Believers Medical Journal (BeMJ) is committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and appropriate handling of personal information relating to authors, reviewers, editors, readers, and other users of the journal platform. This policy describes how personal information may be collected, used, stored, disclosed, retained, and protected in connection with manuscript submission, editorial evaluation, peer review, publication, and website administration.
The journal's privacy practices are guided by principles of transparency, confidentiality, responsible data handling, and applicable data-protection requirements. Where relevant to a particular processing activity or individual, applicable privacy and data-protection principles will be considered.
Depending on the individual's interaction with the journal, BeMJ may collect the following categories of information:
Names, email addresses, telephone numbers, professional titles, and other contact information voluntarily provided by authors, reviewers, editors, or website users.
Institutional affiliations, professional addresses, areas of expertise, research interests, and ORCID iDs where provided.
Manuscript files, submission information, correspondence, revision records, reviewer reports, editorial decisions, authorship information, competing-interest declarations, and related editorial documentation.
Information such as IP addresses, browser and device details, access logs, session information, and cookies may be collected where necessary for website security, functionality, administration, and technical operation.
Personal information may be processed for purposes including:
Believers Medical Journal does not sell, rent, or lease personal information to advertisers, marketers, or unrelated commercial organizations.
Unpublished manuscripts, confidential editorial correspondence, reviewer reports, and identifying information are restricted to individuals authorized to participate in the editorial process.
BeMJ uses a double-blind peer-review process, under which author and reviewer identities are concealed from one another to the extent reasonably possible during manuscript evaluation. Such identifying information is not publicly disclosed without an appropriate basis.
After publication, information such as author names, institutional affiliations, ORCID iDs, funding declarations, competing-interest statements, and designated correspondence details may become part of the public scholarly record.
The journal seeks to limit publicly displayed personal information to information reasonably necessary for scholarly attribution, discoverability, transparency, and academic communication.
BeMJ applies reasonable technical and organizational safeguards intended to protect personal information against unauthorized access, loss, alteration, misuse, or inappropriate disclosure.
Depending on the requirements of the journal platform, safeguards may include secure connections, access controls, server-security measures, backups, and restricted administrative permissions.
Essential cookies or similar technologies may be used to support secure sessions, navigation, authentication, website functionality, and editorial operations.
Personal information may be shared with service providers or scholarly infrastructure providers where necessary for legitimate journal operations. Such services may include website hosting, email delivery, scholarly metadata registration, and journal-approved similarity-screening services.
The journal seeks to limit such sharing to information reasonably required for the relevant service or publishing function.
Personal information and editorial records are retained for as long as reasonably necessary for purposes such as manuscript administration, publication management, recordkeeping, security, dispute resolution, research-integrity investigations, or applicable legal and ethical obligations.
Published article metadata and permanent editorial notices may be retained as part of the enduring scholarly record.
Subject to applicable law and legitimate editorial, legal, ethical, and recordkeeping requirements, individuals may request access to or correction of relevant personal information held by the journal.
Where applicable, individuals may also request deletion, restriction of processing, or withdrawal of consent for processing activities based on consent.
Certain information may not be eligible for deletion where it forms part of the published scholarly record, an editorial audit trail, a research-integrity investigation, or another record that the journal has a legitimate or applicable obligation to retain.
Believers Medical Journal periodically reviews this Privacy & Personal Data Protection Policy and may update it when necessary to reflect changes in journal procedures, website functionality, publishing practices, or applicable privacy requirements.
Believers Medical Journal (BeMJ) is committed to maintaining appropriate confidentiality, responsible processing of personal information, and reasonable information-security safeguards throughout its editorial, publishing, and online activities.