Privacy Statement

Privacy Policy (Privacy Statement)

Revista Ciência Plural (RCP) respects privacy and protects the personal data of authors, reviewers, and readers. This Policy describes how personal data are processed in connection with the use of the website, user registration, and the editorial process, in compliance with the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD – Law No. 13,709/2018).

1. Who is responsible for data processing (Data Controller)

Personal data processing within RCP is carried out to enable the editorial services provided by the journal, within the institutional context of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN).

Privacy contact:
Email: revistacienciaplural@ccs.ufrn.br

Institutional address:
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte
Departamento de Odontologia
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Saúde Coletiva (PPGSCol)
Av. Senador Salgado Filho n. 1787, Lagoa Nova, Natal/RN
CEP: 59056-000

2. What personal data we collect

Depending on your profile and interaction with the site, we may process the following categories of data:

  • Registration data: name, email, username, password (stored securely), institution, country, area of expertise, and contact information voluntarily provided.

  • Editorial process data: affiliation, degree/biographical information, ORCID (if provided), authorship and co-authorship, contributions (e.g., CRediT), mandatory declarations, submission history, editorial decisions, communications, and manuscript versions.

  • Reviewer data: name, email, institution, areas of interest, invitation/review history, and communications within the peer review workflow.

  • Technical access data: usage records necessary for system operation and security (e.g., IP address, date/time, pages accessed, essential cookies, and logs).

3. How we use your data (Purposes)

We use personal data strictly for purposes related to editorial activity, including:

  • managing user accounts and profiles in the system;

  • receiving, processing, evaluating, and publishing manuscripts;

  • conducting editorial communications (calls, requests for revisions, decisions, reviews, and notifications);

  • ensuring scientific integrity, traceability, and auditability of the editorial process;

  • fulfilling preservation obligations and maintaining editorial history and published content records;

  • supporting indexing, dissemination, and publication metadata (e.g., authors, affiliations, abstracts, keywords, references);

  • maintaining system security and stability and preventing fraud or misuse.

4. Legal bases (LGPD)

Personal data may be processed based on one or more legal bases, as applicable:

  • performance of procedures related to the provision of editorial services (registration, submission, review, and publication);

  • compliance with legal/regulatory obligations and integrity practices in scholarly communication;

  • legitimate interests (e.g., editorial management, fraud prevention, system security, preservation of the scholarly record), with due regard for data subject rights;

  • consent, when applicable (e.g., optional information provided voluntarily and certain features when required).

5. Data sharing and public disclosure

RCP does not sell personal data.

We may share data only when necessary for editorial purposes, for example:

  • with the technological infrastructure of the institutional portal and the electronic publishing system (e.g., OJS/PKP) for hosting, support, and operation;

  • with services essential to the editorial workflow and publication, when used (e.g., DOI registration, indexers, digital preservation, and metadata interoperability);

  • when required by law, by a competent authority, or to protect rights.

Important: after publication, some data become public as part of scholarly communication, such as author names, institutional affiliation, ORCID (if provided), title, abstract, keywords, and article metadata. These data may be collected by search engines, indexers, and repositories.

6. International data transfer

Technological services and indexers may operate outside Brazil, which may involve international data transfers (for example, for dissemination/registration of content and metadata). When this occurs, RCP will seek to adopt protection measures compatible with the LGPD.

7. Retention and storage

Data are retained for as long as necessary to fulfill editorial purposes, preserve the scholarly record, and comply with institutional/legal obligations. In general:

  • records of the editorial process and published content may be retained for extended periods to ensure traceability and integrity of the scholarly archive;

  • registration data may be retained while the account remains active or while there is an operational/administrative need.

8. Information security

We adopt reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect data against unauthorized access, loss, alteration, or improper disclosure, including access controls and platform security practices. However, no system is entirely risk-free.

9. Cookies and browsing technologies

The site uses essential cookies required for system operation (e.g., session authentication and basic preferences). If analytics/third-party cookies are used, this will be disclosed in this policy or through a specific notice on the site.

10. Your rights as a data subject

Under the LGPD, you may request: confirmation of processing, access, correction, anonymization/deletion when applicable, portability when applicable, information on sharing, and review of automated decisions (if any).

To exercise your rights, contact: revistacienciaplural@ccs.ufrn.br. Some requests may be limited by legal obligations, preservation of the scholarly record, and editorial process requirements.

11. Updates to this policy

This policy may be updated periodically to reflect improvements, operational changes, or legal requirements. The current version will always be available on this page, with the date of the latest update.

Last updated: 01/01/2026