Privacy Statement

HIGIENE: Environmental Health Journal is committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and security of personal information collected through its journal website and editorial processes. Personal information is collected and processed only to support legitimate scholarly publishing activities and the operation of the journal.

This Privacy Statement applies to authors, reviewers, editors, readers, registered users, and other individuals who interact with the HIGIENE journal website and its editorial management system.

Personal Information We Collect

Depending on how users interact with the journal, HIGIENE may collect and process information including:

  • name and academic or professional title;

  • institutional affiliation;

  • postal or institutional address;

  • email address and other contact information;

  • ORCID iD and other researcher identifiers;

  • username and account information;

  • professional expertise and research interests;

  • author, reviewer, and editorial roles;

  • manuscript submission and peer-review records;

  • correspondence related to submission, review, editing, and publication;

  • information contained in declarations of authorship, conflicts of interest, funding, ethical approval, and related publication documents; and

  • technical information generated through use of the journal website, such as Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser information, access logs, and usage statistics where such functionality is enabled.

Users should provide only information that is necessary for the journal's editorial, publication, and scholarly communication activities.

Purposes of Data Processing

Personal information collected by HIGIENE may be used for the following purposes:

  • creating and administering user accounts;

  • processing manuscript submissions;

  • identifying and contacting authors, reviewers, and editors;

  • managing editorial assessment and peer review;

  • communicating editorial decisions and requests for revision;

  • conducting copyediting, production, and publication activities;

  • maintaining the integrity and scholarly record of published articles;

  • facilitating indexing, citation, identification, and discovery of published scholarly works;

  • managing reviewer databases and editorial assignments;

  • preventing misuse, fraud, plagiarism, duplicate submission, and other forms of publication misconduct;

  • maintaining website security and system functionality;

  • generating journal usage and administrative statistics; and

  • fulfilling legal, ethical, institutional, and scholarly publishing obligations.

Personal information will not be used for purposes that are unrelated to the journal's scholarly publishing activities without an appropriate legal basis or the individual's consent.

Author and Published Article Information

Information necessary for scholarly attribution and publication, including author names, affiliations, ORCID identifiers, correspondence details where appropriate, article metadata, acknowledgements, funding information, author contributions, and relevant declarations, may become publicly available as part of the published scholarly record.

Once an article has been formally published, certain bibliographic and authorship information must normally remain available to preserve the integrity, attribution, citation, and permanence of the scholarly record.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that manuscripts and supplementary materials do not contain unnecessary personally identifiable or confidential information relating to research participants or other individuals.

Reviewer and Editorial Information

Information relating to peer reviewers and editorial activities is treated as confidential and is accessible only to individuals who require such information for legitimate editorial purposes.

Under the journal's anonymized peer-review process, reviewer identities are not disclosed to authors or made publicly available unless disclosure is required by the journal's peer-review policy or expressly agreed to by the reviewer.

Editors and reviewers are expected to maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts, review reports, correspondence, and other information obtained during the editorial and peer-review process.

Sharing of Personal Information

HIGIENE does not sell personal information or provide user information to third parties for unrelated commercial marketing purposes.

Personal information may be shared only when necessary for legitimate journal activities, including with:

  • editors and members of the editorial team;

  • peer reviewers;

  • technical and administrative personnel supporting the journal platform;

  • the publisher and relevant units of Universitas Islam Negeri Alauddin Makassar;

  • scholarly infrastructure and service providers necessary for publication, identification, preservation, indexing, similarity checking, or dissemination; and

  • competent authorities when disclosure is required by applicable law.

Only information reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose should be disclosed.

Published article metadata may be distributed to scholarly databases, indexing services, DOI registration agencies, repositories, libraries, search engines, and other scholarly communication services to support the discovery, preservation, citation, and dissemination of published research.

Cookies and Website Usage Data

The journal website may use cookies and similar technical mechanisms required for website functionality, authentication, session management, user preferences, security, and usage analysis.

Where website analytics or usage-statistics services are enabled, technical information may be collected to evaluate website performance, article access, readership, and use of journal services.

Users may manage cookies through their browser settings; however, disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of registration, login, manuscript submission, or other website features.

Data Retention

Personal information is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary to support editorial, publication, scholarly record, administrative, ethical, or legal requirements.

Records relating to published manuscripts, editorial decisions, peer review, and publication history may be retained for scholarly and research-integrity purposes.

Personal information that is no longer required and is not necessary for maintaining the scholarly record should be deleted, anonymized, or otherwise securely managed in accordance with applicable institutional policies and legal requirements.

Data Security

HIGIENE takes reasonable administrative, organizational, and technical measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, loss, or misuse.

Access to editorial and user information is restricted according to assigned roles and legitimate operational needs. Users are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their account credentials and should notify the journal if they become aware of unauthorized access to their account.

Although reasonable safeguards are applied, no electronic information system can guarantee absolute security.

Rights of Users

Users may request information regarding personal data held by the journal and, where applicable, request correction, updating, restriction, or deletion of personal information in accordance with applicable laws and institutional requirements.

Requests for deletion or modification may be subject to limitations where information must be retained to protect research integrity, maintain the scholarly publication record, comply with legal obligations, or document editorial and publication activities.

HIGIENE processes personal information in accordance with applicable data-protection requirements, including relevant provisions of the laws and regulations of the Republic of Indonesia.

Third-Party Services and External Links

The journal website may contain links to external websites or use third-party scholarly services, such as DOI registration systems, researcher identification services, indexing databases, similarity-detection systems, analytics services, or other scholarly infrastructure.

HIGIENE is not responsible for the privacy practices of independent external websites or services. Users are encouraged to review the privacy policies of relevant third-party services when accessing them.

Research Participant Privacy

Authors submitting research involving human participants must protect the privacy and confidentiality of research participants.

Personally identifiable information should not be included in manuscripts, images, supplementary materials, or research data unless its inclusion is scientifically necessary, ethically justified, and supported by appropriate informed consent and ethical approval.

Authors remain responsible for compliance with applicable research ethics, informed-consent, confidentiality, and data-protection requirements relating to research participants.

Changes to This Privacy Statement

HIGIENE may revise this Privacy Statement periodically to reflect changes in legal requirements, institutional policies, journal practices, technology, or scholarly publishing standards.

The current version of the Privacy Statement will be made available through the journal website.