Privacy Policy

This policy was last updated on December 15, 2020.

This is the privacy policy (“policy”) for Seevanck Publishers, Kerckeboslaan 12, 3454 NR, the Netherlands (we, us and our). We can also be contacted at info @ seevanck.com.

We will only use the personal data gathered over this website as set out in this policy. 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

1. Summary of our processing activities

We publish books. 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 3).
If you are identified as belonging to a customer organization 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 4 and 5).
Furthermore, your personal data will be used to provide you with relevant advertising for our services and products (see 7) and for statistical analysis that helps us to improve our website (see 8). Additionally, we improve your website experience with third party content (see 9).
Your personal data may be disclosed to third parties (see 10) that might be located outside your country of residence; potentially, different data protection standards may apply (see 12).
We have implemented appropriate safeguards to secure your personal data (see 13) and retain your personal data only as long as necessary (see 13).
Under the legislation applicable to you, you may be entitled to exercise certain rights with regard to the processing of your personal data (see 14).

2. 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, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation or any kind of disclosure or other use.

3. 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 4 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 recognized 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 anonymized, aggregated use.

If you are identified by IP or equivalent method as belonging to a customer organization such as university or a company then we will also collect the identity of that organization and use it to create usage reports which show the organization 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 organization or (b) your organization 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 security, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR.

4. 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 organization 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;
(behavioral) Advertising and profiling;
Facilitate attendance of a conference;
Manage manuscript submissions;
User Research: To undertake research by examining user behavior to inform product and design decisions.

For this, the legal basis is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR. The use of your personal data for behavioral advertising and profiling is done for the legitimate interest to improve your experience while using the website, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f 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 a legitimate interest for us as a provider of this website, Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f 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 us at info @ seevanck.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

5. Information about the specific uses that require registration

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 4. In addition to the extent of processing described under 4, 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.

Web shop. For the use of our web shop, you have to set up an account as described under 4. 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. 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.

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. 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 by. 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 the website of Facebook. 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 info @ seevanck.com, citing the name of the product or service, and request that your email address be removed.

6. 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.

7. 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 Google AdExchange, Google AdSens.

The cookies and web beacons enable our service providers to collect information about you and your surfing behavior, 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 pseudonymized or aggregated data, e.g., shortened IP addresses. The data is used to analyze 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).

Personal data collected via first party cookies is based on Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR and represents our legitimate interest to improve your website experience and to promote our products and services. Personal data collected via third party targeting cookies is based on your consent; Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR.

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 11.

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 by a respective setting of your browser that blocks the installation of third-party cookies. Further information about the processing of your personal data in the provider’s course of operation is provided by its privacy policy. Moreover, you will be provided with further information with regard to your rights and settings concerning privacy.

8. Analytics

We provide information about the cookies and other tracking technology used on our website and to manage user preferences on that behalf. 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). These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are 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 these cookies, but some parts of the site may then not perform as designed.

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 optimize this website.

If you do not express a preference regarding tracking, we will track your behavior online for the purposes described above; this data will not be shared outside of Seevanck. The legal basis for this processing via Google Analytics is Art. 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit.f GDPR and represents our legitimate interest to analyze our website’s traffic to improve the user’s experience and to optimize the website in general.

We do not share information on your web behavior 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. 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.

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC. On our behalf Google will use the information generated by a 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 legal basis for the data transfer is Art. 28 GDPR in conjunction with the data processing agreement. 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 your IP address) and the processing of this data by Google if you download and install the browser plug-in.

9. Third party content and social media plug-ins

Social media plug-ins. We use the following social media plug-ins: Facebook, Twitter. 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 optimize our services. Transfer of personal data takes place whether you have an account with the provider or not. 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 policy. Moreover, you will be provided with further information with regard to your rights and setting concerning privacy.

10. 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.

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).

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. 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 the Privacy Shield or EU Standard Contractual Clauses. You may object to the transfer of the usage data to the Licensee at any time without reason by sending an email to info @ seevanck.com.

11. 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 endeavor 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 either safeguarded by the Privacy Shield or EU Model Clauses in accordance with Article 46 GDPR. You can find further information about the aforementioned safeguards on the European site about this theme.

12. Security

We have reasonable state of the art security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control. For example, our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized 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 security of information you submit via our website whilst it is in transit over the internet and any such submission is at your own risk.

13. 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 policy, 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.

14. Your rights

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

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;
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;
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;
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;
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;
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 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.

15. Contacting us

Please submit any questions, concerns or comments you have about this privacy policy or any requests concerning your personal data by email to us. You can contact us via info @ seevanck.com. The information you provide when contacting us 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.

16. Amendments to this policy

We reserve the right to change this policy from time to time by updating our website respectively. Please visit the website regularly and check our respective current privacy policy. This policy was last updated on December 15, 2020.