TSUJCMS is committed to protecting the privacy, personal data, and intellectual property of our authors, reviewers, editorial board members, and website visitors. This Privacy Policy outlines how the Department of Mass Communication at Taraba State University collects, uses, maintains, and safeguards your information when you interact with our journal, submission systems, and digital platforms.

1. Information We Collect

To manage the editorial, peer-review, and publication processes effectively, TSUJCMS collects the following categories of personal data:

· Author and Contributor Data: Full name, institutional affiliation, email address, ORCID iD.

· Reviewer and Editor Data: Academic expertise, CVs, peer-review histories, evaluations, and availability data.

· Manuscript Metadata: Tracking histories, revisions, editorial decisions, and financial records related to processing fees (e.g., peer-review fee and Article Processing Charges).

· Technical Data: IP addresses, browser types, and usage data collected automatically through website cookies to enhance your online experience.

2. How We Use Your Information

The personal data collected by TSUJCMS is used exclusively for scholarly publishing activities and is never sold or used for commercial marketing. Its primary applications include:

· Managing the submission, evaluation, and production workflows.

· Facilitating the double-blind peer-review process (ensuring reviewer identities are strictly masked from authors and vice versa).

· Attributing authorship and institutional metadata to published articles accurately.

· Communicating administrative updates, fee receipts, and editorial decisions.

· Verifying manuscript originality using professional anti-plagiarism and text-matching software.

· Listing editorial board members and expert reviewers on our public indexing pages to maintain transparency.

3. Data Confidentiality in Peer Review

In alignment with global editorial best practices:

· All submitted manuscripts, data sets, and correspondence are treated as strictly confidential documents.

· Editors and reviewers are contractually and ethically prohibited from sharing, discussing, or utilizing any unpublished research, methodologies, or findings for personal or professional gain.

· Identity shielding is maintained throughout the double-blind review process. Reviewer reports are transmitted to authors stripped of identifying metadata.

4. Data Sharing and Third-Party Disclosures

TSUJCMS will only share personal data with external entities under the following explicit operational conditions:

· Academic Databases and Indexing Services: When an article is published, the authors’ names, affiliations, emails, and ORCID iDs are shared with global discovery platforms (e.g., Crossref, Google Scholar) to ensure academic visibility.

· Plagiarism Prevention Services: Submissions are securely processed through third-party text-matching tools to verify manuscript originality.

· Legal Compliance: Information may be disclosed if required by law, university regulation, or in response to a formal investigation into publication malpractice or research misconduct.

5. Data Retention

· Published Research: To preserve the permanent scholarly record, published articles, author metadata, and citations will remain publicly accessible online indefinitely.

· Unpublished Manuscripts: Submissions that are rejected or withdrawn, along with their associated peer-review files, are securely archived in the journal system for a mandatory period of [e.g., 3 or 5 years] to resolve any prospective ethical disputes, after which they are permanently expunged.

6. Your Rights and Data Security

TSUJCMS implements robust technical and organizational security measures to protect your data against unauthorized access, alteration, or disclosure. Under global data protection frameworks, you retain the right to:

· Access, update, or correct your user profile and institutional affiliation data at any time.

· Request the restriction of processing or deletion of your personal data (provided it does not compromise the integrity of an ongoing peer review or a published scholarly record).

· Withdraw consent for optional communications or journal notifications.