Privacy Policy & Researcher Data Governance

1. Information We Collect

We collect only the information necessary to facilitate academic publishing, peer review, and digital conference organization:

• Account & Identity Data: Name, academic email address, hashed passwords (via bcrypt with 12 salt rounds), verified ORCID iD, country, and institutional affiliation (e.g. university, laboratory, or research department).
• Manuscript & Submission Records: Manuscript files (PDFs, supplementary data, abstracts, keywords), co-author details, conflict of interest declarations, and copyright statements.
• Peer Review Records: Technical evaluations, scoring rubrics, confidential editorial remarks, and reviewer recommendations. Reviewer identities remain strictly shielded in double-blind workflows.
• Transactional & APC Invoicing Data: Invoice numbers, payment statuses, and currency amounts. Full credit card details and payment credentials are processed directly by PCI-DSS certified gateways (Stripe, SSLCOMMERZ) and are never stored on our servers.
• Technical & Session Telemetry: IP addresses, browser user agent strings, and session cookies (`ieee_session`) used strictly for session validation, rate limiting, and security auditing.

2. How We Use Researcher Information

Personal data is utilized exclusively for legitimate scientific communication:

• Processing, managing, and evaluating manuscript submissions through editorial and peer review workflows.
• Assigning qualified peer reviewers based on subject-matter expertise and research interests without violating double-blind anonymity.
• Publishing author bylines, affiliations, and ORCIDs alongside accepted papers in public digital repositories and CrossRef metadata feeds.
• Sending essential transactional notifications (submission status updates, review assignments, publication notices, and APC receipts).
• Maintaining platform integrity, mitigating spam, and preventing fraudulent submissions via cryptographic audit trails.

3. Public Bibliographic Metadata & Global Indexing

Upon formal publication of an accepted research paper under the CC-BY 4.0 license, certain author information becomes part of the permanent public scholarly record:

• Author name, institutional affiliation, country, and ORCID identifier are published in the paper's header, PDF publication, and machine-readable metadata.
• Metadata is distributed to international indexing authorities including CrossRef (for permanent DOI resolution), Google Scholar, Scopus, and open-access harvesting endpoints.
• Once published, scientific metadata forms an indelible part of the scholarly record and cannot be anonymized or deleted except in formal retraction cases under COPE guidelines.

4. Security & Data Protection Measures

We employ multi-layered technical and organizational safeguards:

• Encryption in Transit & at Rest: All traffic is encrypted using TLS 1.3 with Strict Transport Security (HSTS). Manuscript PDFs and database volumes are encrypted at rest.
• Role-Based Access Control: Strict role segregation ensures reviewers cannot view author identities during double-blind reviews, and administrative access is audited.
• Forensic Audit Trails: State modifications, role updates, and authentication attempts are logged in immutable audit records.

5. Your Data Rights (GDPR & International Protections)

Regardless of your geographic location, researchers registered on International Conference Summit (ICS) have the following rights:

• Access & Portability: You may view, review, and export all personal information associated with your profile at any time in your Member Account Portal.
• Rectification: You may update or correct your name, institutional affiliation, biography, and research interests directly online.
• Erasure (Account Deletion): You may request account deletion for accounts that have no published papers of record. Where papers have been published, author metadata remains permanently linked to the publication DOI in compliance with global archival standards.

6. Contacting the Data Protection Directorate

For inquiries regarding your personal data, data processing agreements, or to exercise your privacy rights, please contact: