PRIVACY / DATA PROTECTION POLICY

Editorial Confidentiality & Double-Blind Anonymity

The Al-Najam Journal of Medical and Life Sciences (ANJMLS) is committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality, and personal information of authors, reviewers, editors, and readers. Editors, authors, reviewers, and editorial staff must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts, peer-review reports, correspondence, and other information obtained during the editorial and peer-review process.

Pre-Publication & Media Confidentiality:

Authors must not disclose confidential manuscript content, reviewer correspondence, editorial communications, or unpublished findings obtained through the ANJMLS editorial process to unauthorized third parties before publication.

Exception: Prior presentation at scientific meetings or posting on a recognized preprint server may be permitted where consistent with the journal's publication policies. Authors should disclose any relevant preprint or prior public dissemination during submission.

Information We Collect & Purpose of Use

ANJMLS collects and processes personal and manuscript-related information that is reasonably necessary to administer scholarly publishing, submission, peer review, publication, indexing, archiving, and communication services. Personal information is not sold or used for unrelated commercial marketing purposes.

Author Information: Names, email addresses, institutional affiliations, country, ORCID iD where provided, manuscript files, revisions, declarations, funding information, and submission-related correspondence.
Reviewer Information: Names, email addresses, institutional affiliations, areas of expertise, reviewer profiles, review reports, recommendations, and editorial correspondence associated with peer review.
Website & Technical Data: Limited technical information such as IP address, browser information, website usage statistics, cookies, login information, and other data necessary for secure operation of the journal website and OJS platform.

Data Application: Information is used to manage submissions, conduct peer review, communicate editorial decisions, publish articles, register persistent identifiers such as DOIs, maintain journal records, support indexing and archiving, prevent misuse of the platform, and meet applicable scholarly publishing requirements.

Storage Security & Data Sharing Limits

ANJMLS takes reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information and confidential editorial materials against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, loss, or misuse. Access to submission and peer-review information is restricted to individuals who require it for legitimate editorial or publishing functions.

Where necessary for scholarly publishing operations, limited information may be processed or transmitted through trusted third-party services, including DOI registration, journal hosting, archiving, indexing, plagiarism detection, email communication, and other essential publishing infrastructure. Such processing is limited to the purposes required to operate the journal.

Publicly Available Information: After publication, information forming part of the scholarly record—such as author names, affiliations, article title, abstract, article metadata, ORCID information where supplied, funding disclosures, and the published article itself—may become publicly accessible. Published scholarly records may remain permanently available for citation, indexing, and archival purposes.

Peer-Review Confidentiality

ANJMLS maintains confidentiality throughout the peer-review process. Where the journal uses a double-blind peer-review model, reasonable measures are taken to prevent the identities of authors and reviewers from being unnecessarily disclosed to one another.

Authors:
Must not attempt to identify reviewers or publicly disclose confidential reviewer comments or editorial correspondence.
Reviewers:
Must not disclose manuscript content, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, or their participation in reviewing a manuscript without authorization.
Editors:
Must protect confidential information and use submitted manuscripts and reviewer reports only for legitimate editorial purposes.

User Rights, Consent & Data Requests

Individuals may contact ANJMLS regarding personal information held by the journal and, where applicable, may request access to, correction of, or clarification regarding their personal data. Requests will be considered subject to legitimate editorial, legal, archival, and scholarly-record requirements.

Authors, reviewers, and other users are expected to provide accurate information and to notify the journal when relevant personal or professional details require correction.

Administrative Data Requests: Contact the ANJMLS Editorial Office through the official journal contact channel.

Important: Requests for deletion may be subject to limitations where information forms part of a published scholarly record, is required for publication ethics investigations, must be retained for legal or archival purposes, or is necessary to preserve the integrity and traceability of the journal's editorial record.

Data Security & Breach Response

ANJMLS takes reasonable precautions to safeguard information maintained within its editorial and publishing systems. No electronic transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure; however, the journal will take appropriate measures to investigate and mitigate suspected unauthorized access or disclosure.

Breach Response: Where a significant security incident affecting personal or confidential editorial information is identified, ANJMLS will assess the incident, take reasonable corrective measures, restrict further unauthorized access, and provide notifications where required by applicable law or relevant institutional obligations.