Privacy Policy

International Journal of Clinical Innovation (IJCI) is independently self-published by Juan Pablo Dugarte in the United States. For journal services described on this website, IJCI is the journal operator responsible for determining the purposes of journal-related information processing, subject to applicable law and the roles of its service providers.

Privacy questions and requests may be sent to editorial@ijcinnovation.org. IJCI does not state a separate data-protection officer, registered corporate entity, or postal privacy address unless and until such information is formally verified and adopted.

IJCI may collect names, email addresses, institutional affiliations, academic degrees, professional positions, specialties, ORCID identifiers, curriculum vitae, professional profiles, account information, correspondence, manuscript files, figures and supplementary material, author declarations, peer-review reports, reviewer conflicts, editorial decisions, application materials, and other information supplied in connection with journal activities.

Technical information necessary to operate and secure the website may also be processed, including authentication information, security and error logs, browser or device information, approximate network information supplied by infrastructure providers, and cookies or local-storage data necessary for authentication, session management, security, preferences, and reliable operation.

If a reader requests article alerts, IJCI records the email address, selected alert topics, confirmation status, and operational subscription records needed to honor confirmed preferences and unsubscribe requests. New alert subscriptions are not activated until the recipient confirms through a signed email link.

Information is used to receive and evaluate submissions, administer peer review, communicate with authors and reviewers, manage editorial appointments and applications, produce and publish scholarly records, maintain author/reviewer accounts, detect abuse, investigate research-integrity concerns, issue corrections or retractions, maintain audit records, secure journal systems, meet legal or ethical obligations, and operate other functions necessary for a scholarly journal.

IJCI seeks to limit processing to information reasonably needed for these purposes. Public scholarly metadata may remain available as part of the permanent publication record even when an individual later requests changes to ordinary account information.

Article-alert email addresses and topic preferences are used only to provide the requested journal alerts and related preference-management messages. Signed confirmation, management, and unsubscribe links are treated as security credentials and should not be shared.

Unpublished manuscripts, reviewer identities, review reports, editorial notes, integrity records, and related correspondence are confidential. IJCI uses double-blind peer review for externally reviewed scholarly content. Information is shared with editors, reviewers, authors, specialist advisers, service providers, institutions, or other parties only as necessary for the editorial process, integrity review, legal or ethical obligations, or journal operations.

Confidential manuscript and review material must not be uploaded by reviewers or editors to unauthorized generative AI systems or other external services that would compromise confidentiality.

Authors are responsible for removing unnecessary identifiers from submitted material and for obtaining all required ethics approvals and informed consent. Identifiable clinical information should be submitted only when scientifically necessary and appropriately authorized. The journal may request evidence of consent or ethics review but should not receive unnecessary patient identifiers or unrelated medical records.

IJCI may use third-party infrastructure for hosting, authentication, data storage, email delivery, security, document processing, analytics necessary for site operation, and other technical functions. Providers may process information only to the extent needed to provide those services, secure them, or meet applicable legal obligations under their own contractual and legal responsibilities.

IJCI also uses privacy-minimized first-party analytics to understand page readership and journal workflow clicks. When these analytics run, the browser uses a short-lived in-memory identifier for deduplication rather than a persistent analytics cookie, localStorage identifier, or sessionStorage identifier. Server-side analytics records may include a hashed form of that short-lived identifier, on-site path, referrer hostname, and voluntary UTM campaign tags; the journal's analytics record is not designed to store raw IP addresses or full referrer URLs.

The journal may use cookies, browser storage, and similar technologies when necessary for authentication, session management, security, preferences, and reliable website operation. Public readership analytics do not require a persistent analytics cookie or persistent browser-storage identifier. IJCI respects Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track signals for nonessential readership analytics where supported by the browser; declining or blocking nonessential analytics does not restrict access to public articles. IJCI does not use journal-account information for cross-site behavioral advertising and does not currently operate a paid behavioral-advertising program.

Account and ordinary operational records are retained only as long as reasonably necessary for journal administration, security, legal and ethical obligations, service delivery, and dispute or integrity review.

Submission, peer-review, editorial-decision, correction, retraction, authorship, conflict-of-interest, and research-integrity records may need to be retained for extended periods or permanently where necessary to preserve an auditable scholarly record, demonstrate the integrity of editorial processes, address misconduct allegations, or meet applicable legal or professional obligations. Published-article metadata and formal post-publication notices are part of the scholarly record and are not treated as ordinary account data.

IJCI uses reasonable administrative and technical safeguards intended to protect journal data from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or loss. Access to confidential journal systems is role-based where practicable. No internet-based system can be guaranteed completely secure, and users should protect their credentials and promptly report suspected unauthorized access.

Because IJCI serves an international scholarly community and uses internet-based infrastructure, information may be processed or stored in countries other than a user's country of residence. Where applicable, IJCI and its service providers are expected to use appropriate contractual, technical, organizational, or legal safeguards for cross-border processing.

Depending on the user's location and the law that applies to a particular request, privacy rights may include access, correction, deletion, restriction, objection, portability, withdrawal of consent where consent is the basis for processing, or an appeal or complaint to an appropriate authority. IJCI does not represent that every right applies to every user or circumstance.

Requests may be submitted to editorial@ijcinnovation.org. A request may be limited or denied when retention or continued processing is necessary to preserve peer-review confidentiality and the scholarly record, meet legal or ethical obligations, establish or defend claims, prevent fraud or misconduct, protect the rights of others, or satisfy another applicable exemption. IJCI may need to verify the identity and authority of the requester before acting.

IJCI does not sell personal information. IJCI does not share journal-account, submission, peer-review, or application information for cross-site behavioral advertising. If the journal's advertising or analytics practices materially change, the relevant public disclosures and any legally required consent mechanisms will be updated before or when the change takes effect.

IJCI's submission, peer-review, editorial, and professional journal services are intended for scholarly and professional use and are not directed to children under 13. IJCI does not knowingly solicit personal information from children under 13 through those services. If the journal learns that such information was collected inappropriately, it will take reasonable steps to delete or restrict it, subject to applicable law and any obligation to preserve a legitimate scholarly or security record.

This policy may be updated as the journal's services, infrastructure, scholarly-publishing standards, or legal obligations change. Material revisions will be reflected on this page with an updated version and effective date. No update will be described as a legal certification or regulatory approval unless such status has actually been obtained.