Privacy Policy

Effective date: January 3, 2025

Psychotherapy Science Today (PST) is committed to managing personal information lawfully, ethically, and with the highest standards of professionalism and responsibility. We have provided the information below to help you understand how PST collects, uses and discloses personal information, and how you can exercise choices and rights over your personal information.

By using the PST’s website or other online services that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, "Sites"), you are subject to the terms and conditions of this Policy. When we refer to "PST", "our", "we", or "us", we mean Psychotherapy Science Today Journal who determine how and why personal information is processed.

01. Types of personal information we process

Personal information means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. The types of personal information that we process are determined by how individuals interact with us and the particular products and services that we provide. The types of personal information that we process include:

  • Identifiers, such as name, email address, username, IP address, institution identification number (e.g. student ID) or government-issued identification number (e.g. Social Security Number);
  • Contact information, such as email address, postal address, telephone number;
  • Demographic information, such as age or gender;
  • Commercial information about how individuals engage with us, such as purchase history and subscription information;
  • Financial information, such as a credit or debit card number or scholarship information;
  • Academic or Professional information, such as publications, work history, education history, expertise;
  • Engagement information, such as comments, feedback, posts, enquiries, and communications;
  • Images, such as closed-circuit television if visiting our office location;
  • Website activity information, as explained below in the section "Information Collected Through Automated Technologies";
  • Preferences, such as communication, language, or marketing.

Some of the personal information that we process may constitute sensitive personal information, which can be defined differently according to each country’s local data protection laws. We will only process such sensitive personal information where this is necessary to fulfil a specific and legitimate purpose.

02. Where we collect personal information from

Information provided directly

We collect personal information directly from individuals who use our Sites or services, visit our office locations, or communicate with us. All information that we ask for is mandatory unless it is indicated as being optional. If mandatory information is not provided, we will be unable to provide the requested service.

Information collected through automated technologies

We collect personal information when our Sites are used, either directly or through our third-party analytics providers. This might include Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type and settings, device identifier details, internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, the Site content interacted with, operating system, clickstream data, location data, or other usage information. We collect this information through tracking technologies, including first and third-party cookies, web beacons (also known as tracking pixels or pixel tags), embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, device recognition technologies, and session replay software. We may combine this information with other information that we hold.

We use this information to enable Site functionality, understand Site interaction trends, gather demographic insights about our user base, personalize user experiences, and otherwise administer and improve our Sites and services.

Information we receive from other sources

We receive personal information from third parties such as: business partners that we work with to provide our services; advertising, marketing, digital and social media agencies; data brokers; analytics providers; academic institutions; journal owners, societies and similar organizations; search information providers; third parties who may recommend potential authors, reviewers, editors or contributors; and credit reference agencies. We also receive information from publicly accessible sources, such as public databases or social media platforms.

If you choose to register and sign in by using a third-party account as an identity service (such as your Facebook or Google account), that third party manages the authentication of your account. PST will collect your name, email address and any other information that you agree to share with us at the time you give permission for your PST account to be linked to your third-party account.

03. Use of personal information

Depending on how individuals interact with PST, we use personal information where it is necessary to perform contractual obligations, where consent has been given, where it is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, or (if permitted by jurisdictional law) where we or a third party have a legitimate and lawful business need. This includes processing personal information for the following purposes:

  • Administration of products and services
    • Performing contracts or other transactions that we enter into;
    • Providing, managing and supporting our products and services.
  • Marketing and communication
    • Communicating about our or our partners’ programs or events (including webinars, conferences, contests, or surveys);
    • Marketing our Sites, products, or services (including by delivering commercial emails, newsletters, targeted advertising, phone calls, and/or SMS messages);
    • Responding to enquiries, requests, or other comments;
    • Personalizing our Sites, services, products, and communications.
  • Development of products and services
    • Evaluating and improving our business (including enhancing our Sites, services, products, and communications; developing new Sites, services, and products; and assessing the effectiveness of our promotions and advertising);
    • Performing data analytics for internal research or other business purposes.
  • Business management and administration
    • Diversity and inclusion initiatives (for example, we might use gender to analyze representation and improve equitable outcomes);
    • Detecting and investigating fraud and suspicious activity (e.g., violations of our Terms of Use) and otherwise keeping our Sites safe and secure;
    • Complying with legal or regulatory obligations.

We use information collected through automated technologies for the purposes described in the "Information Collected Through Automated Technologies" section above.

We may aggregate or anonymise information so that it is de-identified and can no longer be used to identify individuals. Subject to applicable laws, this information may be used for analytical purposes such as developing our products and services, identifying industry trends, and benchmarking. Where allowed by law, we may share aggregated or de-identified information with third parties as described in the “Sharing Personal Information” section below.

04. Sharing personal information

Within PST. We may share personal information with our subsidiary and affiliate companies for the purposes described in the "Use of Personal Information" section above.

With our service providers. We may share personal information with service providers that perform services on our behalf. Before we share personal information with any service provider, they must agree to comply with applicable laws, maintain strong data security, and only process personal information as we instruct.

With partner organizations. We may share personal information with certain partners, including:

  • Where a third party such as an academic institution, school, employer, business or other entity provides you with access to a PST product or service, we may share information regarding your usage of the product or service, results of assessments taken, and other information you input into the product or service;
  • Where you participate in a program or event in which we partner with third parties (such as a webinar, conference, or promotional event), we may share your information with the sponsor of that program or event;
  • Where you have access to our content or Sites, or you have chosen to receive electronic alerts about journals, or your contribution to one of our journals or other works has been accepted for publication, we may share your information with the organization(s) associated with such content or Sites (for example, the journal owner or a society);
  • Where you declare an affiliation to a funder, institution, consortia, or similar organization, we may share your information with that organization where such sharing is necessary to fulfil any of our services of which that organization is a customer;
  • Where your information is part of the published content to which PST is providing access;
  • Where we use advertising partners to serve ads and/or collect certain information when you visit our Sites to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you;
  • Where, even if not described above, you have consented to disclosure or we have a lawful and legitimate business reason for disclosure.

With public authorities: We may be required to disclose personal information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

With other third parties. We will share personal information with other third parties where we have a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary to comply with the law or with legal process, to protect and defend our rights and property, to protect the safety or property of our users or the general public, or to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our Sites and services. We may also share personal information in connection with corporate transactions, such as a transfer of a journal or other assets, merger, acquisition, consolidation, or change of control.

PST does not sell personal information to other organizations.

05. Retention of personal information

We keep personal information for as long as necessary to carry out the purposes described above, to resolve disputes, and for any additional period required by law (e.g. reporting or accounting obligations).

06. Security of personal information

The security, integrity, and confidentiality of personal information is of paramount importance to PST. We have implemented technical, administrative, and physical security measures that are designed to protect personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, use, modification and destruction.

07. Your rights

The rights provided by data privacy laws vary by geographical location, and we will respond to requests as required by relevant laws. You will not receive discriminatory treatment from us if you choose to exercise any of your rights. These laws typically include your right to ask for:

  • Access to the personal information we have about you;
  • An electronic copy of the personal information we have about you;
  • Correction of any errors in your personal information;
  • Deletion of your personal information; and
  • Restrictions or objections to how we process your personal information

08. Links to third-party websites

PST’ Sites or services may include links to third-party websites not owned by PST. When using such links, please be aware that any third-party website is subject to its own privacy and data protection policies and is not covered by this Privacy Policy.

09. Updates to this privacy policy

We periodically review this Privacy Policy to ensure it is up to date. Any changes to the Privacy Policy will be posted on this page and will become effective as of the Effective Date above. If we make a material change in the way we collect, use, or share personal information, we will post a prominent notice or provide other notice as required by law. If required, we may request your updated consent to enable us to continue processing.