Privacy Policy

1. Scope of this policy

This policy applies to personal data processed through the EAIPAM website, user accounts, manuscript submission portal, assessment services, reports, support communications and payment-related activities.

It also explains how EAIPAM handles uploaded manuscripts, which may contain unpublished research, author information, contributor details, acknowledgements or other confidential material.

Depending on the selected service, manuscript processing may include a Reference Integrity Audit, Plagiarism & Similarity Analysis or Comprehensive Manuscript Analysis. Comprehensive Manuscript Analysis combines plagiarism and similarity screening with the separate EAIPAM scholarly-integrity assessment.

2. Who is responsible for the data

EAIPAM is operated by the EAIPAM Team in India, which is responsible for determining how and why personal data is processed through the platform.

3. Personal data EAIPAM may collect

Account information

• Name and salutation.
• Email address.
• Institution or organisation.
• Job title or professional role.
• Account identifiers and authentication information.

Manuscript-submission information

• Chapter or manuscript title.
• Author and contributor names.
• Corresponding-author contact information.
• Institutional affiliations.
• Uploaded manuscript files and associated metadata.
• Instructions or comments submitted with an assessment.

Assessment and report information

• Extracted references, claims, citations and scientific text.
• Assessment findings and integrity scores.
• Similarity percentages, major matching sources and source-level similarity information where plagiarism and similarity analysis is included in the selected service.
• Plagiarism and similarity report files, associated report metadata and release information where included in the selected service.
• Editorial review decisions and report versions.
• User feedback, corrections and responses.

Payment and transaction information

• Purchased service and transaction amount.
• Payment status, invoice and tax information.
• Payment-provider transaction identifiers.

EAIPAM should not directly store complete payment-card or banking credentials when payment is processed by an authorised payment provider.

Technical and security information

• IP address.
• Browser and device information.
• Login, access and activity logs.
• Error reports and diagnostic information.
• Security, fraud-prevention and audit records.

Communications

• Emails and support requests.
• Complaints, deletion requests and correction requests.
• Responses to service or assessment queries.

4. Why EAIPAM processes personal data

EAIPAM may process personal data for the following specified purposes:

• Creating and maintaining user accounts.
• Authenticating users and protecting account access.
• Receiving and managing manuscript submissions.
• Performing the assessment selected by the user.
• Extracting and verifying references and citation information.
• Performing plagiarism and similarity screening where included in the selected service, including identifying textual overlap, similarity levels and major matching sources.
• Evaluating citation-to-claim alignment, scientific accuracy and evidence depth.
• Generating, reviewing and delivering assessment reports, including separate plagiarism and similarity and EAIPAM report outputs where applicable.
• Processing payments, invoices, refunds and credits.
• Providing technical and customer support.
• Detecting fraud, misuse, unauthorised access and security threats.
• Maintaining audit records and resolving disputes.
• Complying with applicable legal, tax and regulatory obligations.
• Improving service reliability, assessment quality and platform performance using appropriately restricted or de-identified information.

EAIPAM should not process personal data for a new incompatible purpose without providing an appropriate notice and obtaining permission where required.

5. How manuscripts are processed

Uploaded manuscripts may be temporarily stored, converted, parsed and analysed to provide the selected EAIPAM service.

Processing may include:

• Extracting manuscript text, headings, claims, citations and references.
• Comparing bibliographic information with scholarly databases and reference records.
• Conducting plagiarism and similarity analysis to identify textual overlap, similarity levels and matching scholarly sources where included in the selected service.
• Evaluating whether cited sources appear to support associated claims.
• Identifying scientific inconsistencies or unsupported technical conclusions.
• Assessing the depth, specificity and quality of supporting evidence.
• Generating internal and author-facing assessment reports.
• Generating a separate Plagiarism & Similarity Report and EAIPAM Integrity Report for Comprehensive Manuscript Analysis.
• Allowing authorised administrators to review, confirm, revise or exclude findings.

Where EAIPAM uses an authorised service provider to support a selected assessment, manuscript content or related information may be made available only to the extent reasonably necessary for that function. Such processing must remain limited to service delivery and subject to appropriate confidentiality, security, retention and contractual safeguards.

Processing a manuscript does not transfer ownership of the manuscript to EAIPAM.

6. Manuscript confidentiality

EAIPAM treats uploaded manuscripts as confidential assessment material.

Manuscripts will not be:

• Published or made publicly available by EAIPAM.
• Sold or licensed as publishing content.
• Distributed to unrelated third parties.
• Used to train general-purpose artificial-intelligence models without the user's explicit permission.
• Used to claim ownership or authorship over the manuscript.

EAIPAM may permit authorised service providers to process manuscript content only where reasonably necessary to provide the selected service. Such access does not authorise unrelated publication, sale, licensing, authorship claims or reuse of the manuscript beyond the authorised purpose unless separately disclosed and lawfully authorised.

Authorised administrators may access manuscript content only where reasonably necessary for assessment, quality control, technical support, security, investigation of misuse or legal compliance.

7. Information received from other persons

An editor, publisher, institution or authorised representative may submit a manuscript containing personal data relating to authors or contributors.

The submitting user is responsible for confirming that they have authority to provide the material and any associated personal data to EAIPAM for assessment.

Users should avoid including personal data that is unnecessary for the assessment.

8. Service providers and data sharing

EAIPAM may use contracted service providers to operate the platform and deliver assessments.

Depending on the final technical configuration, provider categories may include:

• Cloud hosting and deployment providers.
• Database and secure file-storage providers.
• Account-authentication providers.
• Email and communication providers.
• Payment gateways and billing providers.
• Scholarly metadata, DOI and reference-verification services.
• Specialist analytical service providers supporting defined assessment functions where reasonably necessary.
• Artificial-intelligence or language-processing providers used for defined assessment functions.
• Security, monitoring, logging and error-diagnostic providers.

Service providers should receive only the information reasonably required for their contracted function and should be subject to confidentiality, security and processing restrictions.

9. When information may be disclosed

EAIPAM may disclose limited information where reasonably necessary:

• To provide the service requested by the user.
• To contracted service providers acting on EAIPAM's instructions.
• To investigate fraud, platform abuse or security incidents.
• To protect users, systems, intellectual property or legal rights.
• To comply with a valid legal obligation, court order or authorised governmental request.
• In connection with a lawful organisational restructuring, subject to appropriate confidentiality and privacy protections.

EAIPAM does not sell personal data or manuscript content.

10. International data transfers

Some service providers may process or store information outside India. This may occur when EAIPAM uses international hosting, infrastructure, email, payment, scholarly-data or specialist analytical services.

Before commercial launch, EAIPAM must identify:

• The countries in which personal data and manuscript content may be processed.
• Which providers receive complete manuscripts, extracted text, assessment or report information, or limited metadata.
• The retention and deletion terms applicable where a service provider receives manuscript content or other confidential assessment material.
• The contractual and technical safeguards applied to those transfers.
• Whether any government restriction applies to a particular destination or type of data.

Users should receive clear information about relevant international processing before submitting a manuscript.

11. Legal basis and user permission

EAIPAM will process personal data only for lawful and specified purposes.

Depending on the activity and applicable law, processing may be based on:

• The user's consent or affirmative agreement.
• Processing necessary to provide the service requested by the user.
• Compliance with a legal obligation.
• Security, fraud-prevention or other processing permitted under applicable law.

Where consent is required, the notice should identify the personal data involved and the specific purpose for which consent is requested.

12. Data retention

EAIPAM will retain information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, subject to legal, security, payment and dispute requirements.

The proposed manuscript-retention model is:

• A default retention period of 90 days after report completion.
• Optional retention choices of 30 days, 90 days or one year.
• Earlier permanent deletion upon a verified user request, where legally and technically permissible.
• Deletion following account closure, subject to limited records that must be retained.

Where an authorised service provider processes manuscript content or confidential assessment material, the applicable retention and deletion arrangements must be reviewed before commercial launch. Processing should be limited to what is reasonably necessary for the selected service.

Payment records, consent records, security logs, audit information and dispute records may be retained separately from manuscript files for an appropriate period.

Further information will be provided in the Data-Retention Policy.

13. Deletion from backups

When a manuscript is deleted from active storage, residual encrypted copies may remain temporarily in restricted backups until the relevant backup cycle expires.

Backup copies should not be restored or used except for disaster recovery, security investigation or another authorised purpose.

14. User rights and requests

Subject to applicable law and appropriate identity verification, users may request:

• Information about how their personal data is processed.
• Access to eligible personal data associated with their account.
• Correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Updating of account information.
• Deletion of eligible personal data, manuscripts or reports.
• Withdrawal of consent where processing depends on consent.
• Closure of their EAIPAM account.
• Review of a privacy complaint or grievance.

A request may be refused or limited where retention or processing is required by law, necessary for security, needed to resolve a dispute or otherwise permitted under applicable law.

15. How to submit a privacy request

Users should be able to submit privacy requests through their account or by contacting EAIPAM's designated privacy address.

EAIPAM may request reasonable information to verify the requester's identity and authority before disclosing, correcting or deleting data.

16. Security safeguards

EAIPAM will use reasonable technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal data and manuscript content against unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, loss or destruction.

Measures may include:

• Encryption during transmission and, where supported, at rest.
• Restricted and role-based administrative access.
• Authentication and password controls.
• Activity logging and security monitoring.
• Secure backups and recovery procedures.
• Incident-response and breach-management procedures.
• Security requirements for contracted service providers.

Further information is available on the Security page.

17. Data breaches and incidents

EAIPAM will maintain procedures for identifying, investigating, containing and documenting suspected personal-data or manuscript-security incidents.

Where required by applicable law, affected users and the appropriate authority will be notified in the prescribed manner.

18. Cookies and similar technologies

EAIPAM may use cookies or similar technologies that are necessary for authentication, account security, session management and core platform operation.

Optional analytics, preference or marketing technologies should not be activated without an appropriate notice and consent mechanism where required.

A separate cookie notice may be added if EAIPAM introduces non-essential cookies or external analytics.

19. Children's personal data

EAIPAM is intended for adult authors, editors, publishers, researchers and institutional users. It is not designed for independent use by children.

Users should not intentionally upload personal data relating to a child unless it is necessary, lawful and appropriately authorised.

20. Automated assessment and human review

EAIPAM may use automated and AI-assisted processes to identify possible reference, citation, scientific and evidence-related concerns. Plagiarism and similarity analysis, where included in the selected service, is a separate assessment output that may identify textual overlap, similarity percentages and matching sources.

Similarity percentages are separate analytical outputs. They are not mathematically combined with the EAIPAM integrity-risk score and do not, on their own, establish plagiarism, copyright infringement, misconduct, legal liability, publication eligibility or disciplinary consequences.

These processes generate decision-support observations and risk indicators. They do not independently determine misconduct, legal liability, publication eligibility or disciplinary consequences.

Where appropriate, findings may be reviewed, revised, confirmed or excluded by an authorised administrator.

21. Changes to this policy

EAIPAM may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in the platform, service providers, processing purposes, applicable law or security practices.

The effective date will be updated when a revised policy is published. Where required, EAIPAM will provide additional notice or obtain renewed permission.

22. Privacy complaints and contact

Users may contact EAIPAM with questions, requests or complaints concerning personal data or manuscript processing.