Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Scientific Steps International Publishing Services L.L.C., trading as Scientific Steps Group ("SSG"), Office 1F-04, Hor Al Anz, Deira, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is responsible for the personal data described in this policy. Contact: Info@scientificstepsgroup-ssg.com.

This policy covers scientificstepsgroup-ssg.com and SSG's journal platform at scientificsteps-group.com, where submissions and peer review are handled.

Optional services (author services and the StepSphere AI workspace) have their own privacy notice, shown when you use them. See the StepSphere policy.

2. What we collect

Data	When	Why
Name, title, affiliation, country, email, ORCID iD, research interests	When you create an account, submit, review, or edit	To run peer review and publication, and to communicate with you
Author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, emails of corresponding authors	When an article is published	To publish the article and its metadata. These are public, and are sent to Crossref and indexing services
Reviewer reports and identities	During peer review	To make editorial decisions. Reviewer identities are kept confidential
Billing name and address, payment records	After acceptance, when an APC applies	Invoicing, and legal and accounting obligations. Card payments, where offered, are handled by our payment provider; SSG does not store card data
StepSphere account, orders, uploaded files, and generated results	When you use StepSphere	To provide the StepSphere service. Processed as described in the StepSphere Policy, including by third-party AI and cloud computing providers acting for SSG. Never shared with SSG journals
Messages you send us	When you contact us	To answer you
Anonymous, aggregated visit statistics (page, country, device, referring site)	When you browse	To improve the Website. We do not store IP addresses for analytics, and we do not use tracking or advertising cookies

The Website uses only essential cookies, for example to keep you signed in and to protect forms.

3. Legal bases

We process personal data because it is needed to provide the service you asked for (submission, review, or publication), to meet legal obligations (accounting), for our legitimate interest in running and improving our journals, or with your consent (newsletters).

4. Sharing

We share personal data only with:

Our submission-system and hosting providers
Crossref, for DOI registration
Archiving and indexing services, for published metadata only
Our payment provider
For StepSphere only: the third-party AI and cloud computing providers described in the StepSphere Policy
Authorities, where the law requires it

Each of these handles data under a written agreement or its own published terms. We do not sell personal data.

5. International transfers

Our service providers may process data outside the UAE. Where they do, we use providers that offer appropriate safeguards, as UAE law requires.

6. How long we keep data

Submission and review records: for the life of the journal, to keep the scholarly record intact and to handle any integrity questions.
Accounts: until you ask us to close them. Records connected to published articles or completed reviews are kept as described above.
Billing records: for the period required by UAE law.
StepSphere files and results: as set out in the StepSphere Policy, section 6.
Newsletter subscriptions: until you unsubscribe.

7. Your rights

You may ask to see, correct, or delete your personal data, to object to or restrict its use, or to receive a copy of it. You may withdraw consent for newsletters at any time, using the link in every email. Write to Info@scientificstepsgroup-ssg.com. We answer within 30 days. We cannot delete published author names or metadata, because they are part of the permanent scholarly record.

8. Security

Data is sent over HTTPS, and stored on access-controlled servers. Access is limited to staff and editors who need it for their role.

9. Changes

We will post any change on this page, with a new version number and date.