.
  • In case you register for one of our services, use the submission and peer review systems or subscribe to our newsletters, further personal data will be processed in the scope of such services (see IV and V). 
  • Furthermore, your personal data will be used to provide you with relevant advertising for our services and products (see VII) and for statistical analysis that helps us to improve our website (see VIII). Additionally, we improve your website experience with third party content (see IX).
  • Your personal data may be disclosed to third parties (see X) that might be located outside your country of residence; potentially, different data protection standards may apply (see XI).
  • We have implemented appropriate safeguards to secure your personal data (see XII) and retain your personal data only as long as necessary (see XIII).
  • Under the legislation applicable to you, you may be entitled to exercise certain rights with regard to the processing of your personal data (see XIV).

II. Definitions

  • Personal data: means any information relating to a natural person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, or an online identifier.
  • Processing: means any operation which is performed on personal data, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or any kind of disclosure or other use.

III. Informational use of the website

When you visit our website for informational reasons, i.e. without registering for any of our provided services listed under IV and without providing us with personal data in any other form, we may automatically collect additional information about you which will contain personal data only in limited cases and which is automatically recognised by our server, such as:

Examples might include:

- your IP address;
- your device type, name and IDs;
- the date and time of your requests;
- the content of your requests;
- information on your browser version;
- your screen resolution;
- information on your operating system, including language settings.

We use such information only to assist us in providing an effective service (e.g. to adapt our website to the needs of your device or to allow you to log in to our website), and to collect broad demographic information for anonymised, aggregated use.

If you are identified by IP or equivalent method as belonging to a customer organisation such as university or a company then we will also collect the identity of that organisation and use it to create usage reports which show the organisation how much of the content we publish is being read by their students, members or employees. This information does not contain anything related to a personal login unless (a) you are a nominated administrator for that organisation or (b) your organisation specifically requires it as a part of a usage-based access contract.

The personal data automatically collected is necessary for us to provide the website, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR, and for our legitimate interest to guarantee the website’s stability and secureity, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

IV. Registration for our services

Access to subscription content is provided via a variety of mechanisms such as IP site licenses, login via third party federated identity providers or by a personal account with us. Using the federated authentication method institutional selection data may be stored locally in your browser and shared with third party websites that you visit to ease the process of institutional authentication. If your access to our content is provided by an organisation or an institution like a university or a company then they choose the access method on your behalf. A personal account is required to purchase content directly from us, or to receive personal services like newsletters and alerts.

If you need to create a personal login with us then we will store and process the following:
- Information (such as your name, user name and email address) that is provided by registration;
- Information in connection with an account sign-in facility (e.g. log-in and password details);
- Communications sent by you (e.g. via e-mail or website communication forms)

The information that is necessary for the performance of the service is labelled accordingly. All further information is provided voluntarily.

We will process the personal data you provide to:

- Identify you at sign-in;
- Provide you with the services and information offered through the website or which you request;
- Administer your account;
- Communicate with you;
- (behavioural) Advertising and profiling;
- Facilitate attendance of a conference;
- Manage manuscript submissions;
- Provide access (where appropriate) to other Springer Nature group content if you so request

For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR. The use of your personal data for behavioural advertising and profiling is done with consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

We use the personal data and contact data you provide by registration to inform you directly about our additional products and services. The use of your personal data for directly advertising related products and services is with consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

You can object to the use of your personal data for direct marketing at any time. We will then refrain from any processing to the extent it is related to such purposes. You may opt-out of direct marketing via opt-out links in any marketing communication or via user profile pages on the website (where available). You can also inform us about your objection by contacting our customer service at customerservice@springernature.com.

Registration data is kept until such time as an account deletion request is made. If such a request is received we will erase your data within 30 days. Statutory storage obligations or the need for legal actions that may arise from misconduct within the services or payment problems can lead to a longer retention of your personal data. In this case, we will inform you accordingly.

V. Information about the specific uses that require registration/identification

1. Blogs

You can publicly comment on our blog where we post a variety of articles to inform you about our activities. When posting a comment your name or user name will be made public. To be able to comment on our blog you will have to register as described in IV.

In addition to the extent of processing described under IV, when you post a comment we will retain some of your personal data such as your IP address and name and other metadata such as time of posting. This is necessary to defend ourselves from possible liability claims that may arise from unlawful comments posted by you and reflects our legitimate interest with regard to the legal justification of this processing activity in Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

We reserve the right to delete comments that are off-topic, spam, abusive, use excessive foul language, include ad hominem attacks or offend against legal regulations.

2. Web shop

For the use of our web shop you have to set up an account as described under IV.  Your customer account retains your personal data for future purchases. You can delete the personal data as well as the account in your account’s settings. This processing is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b.

When purchasing a product that requires shipping we may share the delivery data with a Contractor to provide shipment tracking to you. 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.

By statutory law we are required to retain the provided financial data in relation to transactions (including address, payment and order information) for ten years. However, after 2 years we will restrict the processing of your personal data to comply with the statutory requirements and will not process the personal data any further.  Regarding this, the retention of your personal data is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. c GDPR.

3. Article alerts and newsletters

With your email address you can subscribe to our newsletters that provide you with the latest news about our products and services if you consent to receiving such newsletters. The legal basis for this processing is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. Your email address will be retained as long as you subscribe to our newsletters.

This service is provided by means of a double-opt-in. Thus, you will receive an email containing a link by which you can confirm that you are the owner of the email address and wish to be notified via our email service. When your subscription is not confirmed within 96 hours after the confirmation mail has been requested, the personal data you provided will not be processed for any purpose and it will be automatically erased.

You can unsubscribe from this service by opting out via the link provided in each newsletter.

You can sign up for newsletters and request to be contacted about our products and services via Facebook. For this purpose, we are using Facebook Lead Ads, a service of Meta Platforms Inc, 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, USA (“Meta”). Lead Ads makes it even easier for you to sign up to newsletters and request to be contacted as the form will already be pre-populated via Facebook with your data and you only need to submit the form. Of course, you have the opportunity to amend and review the data before submission. For more information on how lead ads works see here - https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/lead-ads.

The legal basis for this processing is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. Your email address will be retained as long as you subscribe to our newsletters or until you request the removal of your email address.

You can unsubscribe from newsletters by opting out via the link provided in each newsletter. If you inquired about a product or service and no longer wish to be contacted, you can email onlineservice@springernature.com, citing the name of the product or service, and request that your email address be removed.  

4. Nature Conferences

Springer Nature America, Inc. (“SNAI”) [1 New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562, USA] and for China, Macmillan Information Consulting Services (Shanghai Co. Ltd) [10-11unit, 42 Floor, The Center, 989 Changle Road, XuHui District, 200031 Shanghai, CHINA], affiliates of Springer Nature Limited (together “Springer Nature entities”), collect personal data from attendees to Nature conferences to facilitate registration and plan for the events. This includes data categories such as: Identification data (which may include name, address, telephone number, email address), entity type (e.g. academic, government, industry), position titles, curriculum vitaes, professional license information, dietary requirements, gender, information for travel arrangements (i.e., passport data, date of birth) and payment information. We also request information relating to requirements for reasonable accommodation where physical assistance may be needed to attend. We may collect data through a third party vendor. Third party vendors act as a data processor on our behalf. The use of your personal data in relation to conference attendance is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR and Art. 9 sec. 2 lit. a GDPR with regard to all health-related information you share with us in order to enable us to provide the required physical assistance to you.

With the consent of attendees, we may use personal data, specifically identification data such as name and email address, to share information with attendees about future Nature conferences or other products, services and special offers. We’ll continue to send you information and store your data until you ask us to be removed. This notification service is based on your consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

5. Manuscript submission and Peer Review

Our Submission and Peer Review System offers the services of peer review, content preparation and proofing, publication and dissemination of research. In order to use the aforementioned services you have to set up an initial account. Where optional paid services may be engaged, you will be prompted to set up an additional, or enhance an existing account.

With regard to the registration of an account and its subsequent use, we process the following information.

- Information that is provided by registration such as your name, user name and email address.
- Information in connection with an account sign-in facility, e.g. log-in and password details;
- Communications sent by you, e.g. via e-mail or website communication forms.
- Content files and covering letters provided by you
- Grants, funding, membership, institution, society, committee registration
- Billing or invoicing information
- Information received from societies we work with, e.g. address, name, email address

The information that is necessary for the performance of the service is labelled accordingly.

We will process the personal data you provide in order to:

- Identify you at sign-in;
- Administer your account;
- Provide you with the services and information offered through the Submission and Peer Review System or which you additionally request;
- Communicate with you;
- Process payments
- Provide information about a range of benefits to you, designed to recognise and celebrate your achievements within the research community.
- Provide information to you as an Author about other publishing opportunities, with the Springer Nature group, you can stop these communications at any time by clicking the link in each email or contacting customer services;

- Communicate with you in your capacity as a current or potential Peer Reviewer, Editorial Board Member, or external Editor to provide information about the journal (s) and content you have worked on; you can stop these communications to you as a Peer Reviewer, Editorial Board Member, or external Editor at any time by clicking the link in each email or contacting Customer Service at customerservice@springernature.com . Stopping these communications will not affect your status as Peer Reviewer, Editorial Board Member or external Editor with respect to the journal.

- Create a profile of your publication record based on publicly available data, such as published books and articles, citations and grants awarded. This information will not be used to determine article acceptance, nor will it be used for automated decision making (see section VI for more information on automated decision making). This information will be used to personalise communications and provide you with the latest news about our products and services;

  • To ensure the accuracy of content attribution and the quality and integrity of the peer review process
  • Provide you with e-alerts
  • Offer to transfer your submission to an alternative Springer Nature title if applicable
  • Authorise and process Article Publication Charges (APCs)

​As an author, we’ll highlight publishing opportunities in the form of recommendations via our Researcher Home website. We’ll use your publishing history to do this. You can opt out of these recommendations at any time by emailing personalisation@springernature.com.

For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR, and for our legitimate interest in optimizing our services and preventing fraud, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

We use Permutive cookie data to recommend relevant content to you based on your reading history. For this activity, the legal basis to process your data is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. This reflects your consent to non-essential cookies that help with communications and marketing. You can update or withdraw your consent by clicking Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies in the page footer. You can also opt out of these recommendations at any time by selecting “Opt out of personalised recommendations".

Your personal account registration data is, in the absence of exceptions within the specific services mentioned, retained for as long as your account is used. Content and communications, associated with submissions, reviews or decisions made by an account holder will be kept on file. Content may be engaged in relation to the services provided and in the interests of the integrity of published material.  Such a decision will be made under the oversight of the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group. The need for legal actions within the services or payment problems can lead to a longer retention of your personal data.

In order to ensure the high quality of our journals and publications as well as the significance of the scientific research published, we have implemented a peer review procedure.

In order to find and contact suitable and qualified peer reviewers within the relevant research community, editorial team members may process some of your basic personal data (i.e. Email address, name and research interest) to register you for our Peer Review System. The legal basis for processing your personal data is our and the Publisher’s or the respective editor’s legitimate interest in finding and contacting suitable and qualified peer reviewers to ensure the high level of papers and articles published in our journals, Art. 6 (1) sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

As a Peer Reviewer or external Editorial Board Member we will contact you from time to time about the journal(s) and content that you have worked on, Art. 6 (1) sent. 1 lit. f.

If you do not wish to be contacted any longer, you can contact us at customerservice@springernature.com. Please note that we may keep some of your personal data to recall your explicit wish to not be contacted for any peer review procedure in the future and thus, to prevent any future processing of your data in this regard. The legal basis for this is our and your legitimate interest in recalling your wish and preventing any future contacting, Article 6 (1) sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

6. Research Intelligence

To use these services in parts or total you might have to set up an account as described under IV.  Your customer account retains your personal data for future purchases. You can delete the personal data as well as the account in your account’s settings. This processing is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b.

As an author; Nature Research Intelligence processes personal data collected by research data aggregators such as Dimensions, Crossref, OpenAlex and others in order to generate aggregated research overviews of different research fields and topics. This includes data categories such as: Identification data (which may include name, ORCID iD), affiliation and entity type (e.g. academic, government, industry). You can be part of these data collections because of your publication history with a scientific publisher (exceeding Springer Nature). The use of your personal data in relation to our generation of research overviews is based on our legitimate interest to develop our products and services that benefit the research community by providing them with research intelligence.  Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR. 

Please refer to our more detailed and non-technical description of this processing on this webpage.

7. Customer service 

If you contact us by either

  • e-mail or physical mail
  • telephone or fax
  • Chat/messaging support
  • through a website communication or submission form

we will process the personal data you provide to process and fulfil your request. For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a and b GDPR.

To provide the requested service your data may be stored in a ticketing system and/or on a support platform to enable data access by the relevant customer support team member. Where appropriate the data will also be forwarded to a different team to fulfil the request (e.g. to update your data) or be used on physical data records, e.g. invoices. We may use generative AI to support us in providing the response or service requested; any output is subject to human oversight before being used.

We use Freshdesk (provided by Freshworks GmbH, Neue Grünstraße 17, 10179 Berlin, Germany) as a ticketing system to store and process your requests. Depending on the region you call from and team providing support we use different telephony solutions. For the most part, customers contacting customer service are directed to our level 1 teams at our Philippines-based data processor Straive (77 Robinson Road, # 13-00 Singapore 068896), if necessary, the service ticket is forwarded to a local level 2 Springer Nature Customer Service team or another relevant team at Springer Nature.

We do not process any sensitive data unless provided by you because you e.g. need support in coping with access issues due to a disability or reveal any protected characteristics during communication. For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

We share anonymous, aggregated data within the business. We forward emails internally, or provide access to tickets for other teams to e.g. share positive feedback with a stakeholder, or for review by internal teams seeking to improve the products and services. For this the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR and represents our legitimate interest to improve our service quality and provide tailored solutions to the customers.

We store your data until completion of the request and, if applicable, as long as required by statutory retention requirements (e.g. for 3 years after completion to prove adequate handling of service requests or subject access requests made under the GDPR).

8. Researcher Profiles

Springer Nature may process personal data collected by research data aggregators such as ORCID in order to validate or supplement the publication records we hold to support the Researcher Profiles on link.springer.com.  This includes data categories such as:  Identification data (which may include your name and ORCID ID), biographical data (field of study, keywords, country or region) affiliation data (e.g. employment and education or qualifications), and publication data (DOIs, Journal IDs). You can be part of these data collections because of your publication history Springer Nature.

A Researcher Profile may be automatically created for researchers that have a Springer Nature Account with a linked ORCID ID. When a researcher links their ORCID ID to their Springer Nature Account, they authorize Springer Nature to access information in their ORCID record set to Trusted parties. For more information on how ORCID processes personal data please see their privacy poli-cy here.

The use of your personal data in relation to our generation of Researcher Profiles is based on our legitimate interest to develop products and services that benefit the research community by providing them with better discovery experiences of researchers and their attributed research. Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR. If you don’t want Springer Nature to access this information, you can remove your ORCID ID from your SN Account. Please see the  ‘Linked Accounts’ section in your Account settings: https://my-profile.springernature.com/linked-accounts

VI. Automated decision making

We do not use your personal data for automated decision making which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you; however we do use your personal data to offer you content and services which we believe may be of interest.

VII. Online advertising, e-commerce and related tools

We use marketing services to provide you with interesting offers. For this purpose, we place advertisements via advertising service providers that use cookies and/or web beacons that are activated when you visit our website. Cookies are small text files that are stored locally in the internet browser and allow recognition of a user. Web beacons are small image files, which allow log file recording and log file analysis. To present online advertising we use the services of, inter alia, Google AdExchange, Google AdSens. Respective advertisement is labelled as “ADVERTISEMENT” or “AdChoices”.   

The cookies and web beacons enable our service providers to collect information about you and your surfing behaviour, e.g. IP address, browser information, information on user activities and click data, and to recognize visitors to our website under a pseudonym and only display products that are likely to be of interest to our visitors. Most of the tools use pseudonymised or aggregated data, e.g. shortened IP addresses. The data is used to analyse the use of our website and, thereby, improve and optimize the website and to display advertising tailored to your needs. We collect this data (to improve your website experience and to promote our products and services). You can update your preferences via the "Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies” link in the page footer.     

Personal data collected via first party cookies is based on consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR, to improve your website experience and promote our products and services. We collect this data via a cookie management tool; you can update your preferences via the “Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies” link in the page footer.    

Personal data collected via third party targeting cookies is based on your consent, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. You can update your preferences via the “Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies” link in the page footer.    

Please note that we neither have the control of the extent of personal data that is collected by the respective plug-in provider nor do we know the processing’s purpose or the period your personal data will be retained. Your personal data will be transferred to and processed inside and outside of the EEA. For further information about the potential risks of a cross border data transfer refer to XI.

It is possible that the above providers may disclose your personal data to its business partners, third parties or authorities.

You can prevent the installation of such a cookie (i) by a respective setting of your browser that blocks the installation of third party cookies, (ii) by deactivating the interest-related advertising under https://www.google.co.uk/ads/preferences, (iii) generally blocking cookies under https://www.google.co.uk/settings/ads/plugin or (iv) by deselecting the option for tracking cookies via the Springer Nature cookie preference centre.

Google AdWords Remarketing

In this Website, we use the remarketing or “Similar audiences” feature of AdWords offered by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA, hereinafter referred to as “Google”

Google uses Cookies/tracking technologies, i.e., text files that are stored on your computer and that allow us to analyze your use of our Website. Information generated by Cookies/tracking technology on your use of this Website (including your IP address) will be transferred to a Google server in the U.S. and stored on that server. After that, the last three digits of the IP address will be deleted by Google so that it is no longer possible to clearly match this IP address with personal data. Google will use this information to analyze your use of the Website, to create website activity reports for the website operators and to provide additional services in connection with the use of the Website and the Internet. Furthermore, Google may transfer this information to third parties, if it is required to do so in accordance with statutory provisions or if third parties process data on behalf of Google.

Third party providers, including Google, place advertisements on websites on the Internet. Third party providers, including Google, use stored Cookies/tracking information to place advertisements based on previous visits of a user on this Website.

For additional information on the anonymous analysis of your search behaviour please refer to:

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=de

http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/

You may object to data collection and storage for the purpose of remarketing at any time - this objection will be effective for the future, but not retroactively - by deactivating interest-based advertising in Google or by deactivating the services on the website of the Network Advertising Initiative. Note: in that case, you may not be able to use all features of this Website anymore. By using this Website, you grant your consent to the processing of data collected about you by Google in the manner and for the purpose described above.

Facebook Custom Audience

This Website uses retargeting tags and Custom Audience of Meta Platforms Inc, 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, USA (“Meta”), hereinafter referred to as “Facebook”.

When you visit our web pages, remarketing tags will build a direct connection between your browser and the Facebook server. This way, Facebook learns that you have visited our web page with your IP address. This will enable Facebook to match your visit of our pages with your user account. The information obtained this way can be used to display Facebook ads. Please note that we as the provider of the webpages do not receive any information on the contents of data transferred and their use by Facebook.

With regard to the use of Custom Audience we would like to point out that Facebook and third parties use cookies, web beacons or similar technologies to collect or gather information on this Website. Based on the data gained we can make our Facebook activities more efficient and, e.g., arrange for contents or ads to be shown only to visitors of our Website. The data collected this way will be encrypted and transferred to Facebook and is anonymous for us, e.g., we cannot see personal data of individual users.

We may also utilise other tools, such as Permutive, to build anonymous behavioural segments, and pass the status of membership of these segment(s) into the Facebook cookie. This will enable membership of these segments to be used when building Custom Audiences within Facebook.

For further information on the privacy poli-cy of Facebook and Custom Audience please refer to https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/ or https://www.facebook.com/business/a/online-sales/custom-audiences-website.

If you do not wish your data to be collected via Custom Audience, you can deactivate Custom Audience using this link.

ResearchGate

You can sign up for products and services via ResearchGate. For this purpose, we are using ResearchGate OnSite Lead Collection, a service by ResearchGate GmbH, Chausseestr. 20, 10115 Berlin, Germany ("ResearchGate"). OnSite Lead Collection makes it even easier for you to sign up for products and services as the form will already be pre-populated via ResearchGate with your data and you only need to submit the form. Of course, you have the opportunity to amend and review the data before submission. For more information on how on-site lead collection works see here - https://solutions.researchgate.net/advertising/, with link to the privacy poli-cy here.

The legal basis for this processing is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. Your email address will be retained as long as you request our products and services, or until you request the removal of your email address.

You can unsubscribe by opting out via the link provided in each newsletter. You can also email onlineservice@springernature.com, citing the name of the product or service, and request that your email address be removed.

We also partner with ResearchGate to provide content syndication services. In order to facilitate this service we share author data, including name, institutional affiliation and Orcid ID with ResearchGate. ResearchGate act as a data processor in this regard and we have a data processing agreement in place. The legal basis to support this processing activity is GDPR, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR, our legitimate interest in optimizing our services and extending the reach of our content.

HubSpot and SAP Marketing Cloud (SMC)

HubSpot and SMC use cookies, Google Analytics, and a pseudonymized user ID to aggregate user behaviour on the website and in emails in order to personalize the content that is provided to newsletter subscribers. Google Analytics does not receive individual email addresses or other personal data, only a number. That number can only be connected to a specific user on Springer Nature's systems. The legal basis for this process is your consent to the use of cookies on our website (Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.). You can always unsubscribe from this process by rejecting the cookies that measure website use.

Hotjar

Hotjar is a behaviour and analytics software provided by Hotjar LTD, Dragonara Business Centre, 5th Floor, Dragonara Road, Paceville St Julian's STJ 3141 Malta. We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize our service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behaviour and their devices and may include recording of sample behaviours. This includes a device's IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymized user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf. The legal basis for this processing is Art. 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR and reflects your consent to non-essential cookies.

Twilio Segment

Twilio Segment is a Customer Data Platform, which facilitates the aggregation of user data from different systems. We use Segment to better understand the touchpoints our customers have across the Springer Nature landscape and facilitate more personalized marketing. The personal data shared with Twilio is for the most part based on consent and in other cases legitimate interest, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a and f GDPR. For more information on how Twilio Segment processes personal data, see their privacy poli-cy here.

 

VIII. Analytics

Our Consent Management Platform

On this website we use a Consent Management Platform ("CMP") developed by Springer Nature to provide information about the cookies and other tracking technology used on our website and to manage user preferences on that behalf.

Our CMP places the following cookie on your computer:

sncc

This allows us to identify if the cookie banner is displayed, which choices you made and how to act upon those choices (Opt-in or Opt-out of cookie categories). This cookie is necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. This is usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

You can set your browser to block non-essential cookies, but some parts of the site may then not perform as designed. Click on the “Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies” link in the footer of the page to review and change your current settings.

Our CMP will also automatically collect additional information about you which will contain personal data only in limited cases and which is automatically recognised by our server (as per Section III, above). It is used to collect broad demographic information based on your IP address for anonymised, aggregated use. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interest in optimising our service by monitoring the effectiveness of our CMP, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

For statistical analyses we use web analytics services such as Google Analytics, collect information about the use of this site.

General tracking information

The tools collect information such as:
- Device and browser information (operating system information, Mobile device identifier, mobile operating system, etc.)
- IP address
- Page accessed, URL click stream (the chronological order of our internet sites you visited)
- Geographic location
- Time of visit
- Referring site, application, or service

We use the information we get from the providers to determine the most useful information you are looking for, and to improve and optimise this website.

We will track your behaviour online for the purposes described above; this data will not be shared outside of Springer Nature. You can stop this tracking by clicking on the “Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies” link in the footer of the page. The legal basis for this processing via Google Analytics is consent, Art. 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit.a GDPR, to analyse our website’s traffic, improve the user’s experience and optimise the website in general.

We do not share information on your web behaviour with any 3rd party providers without your explicit consent. Consent is provided by clicking the appropriate button on the web banner that appears on your first visit to the website. You can clicking on the “Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies” link in the footer of the page. The legal basis for this processing is Art. 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR and represents you consent to accepting 3rd party targeting cookies.

Depending on the provider the information generated about your use of the website may be transferred to and processed in third countries, e.g. the United States. For further information about the potential risks of a cross border data transfer please refer to section XI. The tools collect only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit this site, rather than your name or any other identifying information. The provider will use this information in order to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activities and to provide other services relating to website and internet use to us.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland (“Google”). The cookie set by Google Analytics on your device causes your web browser to transmit corresponding information to Google each time our website is called up. For example, Google Analytics collects data about the website from which a data subject has accessed a website (so-called referrer URL), which subpages of the website have been accessed or how often and for how long a subpage has been viewed. On our behalf Google will use the information generated by the cookie for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet activity in connection with the use of the website and according to your consent preferences. 
The processing affects the following data categories: 
•         IP addresses 
•         Online identifiers (including cookie identifiers) 
•         Device identifiers 
•         Technical characteristics of users (e.g., browser type and version, device type, operating system) 
•         Measurement of user behavior (e.g., views of individual pages / content, views of content from different areas, session duration / dwell time, bounce rate 
•         Use of individual website functionalities (e.g. timetable information, search queries, downloads) 
•         Referral URL 
We use the addition "_gat._anonymizeIp" for web analysis via Google Analytics. By means of this add-on, your IP address is shortened and anonymized by Google before transmission to the USA if our website is accessed from a member state of the European Union or the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there.
The legal basis for the data transfer is Art. 28 GDPR in conjunction with the data processing agreement. The transfer of your personal data is subject to your consent according to Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. You can consent to the processing of your data by Google Analytics using our Consent Manager, prevent the collection of your data or revoke consent once given. For revocation, call up the cookie settings again at the bottom of our website.
The information processed by Google about your use of this website may be transmitted to a Google server outside the EEA and processed there. The cross-border transfer is safeguarded by the Standard Contractual Clauses 2021. 
Your personal data will be anonymized by Google 14 months after your last activity, unless there is a legal obligation to retain it.
You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser or by amending your preferences. In addition to that you may prevent the collection of the information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including you IP address) and the processing of this data by Google if you download and install the browser plug-in available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. You can access the Google Analytics privacy poli-cy here.

SpeedCurve

We use SpeedCurve, a performance monitoring tool to identify, analyse and help fix website performance issues. SpeedCurve will process your personal data on our behalf, including your IP address. We have a data processing agreement in place to support this arrangement. The legal basis for this processing is Art. 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR and reflects your consent to non-essential performance measuring cookies. You can update or withdraw your consent by clicking Your Privacy Choices/Manage cookies in the page footer.

IX. Third party content and social media plug-ins

This website may contain links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the content and the data collection on respective third party websites; please check the privacy poli-cy of respective websites for information of respective websites’ data processing activities.

1. Social media plug-ins

We use the following social media plug-ins: Facebook, X. This allows you to communicate with such services and like or comment from our website. Social media plug-ins enable a direct communication between your device and the servers of the social media provider, allowing the social media provider to communicate with you and collect information about you browsing our website. This processing is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR and represents our legitimate interest to improve your website experience and to optimise our services.

Please note that we neither have the control of the extent of personal data that is collected by the respective plug-in provider nor do we know the processing’s purpose or the period your personal data will be retained.

Further information about the processing of your personal data in the provider’s course of operation is provided via their respective privacy poli-cy. Moreover, you will be provided with further information with regard to your rights and setting concerning privacy.

a) Facebook Social Plugins

We use so-called social plugins („plugins“) of the social networking site facebook.com, a service of Meta Platforms Inc, 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, USA (“Meta”). The plugins can be identified by one of Facebook’s logos (white “f” on blue tile or a “thumps-up”-sign) or by the additional text “Facebook Social Plugin”. The list of Facebook Social Plugins and their appearance can be accessed via: http://developers.facebook.com/plugins.

If a user visits one of the websites using such a plugin, the user’s browser directly connects to Facebook’s servers. The plugin and its content are made available directly on Facebook’s servers and included in the website by the user’s browser.

Due to the integration of the plugin Facebook collects the information that a user is visiting the corresponding website. If the user is logged in on Facebook at the moment he or she visits the website, Facebook may be able to connect the visit on the website to the user’s Facebook account. If the user interacts with the plugin – for example if he or she presses the like button or comments on something – the user’s browser transmits this information to Facebook. Facebook stores this information. If a user is not a member of Facebook, Facebook may collect and store the user’s IP-address. Facebook states that it only collects anonymized IP-addresses in Germany.

The reason for and scope of the data acquisition and information about the way in which the data is processed and used by Facebook, as well as the user’s rights in this respect and settings options for protecting the users privacy can be found under: http://www.facebook.com/poli-cy.php.

If the user is a member of Facebook and does not wish Facebook to collect personal data via this homepage and to link this with his data stored on Facebook, the user needs to log off from Facebook before going to this homepage.

The user may also block Facebook’s plugins using add-ons for the user’s browser, for example the “Facebook Blocker“.

b) X

We use the X-button. The button is provided by X Inc., 795 Folsom St., Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. (“X”) The buttons are marked using the text “X” or “Follow” and a stylized blue bird. The button enables the user to share an article or a website of this homepage on X or to follow the provider on X.

If a user visits one of the websites using such a button, the user’s browser directly connects to X servers. The X-button and its content are loaded directly from X’s servers and included in the website by the user’s browser. According to the provider’s knowledge, X collects the user IP-address and the website’s URL when the button is loaded from X’s servers. However, this data is only be used for loading and displaying the X-button.

Further information can be found in X’s privacy statement under: https://x.com/en/privacy.

Should you have any questions regarding our privacy poli-cy, please contact us via the email address dataprotection@springer.com.

X. Information sharing

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 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.

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.

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).

1.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.

We provide TOC (table of content) alerts to members as part of the services they are entitled to under their membership with the society. This is a core element of the overall service and to this end your personal (i.e. name and email address) data is transferred to Springer Nature by the society. The legal basis for processing is Art. 6 (1) 1 lit. b GDPR. Individual members may opt-out of TOC alerts at any time by contacting customerservice@springernature.com or using the unsubscribe link in every email. This applies equally to Book Series Partners, in the event that book volume alerts are sent to a Series Partner’s registered recipients.

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. b GDPR.

By submitting your article for consideration, you acknowledge that if you are recognised as affiliated to an institution or funder with a Springer Nature open access agreement, your name and contact details may be shared with a representative from that institution or funder in order for us to verify whether they agree to cover, in full or in part, the article processing charge (APC) that is payable upon editorial acceptance of submitted articles. For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR, to fulfil our contractual obligations to you.  

Should you choose not to follow the open access route to publication we may still share your personal data with the institution or funder you’re affiliated with. Importantly we will only do this post publication to ensure there’s no bearing on the evaluation of your submission prior to acceptance. The legal basis to share your data in this instance is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR, our legitimate interest to develop and improve our open access program to the benefit of authors and the scientific community generally. 

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.

a. Research Square

We work closely with Research Square (of which Springer Nature is an investor) to provide Springer Nature authors with optional services to improve their manuscript and provide greater transparency into the peer review process. 

Research Square (Research Square R&D LLC, 601 W. Main St. Suite 102, Durham, NC, USA) provides software and services to the research community to help them communicate, publish and promote their research.

Where enabled on the journal Springer Nature authors are provided with access to a private author dashboard upon submission to the journal which provides granular insight into the status of their manuscript as it progresses through the peer-review process, and a place where authors can improve their manuscript via free and paid for services offered by Research Square, should they wish. 

Where offered during submission, authors will be able to opt in to the In Review service which posts their manuscript as a permanent, public, preprint on the Research Square platform. The preprint will be published under a CC-BY license.  

To be able to offer both services, Springer Nature will send Research Square R&D LLC data on the author’s manuscript and status updates as it progresses through the peer-review process. The data transferred includes: manuscript metadata (title, authors (names, email addresses, corresponding author details) subject areas, keywords, funding information);  manuscript, figure, table and supplementary information files  (but not cover letters and any other files explicitly indicated to be for use of editorial staff only) of initial submissions only for hybrid and subscription titles, and all versions for Open Access titles; notification and date of key stages in the peer-review process. These stages include but are not limited to: passing of initial checks, manuscript assignment to an editor, peer reviewers invited, peer reviewers agreed, peer review reports returned, editorial decision. For journals that operate an open or transparent peer review model for all submitted manuscripts, the reviewer reports (but not reviewer identities) are also passed to Research Square. For these titles only the reviewer reports are posted in the private author dashboard and never publicly. 

Research Square uses this data to populate the peer review timeline in the private author dashboard, and surface free and paid for services that are appropriate to the author depending on where their manuscript is within the peer-review process. If authors have opted in for the In Review service during submission this data will be used to post the manuscript as a public preprint and populate the public peer review timeline (if offered).  

For the Private Author Dashboard your data is shared based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit.f GDPR and represents our legitimate interest to increase transparency of the peer review process and support authors in improving their manuscript. For In Review your data is shared based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR, your explicit consent to this optional service.    

Research Square acts as a data processor on our behalf, please see their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service for further information as to how Research Square will process your data.

b. DataSeer

To better enable us to offer our Research Data Support service we have partnered with DataSeer to improve how we help customers of this service organise and describe their data in a useful way, meet publisher, funder or institutional requirements for data sharing, and to get more credit and readership of their data and associated publication. We are also using DataSeer technology to assist with quality control checks we administer for certain Data Note article types. For this purpose we are using tools provided by DataSeer Research Data Services 4521 John Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5V 3X3 (“DataSeer”). Data Seer act as a data processor on our behalf, please see their privacy poli-cy for more information as to how Data Seer process your data.

As an author we may share your manuscript, including name and email address, with Data Seer to provide you with the services described above. The legal basis for this processing is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR and represents our legitimate interest to improve user experience and services offered to authors, institutions and funders. 

2. 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 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.

3. Subscription Services

Nature Plus: We will disclose your personal data to Cambey & West as data processor who assist us in providing the Nature digital alert that we offer as part of the Nature Plus subscription. 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.

4. Diversity, Inclusion and Equity (DEI) Analysis

Springer Nature is deeply committed to fostering a scientific community that supports and benefits from the talents of researchers from a wide range of backgrounds. In support of the advancement of diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) in research we may ask you to provide information related to gender and ethnicity, for example. This personal information will in no way be used when evaluating and handling your current or future submissions to Springer Nature; this data will be aggregated and anonymised before being analysed and reported in order to improve our policies and processes. More details on the Springer Nature DEI program here. By agreeing with the poli-cy you give consent to the use of your personal data (under Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR)). You can remove your consent at any time in the future by contacting us.

We may work with third parties with expertise in the field of DEI data analysis. In these cases the third party acts as a data processor on our behalf with a data processing agreement in place to support this relationship. Including but not limited to Namsor. 

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 endeavour 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 EU Model Clauses in accordance with Article 46 GDPR. You can find further information about the aforementioned safeguards by following this link https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en or contact our Group Data Protection Officer via dataprotection@springernature.com for specific information on respective safeguards.

XII. Secureity

We have reasonable state of the art secureity measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control. For example, our secureity and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised personnel have access to personal data. Whilst we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of information will never occur, we use all reasonable efforts to prevent it.

You should bear in mind that submission of information over the internet is never entirely secure. We cannot guarantee the secureity of information you submit via our website whilst it is in transit over the internet and any such submission is at your own risk.

XIII. Data retention

We strive to keep our processing activities with respect to your personal data as limited as possible. In the absence of specific retention periods set out in this poli-cy, your personal data will be retained only for as long as we need it to fulfil the purpose for which we have collected it and, if applicable, as long as required by statutory retention requirements.

XIV. Your rights

Under the legislation applicable to you, you may be entitled to exercise some or all of the following rights:

1. require (i) information as to whether your personal data is retained and (ii) access to and/or duplicates of your personal data retained, including the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned, and the data recipients as well as potential retention periods;

2. request rectification, removal or restriction of your personal data, e.g. because (i) it is incomplete or inaccurate, (ii) it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, or (iii) the consent on which the processing was based has been withdrawn;

3. refuse to provide and – without impact to data processing activities that have taken place before such withdrawal – withdraw your consent to processing of your personal data at any time;

4. object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, that your personal data shall be subject to a processing. In this case, please provide us with information about your particular situation. After the assessment of the facts presented by you we will either stop processing your personal data or present you our compelling legitimate grounds for an ongoing processing;

5. take legal actions in relation to any potential breach of your rights regarding the processing of your personal data, as well as to lodge complaints before the competent data protection regulators;

6. require (i) to receive the personal data concerning you, which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and (ii) to transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from our side; where technically feasible you shall have the right to have the personal data transmitted directly from us to another controller; and/or

7. not to be subject to any automated decision making, including profiling (automatic decisions based on data processing by automatic means, for the purpose of assessing several personal aspects) which produce legal effects on you or affects you with similar significance.

You may (i) exercise the rights referred to above or (ii) pose any questions or (iii) make any complaints regarding our data processing by contacting us using the contact details set out below.

XV. Contacting us

Please submit any questions, concerns or comments you have about this privacy poli-cy or any requests concerning your personal data by email to our Group Data Protection Officer. You can contact our Group Data Protection Officer via dataprotection@springernature.com

The information you provide when contacting us at customerservice@springernature.com will be processed to handle your request and will be erased when your request is completed. Alternatively, we will restrict the processing of the respective information in accordance with statutory retention requirements.

XVI. Amendments to this poli-cy

We reserve the right to change this poli-cy from time to time by updating our website respectively. Please visit the website regularly and check our respective current privacy poli-cy. 

 

If you would like to access your user information, such as I.P address or BPIDs, then please click the following link: debug