Code of ethics of the European Journal of Privacy Law & Technologies (EJPLT)
The European Journal of Privacy Law & Technologies (EJPLT) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal, semiannual and in open access, registered with ISSN 2704-8012 at the International ISSN Centre. Its Code of ethics complies with the Core Practices (https://publication-ethics.org/resources/cope-core-practices/) introduced by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
1. Journal Committee
The Journal Committee is composed of the Editor in Chief (Director), the Vice-Director, the Coordinator of the Editorial and Referees Board, the Advisory Board (Scientific Committee), the Board of Referee, and the Editorial Board.
All the members of the Journal Committee, each within the scope of their functions, are responsible for the process leading to the decision to publish the contributions proposed by the author(s). The final decision rests with the Director, on the basis of the Referees' opinions (see Article 4).
2. Duties and responsibilities of the Publisher
The Publisher encourages and is aware of research into peer-review and reassesses journal processes in the light of new findings.
The Publisher works to provide the Journal with appropriate resources, guidance from experts (e.g. designers, lawyers, academics), and adequate training, so that the Journal Committee can perform its role professionally and raise the quality of the Journal.
The Publisher supports initiatives designed to avoid academic misconduct and to educate researchers about publication ethics (Publication Malpractice Statement). The Publisher assesses the effects of the Journal's policies on Authors and Reviewers behavior and revises policy, as required, to encourage responsible behavior and discourage misconduct.
The Publisher together with all the Journal Committee takes reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of contributions where research misconduct has occurred (e.g. including plagiarism, data falsification/fabrication, reproduction from previously edited work without quotation marks and other forms of citation manipulation). The Publisher has systems in place to detect research misconduct (e.g. plagiarised text, falsified or fabricated data) and bases decisions about the journal house style on relevant evidence of factors that raise the quality of reporting (e.g. adopting titles and structured abstracts in double language, one of which is always English). In no case can the Publisher or the entire Journal Committee encourage such misconduct, or knowingly allow such misconduct to take place. If the Publisher or a member of the Journal Committee are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published contribution in the Journal, they follow COPE's guidelines in dealing with allegations. In general, the Publisher and the Director support Authors who have been the victims of plagiarism or whose copyright has been breached. In the event of plagiarism or any other publication fraud, the Publisher and the Director may take appropriate legal action pursuant to Italian law.
The Publisher has policies and systems in place to ensure that commercial considerations do not affect editorial decisions (e.g. advertising departments should operate independently from editorial departments). The relationship between the Publisher and the Editor in chief/Director of the Journal is regulated in an agreement. The relationship between the Editor in chief, the Vice-Director, the Scientific Committee, Referees, and the Editorial Team is firmly based on the principle of editorial independence.
The Journal is a six-monthly publication (semiannual), i.e. two issues per year, one every six months (June and December).
The Journal may also publish special issues. Special issues follow the same rules as ordinary issues, including the peer-review process set out in this Code of Ethics; the only difference provided for special issue is that they collect contributions relating to a specific and coherent scientific project consistent with the Journal's areas of interest.
The Issues from 2018/1 to 2020/1 were published by Giappichelli Publisher. From Issue 2020/2 the Publisher is Suor Orsola Benincasa Università Editrice. Prof. Lucilla Gatt is the Editor in Chief and the owner of the Journal.
3. Duties and responsibilities of the Editor in chief (Director), the Vice-Director and the Scientific Committee.
The Director acts as an external representative of the Journal and tends to constantly improve the same both in terms of academic quality and in terms of compliance with ethical standards for publication. He/she supervises the academic quality of the contents of the journal, guaranteeing the process of acceptance for the publication of the same as indicated in this code of ethics. The Vice-Director takes the place of the Director in his/her absence and, in other cases, works with him/her.
The Scientific Committee, together with the Director, determines the scientific directions and the general and organisational principles of the Journal, also by planning the single issues and ensures the scientific quality of the contributions. Together with the Director, Scientific Committee approves the code of ethics and the author's guidelines.
Please note that all submissions received will be subject to a preventive internal assessment carried out by the Director with the support of the Vice-Director and the Coordinator of the Editorial and Referees Board, based on the criteria listed in artt. 4 and 6 and detailed in the "Submission" section and "Author's guidelines", as well as according to administrative aspects (i.e. number of contributions already approved for the publication in the current issue and/or timing). When a submission does not pass the initial assessment, it will not be forwarded for peer review. Where a submission is not forwarded for administrative reasons only, the Author will be informed accordingly, so that these reasons are clearly distinguished from those relating to the scientific merit of the contribution.
The Journal guarantees the equality of all the contributions submitted and of the related Authors. Indeed, the Director and the Vice-Director, the Referees and the Scientific Committee, and the Editorial team, each of them for their respective competencies, are required to revise and choose articles, comments on decisions, use cases, focus papers or project deliverables, (in general called 'contributions') without distinction of race, sex, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, the scientific, academic or political orientation of the Authors (equality principles of contributions and related Authors).
If the Director and the Vice-Director, the Referees or the Scientific Committee detect or receive reports about errors or inaccuracies, conflicts of interest, plagiarism or other practices contrary to scientific integrity in a contribution proposed for publication, they will promptly notify the Author and the Publisher and will take the necessary actions to clarify the issue and, if necessary, will withdraw the contribution or publish a retraction. In general, they supervise compliance with this code of ethics in the conduct of research activities and subsequent publication of the contribution by authors.
4. Duties and responsibilities of the Referee
The Referees are in charge of the evaluation of the Journal's contributions, on the basis of a peer review process.
Referees are Full and Associate Professors, external experts, chosen by the Director, the Vice-Director and the Scientific Committee on the basis of their expertise to provide written opinions, with the aim of improving the contributions. They are sector specialists, expressly indicated in the EJPLT Board, who verify articles, comments on decisions, use cases, focus papers and project deliverables suitability for publication on the EJPLT (peer review). The Referees are required to fill in the evaluation form in full autonomy from the Journal Direction. Being a peer review process, the Referee does not know the identity of the author of the contribution submitted for evaluation, and the author(s) does not know the identity of the Referee whose work is to be evaluated (double blind review process).
Observatory papers go through a single-blind review process carried out by the Scientific Committee of the EJPLT to verify compliance with the EJPLT Code of Ethics and the Author Guidelines. Observatory papers are uploaded only on the EJPLT platform, but not in the EJPLT issues.
Before the contributions are sent to the Referees, the EJPLT Director may verify them and reject those that do not meet the required standards of quality, originality and significance (initial assessment). After the peer review, the Director may verify the peer reviews and ask for further review. In exceptional and justified cases, the Director takes responsibility for publication or non-publication of the contributions. In this case, the Director gives written reasons to the Author.
The contributions are examined and rated on the base of the following criteria, depending on the type of contribution: impact of the research, objectives, originality, maturity, methodology, clarity, and references.
The peer-review is carried out objectively, guaranteeing the equality of all the contributions submitted and of the related Authors.
Each contribution assigned for review is considered confidential. Therefore, these texts must not be discussed with other people without the explicit authorisation of the Author. Referees and editorial team must not upload or submit contributions under review to generative AI tools or other external services that may store, reuse or disclose their content.
Through the peer-review procedure, the Referees assist the Director in making decisions on the proposed contributions, also supported by the Vice-Director, and can also suggest corrections and precautions to the Authors, to improve their contribution. If the Referees do not feel adequate to the proposed task or if they know they cannot read the works within the required time, they must promptly notify the Editor in chief.
Each Referee is assigned a personal account on the EJPLT portal. The Referees are required to adequately justify the opinions expressed by filling in the relevant peer-review form sent via email or available in his/her account.
The Referees undertake to report to the Editor in chief any similarities or overlaps of the text received with other works known to them. All information obtained during the peer-review is confidential. The Referees are required not to accept a contribution for which there is a conflict of interest due to previous collaboration or competition with the Author and/or his institution.
Communication to Authors concerning the results of the review of their contributions takes place via EJPLT platform or via email by the Editorial Team.
All communications to the EJPLT Board are made via EJPLT platform or by email by writing to this email address.
5. Duties and responsibilities of the Editorial Team
The Editorial Board facilitates relations between the Director and Vice-Director, the Scientific Committee, the Referees and the authors. It carries out technical support activities for the peer-review procedure and is responsible for publishing the contributions in full compliance with the editorial and citation criteria of the Journal.
The Editorial Team carry out the editorial activities under the coordination of the Coordinator of the Editorial and Referees Board. The Coordinator has to supervise the Editorial Team and the other in carrying out their activities.
6. Duties and responsibilities of Authors
All the Authors, have to follow the 'Author's Guidelines' process published in the specific section of the EJPLT website.
Contributions can be written in English, Spanish, French or Italian. In any case, the title and abstract of the contribution will also be in English.
The Authors are required to declare that they have drawn up an original work in its entirety and have duly cited all the texts used. If the work and/or words of other Authors are used, these must be appropriately paraphrased and cited, or quoted.
The authorship of the work must be correctly attributed and all those who have made a significant contribution to the design, organization, realization, and re-elaboration of the research that underlies the contribution must be indicated as co-authors. Each contribution must indicate the institutional contact details of the Author or, in the case of multiple Authors, of the corresponding Author, to allow readers to reach them and to enable post-publication discussion.
Authors may use artificial intelligence (AI) or similar algorithmic tools to support the writing of a scientific contribution (e.g. language editing, translation or bibliographic assistance, images generation), but it is not permitted to use an AI system, to write significant parts of the contribution or the entire contribution without author guidance and revision. AI tools cannot be credited as authors. Any use of AI tools must be declared at the time of submission, specifying the tool and the purpose for which it was used, and Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy of the contribution and of all its references, including legislation and case law. The Journal may use AI-generated content detection systems as a screening aid only to verify compliance with this clause: no decision is taken solely on the basis of their results, any flagged text is reviewed by the Editorial Team, and the Author is given the opportunity to respond.
All Authors are required to explicitly state that there are no conflicts of interest that may have affected the results achieved or the proposed interpretations. The Authors must also indicate the possible funding Entity of the research and/or project from which the contribution arises. Where the research involves human participants, experiments, surveys or the processing of personal data, Authors must comply with the applicable legal and ethical requirements (including Regulation (EU) 2016/679).
Authors are also asked to give the consent and release for the publication in open access of the contribution submitted to the Journal for publication, including any data and images included, in compliance with disciplinary standards and any confidentiality constraints.
Contributions under evaluation must not be submitted to other journals for publication.
When an Author identifies in a published article an error or a relevant inaccuracy, he/she must promptly inform the Editor in chief, and the Editorial Team Coordinator provides all the information to make the necessary corrections.
Articles, comments on decisions, use case, focus papers and project deliverables go through a double-blind review process carried out by the Referees of the EJPLT, experts who verify articles' suitability for publication on the EJPLT (peer review process).
Observatory papers and news go through a single-blind review process carried out by the scientific committee of the EJPLT to verify compliance with the templates and standards of citation indicated in the Author Guidelines section.
Submissions shall be made in accordance with the requirements set out in the "Submission" and Author's Guidelines sections, illustrated in the specific section of the EJPLT website. During the submission, Authors are specifically asked to approve and comply with Journal's code of ethics.
Post-publication discussion is allowed through the possibility of posting reply contributions or letters to the Editor addressed to the Journal's email address indicated on the Journal website. Similarly, mechanisms are in place to allow for possible changes and corrections to contributions already published, or their withdrawal, through documented and transparent ways for the reading public, consisting of the annotation of the activities carried out in relation to a specific contribution directly on the web page of the same contribution.
7. Intellectual property, including Copyright and Creative Commons License
EJPLT is an Open Access Journal,and the Authors do not bear any cost for the publication of their contributions on the Journal. More precisely it is an Open Access Diamond, being a model of scholarly publication in which no fees are charged to either authors or readers.
The copyright of the Issues is of the Publisher, while the intellectual property of the individual contributions remains with the Authors, who grant the Publisher a license to publish their contributions.
Each Author receives, in a short time from the first publication and without charge, by the Publisher, as an extract, the PDF of his/her published contribution, in the final version published on an EJPLT issue.
EJPLT issues are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits to copy and distribute the material for noncommercial (NC) purposes only, in any medium or format in unadapted form only (ND), and only so long as attribution is given to the Author. Derivative contributions are allowed but must not be shared. All the details on the license are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Under these terms, Authors, immediately after publication and without the written permission of the Publisher, may (i) share, copy, redistribute, deposit and publicly display the published version (Version of Record) of their contribution in any medium or format; (ii) allow third parties to use the published contribution freely, in accordance with license conditions.
Authors may, for example, reproduce and distribute copies of their contributions during lectures or seminars, freely share the contribution in Open Access, also uploading them on websites, online archives, or repositories. In any case, the contributions have to be shared in the PDF version published in the EJPLT issue or through the indication of a weblink to the published version on EJPLT.
Concerning the repository, Authors are allowed to deposit/post the published version (Version of Record) of their contributions in institutional or other repositories and platforms, such as: IRIS, ORCID, Research Gate, Academia. In general, all the platforms are allowed with the only limit being that the integrity of the contributions has to be maintained, proper attribution is given to the Author(s) and EJPLT is recognised and cited as the source of the original publication of the work.
With regard to the contributions in the submitted and accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript), not already published, Authors are allowed to deposit them only in institutional repositories not open access, such as IRIS.
8. Archiving policy
The Journal contents are archived through long-term preservation services in three National Libraries: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Biblioteca Nazionale 'Vittorio Emanuele' di Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.
Furthermore, the Journal has a plan for electronic backup and preservation of access on Publisher platform of the Journal (Open Journal Systems - OJS), as well as on the Publisher website (webpage dedicated to the Journal). Moreover, an electronic backup is also provided via a cloud with access restricted to authorised persons only.
Free access to the Journal contents from its official website: www.ejplt.tatodpr.eu
9. Management of conflicts of interest and disputes
Any relevant conflict of interests must be declared to the Director by researchers, authors, and Referees. The Director discloses relevant conflicts of interest to the readers. If in doubt, he/she discloses the conflict. If needed, members of the Journal Board may need to withdraw from the review and selection process for the relevant submission. Where the Director, the Vice-Director or another member of the Journal Committee is the author or co-author of a submission, or has a conflict of interest in relation to it, he/she is excluded from every stage of its evaluation.
Furthermore, in case of conflict of interest that may arise in the review process Referees are required to notify the Director and the editorial board, specifying all details in the evaluation form.
Any disputes are governed by Italian copyright law (Law of 22 April 1941, No. 633) and international conventions for the protection of intellectual property, which regulate the scope of application of Italian copyright law to the contribution of foreign authors. In addition, the principle of reciprocity applies, whereby the contributions of foreign authors, even if not domiciled in Italy, and who have not published the contribution for the first time in Italy, enjoy the protection enshrined in Italian copyright law, provided that the state of which the foreign author is a citizen, grants the contribution of Italian authors effectively equivalent protection and within the limits of such equivalence.
Any disputes are decided by a sole arbitrator, chosen by mutual agreement between the parties and deciding according to equity.