Privacy policy

Privacy at Ghent University

Ghent University processes personal data of more than 9,000 staff members, 42,000 students, various alumni, external partners, visitors or other groups involved in the education, scientific research, quality assurance and business operations provided by Ghent University. At Ghent University this data is handled in a careful and responsible way to safeguard the personal data and information of all data subjects concerned. More information can be found in the privacy policy of Ghent University.

Your personal data is protected

Ghent University takes the protection of privacy very seriously. That is why the Executive Council of Ghent University approved the Generic Code of Conduct for the processing of personal data and confidential information on 18 May 2018.

With this Generic Code of Conduct Ghent University ratifies its General Data Protection Policy. Central to this is the security, accuracy, care and responsibility of the processing of personal data and confidential information, in addition to ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation.

Specific privacy information for openjournals.ugent.be

This website is hosted by Janeway. It only collects the data that is required in order to provide services to you, that is:

  • Submitting an article for publication
  • Contacting you with information about our membership programme
  • Contacting us via our contact form
  • Monitoring our infrastructure for bugs or security issues

The publication system does not profile your data in order to make an automated decisions, nor does it share personal data with others to profile usage data.

The website utilises non-intrusive cookies for the following purposes:

  • Maintenance of login sessions
  • Prevention of cross site request forgery
  • Tracking views and downloads of our articles using the COUNTER method (https://www.projectcounter.org/)

For website visitors

We collect a minimum of personal data for the following purposes and using the following services:

  • Contacting the Team
    Contact form Personal Data: email address
  • Infrastructure monitoring
    Sentry Personal Data: various types of Data as specified in the privacy policy of the service: https://sentry.io/privacy/
    Uptime Robot Personal Data: various types of Data as specified in the privacy policy of the service: https://uptimerobot.com/privacyPolicy
  • Download statistics
    Webserver cookies: session ID

For contributors

Additionally, we collect some personal data for the following purposes and using the following services:

  • Registration and authentication
    Personal Data: country, email address, first name and last name
    Optional Data: Facebook, Twitter, Github and Linkedin handles
    ORCID Personal Data: ORCID, email address, first name and last name as specified in the privacy policy of the service: https://info.orcid.org/privacy-policy/
  • Editing, copy editing, typesetting or proofing your article
    Personal Data: country, email address, first name and last name
  • Peer-reviewing your article
    Double-blind process Personal Data: none
    Similarity Check Personal Data: none 
  • Publishing your article online
    As an author, your first name and last name must be included with the publication, optional data can be shared as well
  • Registering your published article
    Crossref Personal Data: published author credits as specified in the privacy policy of the service: https://www.crossref.org/privacy/
    CLOCKSS Archiving Personal Data: published author credits as specified in the privacy policy of the service: https://clockss.org/faq/

Contact

In most cases, Ghent University, legally represented by its rector, bears ultimate responsibility for the processing of personal data at Ghent University.

Ghent University has therefore appointed a Data Protection Officer who coordinates the further development and implementation of Ghent University’s policy on the processing and protection of personal data and confidential information.

Data Protection Officer

Please contact the Data Protection Officer in case you have any questions, comments or suggestions concerning the various rights and obligations relating to privacy, or if you believe that Ghent University is processing your personal data wrongfully and/or improperly: privacy@ugent.be

Hanne Elsen
Department of Administrative Affairs
Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 25
9000 Ghent

Additional information

Ghent University may request additional information in order to assess the well-foundedness of such a request or to verify the identity of a person making the same.

Ghent University reserves the right not to comply with such requests, provided it states the grounds for the same. This may apply, for example, if such a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive in nature.

Complaints

If, after processing a request or complaint, you believe that insufficient action has been taken, you may contact the Flemish Supervisor using the following details: contact@toezichtcommissie.be.

Flemish Supervisory Committee for the processing of personal data
Koning Albert II-laan 15
1210 Brussels
Telephone: +32 (0)2 553 50 47