Privacy Policy

At Bentham Open Science, we are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal information, as well as the rights you have regarding your data. Bentham Open Science is the data controller of the personal information you provide, and we process it in accordance with this notice.

1. Collection of Personal Information

We may collect personal information from you through your use of our website (https://benthamopenscience.com/) and affiliated websites (collectively referred to as the ‘websites’), when you request information, engage our publishing services, participate in our conferences, or interact with our editors, authors, or institutional clients.

We may request, and collect from you, personally identifiable and other information. Depending on the information or services you request, you may be asked to provide your full name, email address, Bentham Open Science Account login credentials such as usernames and passwords, the institution(s) with which you are associated, your academic and professional qualifications, field(s) of study, current position, research interests, and payment details including credit card or debit card details.

By providing us with any personal information, you consent to the use of your personal information as outlined in this privacy notice. If you do not want us to use your personal information for any of these purposes, refrain from providing your information or clearly indicate the limitations of your consent.

In addition to the information you provide directly, we collect certain data automatically when you interact with our websites. This includes domain names, IP addresses, and usage statistics. (We do not track your online activity across third-party websites or services).

We may also collect personal data through tools such as Server Side Variables and Google Analytics etc. This may include:

  • Technical data, such as IP address, browser type and version, operating system, mobile platform, unique device identifiers and other technical identifiers;
  • usage data, such as click stream data (e.g., date and time stamps, referring/exit pages), search terms you used, and pages you viewed or accessed on our website; and
  • physical location of your device, for location-aware services.

2. Purposes

We will only use your personal information for legitimate business purposes, including:

  • Responding to inquiries and providing our services
  • Managing relationships with editors, authors, institutional clients, service providers, and other business contacts
  • Marketing our services
  • Managing subscriptions
  • Compiling anonymous statistics, such as website usage data and email campaign effectiveness
  • Complying with legal requirements

If our business undergoes reorganization, your personal information may be transferred to other entities within the Bentham group or to third parties as necessary.

3. Client Relationship Management

We operate a Client Relationship Management (CRM) mailing list program, which we use to inform clients and other contacts about our services, including our publications and events. Such marketing messages may contain tracking technologies to track subscriber activity relating to engagement, demographics and other data, and to build subscriber profiles?

If you wish to stop receiving marketing communications from us at any time, please let our CRM management team know directly at contact us. You can change your preferences for receiving our marketing emails and legal updates from us at any time. You can unsubscribe using the link provided in our emails or through the website, or by emailing us at contact us.

4. Sharing your Information

It may sometimes be necessary for us to share your personal information with other entities within the Bentham Group, as well as Editors, institutions, publishers, event organizers, agents, representatives, partner organizations, societies, credit card processors, customer support services, mailing houses, shipping agents, IT service providers, and consultants who support our operations.

If you use the Bentham Subscription Service, your personal information and certain usage data gathered through the Subscription Service, such as the number of downloads, any fee-based items you accessed, may be shared with your institution for the purposes of usage analysis and subscription management.

We have strict procedures in place to ensure the protection of personal information. These include requiring recipients to maintain the confidentiality and security of your information and to use it only for the specified purposes. We will only disclose your information to third parties if you have given your consent, if we are legally required to do so, or if it is necessary for the purposes of, or in connection with, legal proceedings or to exercise or defend legal rights.

We may disclose your personal information to a to third parties only (i) for the purposes of outsourcing specific services; (ii) to confirm or update information provided by you; (iii) to inform you of events, information about our services, and other important information, or (iv) for other purposes disclosed at or before the time the information is collected. If you register for an event, your name and organization may be shared with other attendees in the delegate list.

5. Cross-Border Transfer of Your Information

Your personal information may be transferred to and stored on servers and facilities located either in your region or in another country. Some of these countries may not provide the same level of data protection as your country of residence and may not be recognized by the European Commission as offering an adequate level of protection.

We take appropriate steps to ensure that your personal information remains protected. When transferring your information internationally, we use, share, and safeguard it as outlined in this privacy notice. Such transfers are made only when necessary for the services we provide or are subject to appropriate safeguards—such as the European Commission’s approved Standard Contractual Clauses—to ensure data protection.

6. Your Rights

Under certain circumstances, you have the following rights:

  • Access and Accuracy: the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, either for yourself or to be shared with a third party. You may also request that we verify, supplement, update, or rectify this information, in accordance with applicable laws;
  • Erasure or Blocking: the right to request the erasure, anonymization or blocking of personal information that has been processed unlawfully;
  • Objecting: the right to object, on legitimate grounds, to the processing of your personal information. In certain circumstances, we may not be able to stop using your personal information; if that is the case, we will inform you of the reasons;
  • Porting: the right to request that your personal information be provided to you, or another data controller, in a commonly used, machine-readable format.
  • Withdraw consent: when personal information is being processed based on consent, an individual may withdraw that consent at any time. To stop receiving marketing materials, use the unsubscribe link in our emails or contact us using the details provided below.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us at contact us - our dedicated email address for queries regarding the processing of your personal data.

7. Confidentiality

Any information you provide may be treated as confidential. We will maintain this confidentiality and protect your personal data in accordance with this privacy notice and applicable laws. We do not sell, rent, distribute, or otherwise make your personal information commercially available to any third party. We may share your data with service providers solely for the purposes outlined in this privacy notice.

8. Information Security

We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect your personal information against loss, misuse, unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction.

9. Cookies

We use ‘cookies’ to enhance the functionality and performance of our website. Cookies are small data files that are sent to your computer's hard drive by a web server, enabling websites to recognize and remember users. Information collected through cookies may include information relating to your usage of our website, your computer’s IP address and browser type, and certain demographic data. Below is an overview of the types of cookies we use and their purposes. Most web browsers allow you to control cookie settings. You can choose to be notified when a cookie is set, or to reject or disable cookies altogether.

We use Google Analytics and Zopim Chat Service. They store cookies on client computers.

 Cookie Name  Purpose
PHPSESSID  Maintain unique session id of each client.
__zlcmid  We are using third party Zopim chat service to provide support online. They are using this cookie.
_ga  Used to distinguish users. https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/gtagjs.
_gat  Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property-id>. https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/gtagjs.
_gid  Used to distinguish users. https://developers.google.com/tag-platform/gtagjs.
has_js  The has_js cookie records whether your browser has JavaScript enabled.

10. Changes to this Notice

We may update this privacy notice from time to time. Your continued use of this website signifies your acceptance of any changes made. The notice will be revised with an updated date to reflect any material amendments.

11. Contact Information

If you have any questions regarding this privacy notice or the processing of your personal data, please contact us at contact us.

Our full corporate name and details are as follows: BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS LTD. FZE, Executive Suite Y-2, PO Box 7917, Saif Zone, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.