Privacy Policy — IJMEER Open Access Journal

IJMEER is operated by Meer Foundation. We are committed to protecting your privacy and processing your data responsibly in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

Submission data: When you submit a manuscript, we collect your name, email address, institutional affiliation, ORCID (if provided), manuscript content, and correspondence.

Reviewer data: If you register as a reviewer, we collect your name, email, academic expertise, affiliation, and reviewing history.

Payment data: APC payments are processed securely via Razorpay. We do not store payment card details. We receive payment confirmation and invoice records only.

Usage data: We collect standard web analytics data (via Google Analytics) including anonymised IP addresses, page views, session duration, and referral sources.

We use your information to: (a) process and manage your manuscript submission; (b) communicate editorial decisions and reviewer feedback; (c) coordinate peer review; (d) process APC payments and issue invoices; (e) send publication confirmations and post-publication notices; (f) maintain accurate publication records; (g) improve the website and user experience via analytics.

We process personal data on the following legal bases: (a) Contract — to fulfil our publishing agreement with authors; (b) Legitimate interests — to operate the journal, manage peer review, and prevent fraud; (c) Legal obligation — for invoicing and tax compliance; (d) Consent — for analytics and marketing communications (which you may withdraw at any time).

We do not sell your personal data. We may share data with: (a) peer reviewers (manuscripts are anonymised); (b) Zenodo for journal archiving and DOI; (c) Google Analytics for anonymised usage analytics; (d) Razorpay for payment processing; (e) legal authorities if required by law.

Published article metadata (author names, affiliations) is retained permanently as part of the scientific record. Submission correspondence is retained for 7 years. Reviewer data is retained while you are an active reviewer. Payment records are retained for 7 years as required by Indian tax law.

You have the right to: access your personal data; correct inaccurate data; request erasure of non-essential data; object to processing; data portability; and withdraw consent. To exercise these rights, email editor@ijmeer.com. Note: published author names are part of the permanent scientific record and cannot be removed.

We use: (a) Essential cookies — for theme preferences (dark/light mode) stored in localStorage; (b) Analytics cookies — Google Analytics (GA4) and Google Tag Manager for anonymised usage tracking. You may opt out of analytics cookies by using browser extensions such as Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on.

For privacy questions or to exercise your rights, contact: Data Controller: Meer Foundation · Email: editor@ijmeer.com · Website: meerfoundation.co.in. We aim to respond to all privacy requests within 30 days.