Privacy.

Who is responsible

FPR is published by Iura, which decides how the data described here is used. This notice is written with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 in mind.

If you only read

We collect nothing about you. The site has no analytics, no advertising and no tracking cookies. Google, whose Firebase service hosts the site, keeps the ordinary server logs that any host keeps, such as the IP address a page was requested from.

What we collect, and why

• An account. Your email address, and your name if you sign in with Google. Passwords are held by Firebase Authentication; we never see them. You add your name, college, programme and the year you joined it yourself. We use these to know who claimed or submitted a piece and what you are eligible to write.
• Student verification. Either a confirmed college email address, or a picture of your student ID. Only editors can see an ID, and it is deleted as soon as an editor has approved or declined it.
• Claims. Which entries you have said you will write. A claim lapses after 60 days unless you renew it.
• Submissions. Your file, the thesis, the word count, your AI disclosure and your declarations, with the names, colleges and email addresses of any co-authors you list. Please tell your co-authors before you name them. Editors’ notes and reviewers’ reports are kept with the submission.
• Comments. The text and your name. Both are public once an editor approves the comment.
• Recognition as a scholar. Your name, post, institution, country, a link to a page about you, and what you tell us about your work. Your name, post and institution are shown with anything you comment on or write.
• Research you lodge. The text of each version, its title and abstract, the readers you name (their names and email addresses), and the comments it receives. The fingerprint of each version and the time it was lodged are public and permanent; a fingerprint reveals nothing of the text. Please tell the readers you name before you name them.
• Unpublished research you read. Each day you open a closed or scholars-only work, we record your name, email address, post and the time, with the undertaking you gave. The author of the work can see this record. It is the reason the record is kept.
• Supervision. If you offer to supervise, your name, programme or post, and the areas you chose are shown to signed-in students. Drafts and comments exchanged in supervision are seen only by the student and the supervisor.
• The newsletter. Your email address, used only to send the monthly issue.
• Messages. What you send through the contact, campus editor and commission forms, with the name and email address you give.

We collect each of these because you give it to us for that purpose, and we use it for nothing else.

What becomes public

When your piece is published, your name, your college and a short note about you appear with it and on your author page, along with your AI disclosure. A published piece is part of the public record, and your name stays on it. You can ask us to change the note about you or your college at any time. Your email address, your student ID and your unpublished drafts are never public.

Who sees it

• FPR’s editors see accounts, IDs awaiting a decision, submissions and messages.
• Reviewers of FP Research see an anonymised copy of the piece and nothing about its author.
• Unpublished research is seen by its author, by the readers the author allows, and, for the desk check, by the editor-in-chief and the one editor given the work. Other editors cannot open it.
• The author of a work you open sees your name, post, email address and when you opened it.
• Google stores the data on our behalf through Firebase (sign-in, the database and file storage). Its servers may be outside India.

We do not sell personal data, share it with advertisers, or pass it to anyone else unless the law requires it.

How long we keep it

• Your account and profile: until you ask us to delete them.
• A student ID: until an editor decides on it, then deleted.
• A submission that was withdrawn or not published: until you ask us to delete it.
• A published piece, and the record of how it was reviewed: permanently, as part of the journal’s record.
• A newsletter address: until you unsubscribe, which you can do by replying to any issue or writing to us.
• Research you lodged and then withdrew: until you ask us to delete the text. Its fingerprints stay in the register permanently; a fingerprint cannot be turned back into the text.
• The record of who opened an unpublished work: for as long as the work is kept, because it is the author’s evidence.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, and withdraw your consent to our using it. You can also name another person to exercise these rights if you die or become unable to. Deleting an account does not remove a piece that has already been published under your name. To use any of these rights, write to privacy@firstprecedent.org, or use the contact form, from the address your account uses. We reply within two weeks.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.

If you are outside India

FPR is run from India. The database is held in Mumbai, and Google’s other services may process data elsewhere. If you sign in from another country, your data is sent to and kept in India, and this notice and the law of India apply to it. Whatever your own country’s law gives you in addition, such as the rights to see, correct, delete or move your data and to object to its use, we will honour on request in the same way and within the same two weeks. We hold the data described above because you asked us to (to run your account, lodge your work or recognise you as a scholar) or, for the access record, because the author of an unpublished work has a legitimate interest in knowing who has read it.

Age

Accounts are for people aged 18 or over. If you are under 18, please do not create one. Anyone may read the site.

Changes

If this notice changes, the new version is posted here with its date. If a change affects how we use data we already hold, we tell account holders before it takes effect.