European Journal of Legal Education (EJLE)
1. Who we are
The European Journal of Legal Education (“EJLE”, “the journal”, “we”) is published on behalf of the European Law Faculties Association (“ELFA”). ELFA is the data controller for the personal data described in this notice:
- Controller: European Law Faculties Association (ELFA), Tiensestraat 41, B‑3000 Leuven, Belgium (Tax Identification No. 206/5893/1271).
- Data‑protection queries: info@elfa-edu.org
- The journal’s editorial contact: editors@ejle.eu
For most matters relating to your submission, your review, or your published work, the appropriate route is the journal’s editorial contact above. Data‑protection requests may be sent to either address.
This notice covers the EJLE journal website and its editorial system only. ELFA operates a separate website with its own privacy notice; this notice does not replace it.
2. The personal data we process
2.1 Authors and co‑authors (when you submit a manuscript)
When you submit a manuscript through the journal’s submission form, we collect, for each listed author: given name, family name, affiliation, ORCID iD (if provided), email address, and whether that author is the corresponding author. We also collect the manuscript file itself, together with its title, abstract, and keywords. The manuscript may contain further personal data within it (for example, author biographies or acknowledgements); that content is under your control as the author.
The submission form is open. Users do not need an account to use it.
Where a submission has more than one author, the submitting author provides their co‑authors’ details. When you submit a multi‑author manuscript, we ask you to confirm that your co‑authors are aware that their details appear on the submission. If you are a co‑author and wish to know how your details are used, this notice explains it, and you may contact us at the addresses above.
Rationale
To receive, assess and manage your submission through peer review and the editorial process.
Legal basis
Our legitimate interests in operating a scholarly journal and managing submissions (Article 6(1)(f)). When you submit, we also ask you to confirm that you have read this notice; that confirmation is a record of transparency and is not itself the lawful basis for the processing.
2.2 Reviewers
We maintain a reviewer pool holding each reviewer’s title, first name, surname and email address. When a reviewer is invited to assess a manuscript, we create a review record holding their name and email, a unique access link, the review due date, whether they accepted or declined, any extension requested, the dates any reminders were sent, and – once returned – their assessment and comments.
Reviewers are selected on the basis of publicly evidenced expertise. Their contact details are either already publicly available or have been supplied to the editors in the expectation that they will participate in the academic peer‑review process. Reviewers work through a private link and do not need an account.
Peer review is confidential. A reviewer’s identity and comments are not disclosed to authors.
Rationale
To operate peer review, to invite reviewers, manage assessments, and maintain the integrity and auditability of editorial decisions.
Legal basis
Our legitimate interests in operating peer review (Article 6(1)(f)), supported by the public or professional nature of the contact details and the expectation of participation described above.
Remaining on the reviewer list
We keep reviewer details so that we can invite reviewers to assess future submissions. If you would prefer not to remain on our reviewer list, please contact the editors and we will remove you from it, so that you are not invited again. Please note that information about reviews you have already undertaken – including your identity as the reviewer – may be retained in confidential editorial records for as long as is needed to maintain the integrity and auditability of the editorial process, even after you have been removed from the list. This is separate from, and does not affect, your formal rights set out in Section 6.
2.3 Emails
The journal sends a fixed set of operational (“transactional”) emails tied to steps in the editorial workflow: an acknowledgement to the corresponding author on submission; a notification to the journal’s own address; a reviewer invitation (carrying the private review link); reviewer reminders; an “under review” note to the author; a decision letter; and a notification when an article is published. Some of these necessarily refer to third parties, for example, a reviewer invitation names the manuscript and its authors, and a decision letter may convey reviewers’ comments.
We use authors’, reviewers’ and editors’ contact details only to communicate with them about the specific submissions and reviews they are involved in. We do not use these details to send newsletters, calls for papers, or other general communications. Should we offer such communications in future, they would be operated separately, with their own basis and opt‑out, and would not rely on this notice.
Rationale and legal basis
These emails are part of managing submissions and peer review, on the same legitimate‑interests basis as Sections 2.1 and 2.2.
2.4 Editorial records and logs
We keep two internal records. The editorial history of each submission records the sequence of editorial actions over its life (submission, reviewer assignment, invitations and reminders, returned reviews, decisions, and issue allocation) with timestamps. This is the audit record of the editorial process, and it includes the identities of those involved, including reviewers. The email log records the messages the system has sent (recipient, subject, the workflow event, and the time), so that editors can confirm what was sent.
We also keep an aggregate count of how many times each published article’s full text is opened. This is a simple usage statistic; it is not linked to identifiable readers and does not build any profile of individuals.
Rationale and legal basis
Maintaining the integrity and auditability of the editorial process, and confirming operational delivery, on our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)). Retention is set out in Section 5.
2.5 Published articles
When an article is published it becomes publicly available on the journal website. The following then form part of the public, published record: the author names, affiliations, and ORCID iDs; the manuscript itself (as a downloadable file); and the title, abstract, keywords, publication date, volume and issue, and licence. The same author‑identifying bibliographic details are also expressed as citation metadata in the article’s web page and offered through citation‑export tools, to support indexing and citation.
Author email addresses are not published, and reviewer identities are not published.
Making this material public is the core purpose of scholarly publishing, and the value of the scholarly record depends on it remaining available and citable over time. The consequences of this for erasure are explained in Section 6.
Rationale and legal basis
Publication and dissemination of scholarship, and maintaining the integrity of the permanent scholarly record, on our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)).
2.6 Editorial accounts
Editors, administrators, and guest editors hold accounts on the journal system, comprising a name, username, email address, and a password (which is stored only in the standard, hashed form). Guest‑editor accounts are restricted to the special issue they are appointed to.
Authors and reviewers do not require accounts: authors submit through the open form, and reviewers work through a private link. Where the journal offers optional accounts, authors and reviewers who choose to register will hold a username and password they can use to manage their own details.
Rationale and legal basis
Administering the journal and controlling access to the editorial system, on our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)).
3. Who receives information, and how it is made public
Beyond the people directly involved in a submission, information is shared in two distinct ways.
Processors acting on our behalf
Our hosting and email are provided by IONOS (an EU‑based provider), which stores the journal’s database and uploaded files and carries the journal’s email. IONOS processes this data on our instructions under a written data‑protection agreement. Emails sent by editors from their own personal or institutional email accounts are the editors’ own correspondence and are not part of the journal’s systems.
Recipients of published metadata
Once an article is published, its bibliographic metadata (author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, title, abstract and keywords) is, by design, made available so that the work can be found and cited. Specifically: it is offered through an open metadata feed that indexing, discovery and aggregation services may harvest; it is expressed as citation metadata that search engines (such as Google Scholar) read; and, where DOIs are assigned, the journal registers them with CrossRef, which receives the article’s bibliographic metadata. These channels carry only already‑public bibliographic metadata – never author email addresses or any reviewer information.
4. International transfers
The journal’s own systems – hosting, storage and email, provided by IONOS – keep processing within the European Union.
Separately, publishing an article makes its bibliographic metadata available to indexing services, search engines and, where DOIs are used, CrossRef, some of which are based outside the European Economic Area (including in the United States). This dissemination is the purpose of publishing, and the information involved is already‑public bibliographic metadata rather than contact details or special‑category data. Where such a transfer involves a recipient outside the EEA, it is made on the basis of the recipient’s applicable safeguards (such as adequacy arrangements or standard contractual clauses) or, in the case of openly published material, the dissemination of information already made public.
5. Information retention
| Information | Retention |
| Published articles and their metadata | Permanently, as part of the public scholarly record (see Section 6). |
| Editorial history of a submission (actions, decisions, reviewer involvement) | Permanently, for the integrity and auditability of the editorial record. |
| Record that a submission was made and its outcome (title, author names, abstract, date, decision) | Permanently, as part of the editorial record, including to identify any later resubmission of the same work. |
| Manuscript file of an unpublished (rejected or withdrawn) submission | Deleted 24 months after the decision. |
| Author contact email for an unpublished submission | Deleted with the manuscript file, 24 months after the decision. The permanent record maintains author names, but not contact details. |
| Email log | Up to 48 months. |
| Reviewer pool entry | Kept until you ask the editors to remove your record (see Section 2.2). |
6. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- request access to the personal data we hold about you;
- ask us to rectify inaccurate data or complete incomplete data;
- request erasure;
- request restriction of processing;
- object to processing carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests; and,
- where applicable, data portability.
Because we do not rely on consent as our lawful basis for the processing described here, there is generally no consent for you to withdraw; where you have asked to remain on, or be removed from, the reviewer list, you may change that at any time by contacting us.
Right to object
Where we process your data on the basis of our legitimate interests, you may object on grounds relating to your particular situation. We will then stop unless we can show compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, rights and freedoms, or that the processing is needed to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
The limits of erasure for published and editorial records
Once an article is published, the author details that form part of it — names, affiliations and ORCID iDs — become a permanent part of the public scholarly record and cannot generally be erased. The right to erasure does not apply where processing is necessary for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information, for archiving and research purposes in the public interest, or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. Where there is a genuine error in a published article, the appropriate remedy is a correction or retraction, which preserves and annotates the scholarly record rather than removing it. Similarly, our editorial history and decision records are retained for the integrity and auditability of the editorial process, and may be kept notwithstanding a request for erasure on the same grounds.
7. Exercise of rights and complaints
To exercise any of these rights, or for any question about this notice, contact the journal’s editors at editors@ejle.eu, or ELFA’s data‑protection channel at info@elfa-edu.org. We will respond in line with the time limits set by the GDPR.
If you are not satisfied, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. ELFA is established in Belgium, so the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Autorité de protection des données / Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit) is the relevant authority; you may also complain to the supervisory authority in the EU/EEA country where you live or work.
8. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice as the journal’s processing develops. The current version is published on the journal website.
Last updated: 15 June 2026