Browsing data
During your visit, the systems hosting the Site record technical information necessary for operation and security: IP address, browser and device type, pages requested, date and time, and request outcome. The Site is hosted on DigitalOcean infrastructure in the Frankfurt data center (European Union) and protected by Cloudflare, which acts as a distribution network and filter against abusive automated access and sets the technical cookie __cf_bm, with a duration of 30 minutes.
Legal basis: the Controller’s legitimate interest in ensuring the operation and security of the service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Technical logs are retained only for the time strictly necessary, normally no longer than 30 days, except where needed to ascertain unlawful acts.
Usage statistics
To understand which content is read, we use Google Analytics 4 configured in cookie-free mode: no cookie or other persistent identifier is stored on the device, the IP address is anonymized, and Google Signals and ad personalization are disabled. Statistics are aggregated (page views, device type, approximate geographic area) and do not allow the person to be identified; for the same reason, each visit is counted as new.
Legal basis: the Controller’s legitimate interest in measuring Site usage (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Google Ireland Ltd processes the data as processor; any transfers to Google LLC (USA) take place within the scope of the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
Internal search
The Site’s search function is semantic: the text you type is sent to the APIs of OpenAI to be transformed into a numerical representation used to compare articles. The search text is not linked to an account or to other identifying data and, under OpenAI API terms, is not used to train models. We invite you not to enter personal data, yours or others’, in the search field.
Legal basis: legitimate interest in providing the requested service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Collaboration forms
The Site provides two forms, for scientific collaboration and commercial collaboration. The data entered (first and last name, email, organization or company name, address, role, content of the request, and statements made) are sent by email to the editorial office and are not stored in the Site database. Email delivery is provided by SMTP2GO. The data are used solely to assess and respond to the request. The form includes an invisible anti-spam field that does not collect data.
Legal basis: performance of pre-contractual measures taken at the request of the data subject (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Retention: 24 months from receipt, unless the request leads to a collaboration.
Authors, co-authors, and reviewers
Those who collaborate on the Site’s content have a public profile containing first and last name, qualifications, professional biography, photograph, areas of expertise, affiliation, and, if provided, ORCID identifier. These data are processed to correctly attribute authorship of the content and ensure scientific transparency, in performance of the collaboration agreement (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and for the legitimate interest in correct editorial attribution (Art. 6(1)(f)).
The authors’ names permanently accompany each article, including in the copy deposited with the Zenodo archive (CERN), which assigns a DOI and does not allow the deletion of published versions. The review workflow takes place through personal links sent by email; access to the editorial office’s restricted areas takes place with authentication via ORCID or Google. Email addresses and other contact details are not published.
Videos and third-party content
Some articles embed YouTube videos. The player is loaded only when you press the play button: until then, no data are transmitted to Google. Videos on the LIFE Science Hub channel are monetized: from the moment playback starts, Google may show advertisements, including personalized ones, set its own cookies, and process data in accordance with its notice; a notice to this effect is displayed next to the play button. The audio files of the articles, PDFs, and images are served from our systems and do not entail further processing.
What we do not do
The Site does not provide newsletters, reader registration, public comments, or the sale of products or services. There are no third-party advertising networks or social media pixels on the Site pages: the boxes marked “Sponsored” are served by the Site and do not track browsing; the only advertisements are those within YouTube videos, as noted in the previous paragraph. Links to our social profiles are simple links.
