Privacy notice
What personal data iPlaces holds, why, and how to reach us about it.
iPlaces is a publishing platform for field stations. Researchers sign in with ORCID, submit their work, and each station reviews and publishes it with a DOI. This notice explains what personal data that involves and what we do with it.
Who is responsible
- Each station (for example Gump Station) decides what it collects, reviews and publishes on its iPlaces site. For that data the station is the controller. Its name and contact are on its own site.
- iPlaces LLC runs the platform for the stations and handles that data only on their instructions (we are the processor). We are the controller for a small amount of platform data: your shared ORCID sign-in account, this website, server logs, and support emails.
What we hold
- Your account: your name, ORCID iD, affiliation and email address, taken from ORCID when you sign in. We never see or store your password.
- Authorship: names, ORCID iDs, affiliations and email addresses of the authors on each submission, and names of contributors or knowledge holders a record credits.
- Editorial work: submissions, uploaded files, reviews, comments and decisions.
- Emails we send you about your submissions.
- Server logs, including IP addresses, kept for security and troubleshooting.
We do not hold payment details, research datasets (records link to them), or advertising or tracking data.
Why, and on what basis
We use this data to let you sign in, submit and review work, publish it, register DOIs, send you updates about your submissions, give support, and keep the service secure and backed up. The legal basis is carrying out the publishing service you take part in, and the legitimate interest of the station and iPlaces in running a scholarly record. We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or use it to train AI models.
Published records are public on purpose
When a record is published, its author names, ORCID iDs and affiliations become part of the public scholarly record. They appear on the station's website and are sent to DataCite (which registers the DOI) and may be shared with ORCID and with research indexes that collect public metadata. Those services run under their own privacy terms. Email addresses are not part of the published record or DOI metadata.
Because the scholarly record needs to stay stable, published bylines and DOI metadata are normally kept permanently, as data protection law allows for research and archiving. If something in a published record is wrong, we will help the station correct it.
Where it is stored and who helps us
The platform and its database run in London, United Kingdom. We use these providers:
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Fly.io | Hosting and database | London, UK |
| Tigris Data | Storage of uploaded files | Distributed (US company) |
| Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES) | Sending notification emails | London, UK |
| Google Workspace | Station mailing lists and support email | United States |
Where data goes to the United States, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and each provider's own data transfer terms.
How long we keep it
- Accounts: while you use iPlaces. Ask us and we will delete your account.
- Unpublished submissions and editorial records: for as long as the station uses iPlaces. If a station leaves, its data is returned to it and deleted from our systems and backups within 90 days.
- Server logs: up to 30 days.
- Published records: permanently, as described above.
Your rights
You can ask to see the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or object to how it is used. You can also complain to your local data protection authority (for example the CNIL in France and French Polynesia, the ICO in the UK, or the Privacy Commissioner in Canada).
For anything about a station's records, you can contact that station or us; we will pass the request on and help the station answer it. We aim to reply within one month.
Contact: privacy@iplacesalliance.org
Cookies
We use only what is needed to keep you signed in and to make the site work. There are no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies.
Changes
If we change this notice, we will update the date at the top. Stations using iPlaces are told in advance about any new provider that handles their data.