Introduction

Authenticus is committed to maintaining your confidence and trust with respect to your privacy. Please read this privacy policy carefully to understand how the platform collects, uses, secures and shares your personal information.

This privacy policy applies to the data processed by Authenticus. It may be supplemented by additional privacy statements, terms or notices provided to you. 

Definitions within Authenticus

• User - A person who uses the Authenticus service and owns a user account at Authenticus. Everyone can voluntarily and free of charge become an Authenticus user. 
• Researcher - Someone who conducts scientific research, while affiliated with a Portuguese Institution, or is a co-author of a Researcher associated with a Portuguese Institution.
• Researcher Profile - A page in the Authenticus website that aggregates indicators regarding the Researcher, including validated publications.  

Data Visibility

The data in an Authenticus Researcher Profile can be classified in one of four categories:

• Private Data - data visible only to the Researcher. This includes information about the Authenticus account and any information annotated by the Researcher as ‘Private’ in his Researcher Profile. 
• Trusted Data - data available to users who are Administrators/Editors of the Institution with which the Researcher is associated. Users with these roles can add, update or remove information, namely publications of a Researcher, except the information annotated as ‘Private’. 
• Protected Data - data available to all authenticated users. This includes extended information about the Researcher, such as statistics, co-authors, scientific area, and keywords. Authenticated users that are covered by the b-on license can visualize additional information regarding the publications metadata (subcategory ‘Protected b-on Data’). 
• Public Data - data available to the public for viewing and use.

When you authenticate at Authenticus and associate your User with an Authenticus Researcher, your Researcher Profile becomes editable by you. From that point, you can choose to annotate the Private (visible only to you) elements of your Researcher Profile as Protected (visible to all authenticated Users), or Public (visible to everyone).

Personal data collected by Authenticus

Authenticus collects personal information in the following ways. 

1. Data provided by you
   Personal data is collected directly from you, for example, when you sign in to Authenticus using a local account (your contact information and login credentials are saved in order to provide you access to the platform). Also, when your User account is associated with a Researcher, you can provide additional personal details if you choose to complete the Researcher Profile. 
    
2. Data obtained from third parties
   To build a repository of Portuguese publications, where publication authors are associated with known researchers affiliated with Portuguese Institutions, Authenticus obtains information about these researchers from third parties, such as FCT, DGEEC-REBIDES and Institutions that perform Research Activities (Universities, Research Institutions, etc.). These are all public entities, which support, fund and/or conduct science, technology and innovation related activities in Portugal and collect data about researchers and research institutions. If you are, for example, an academic author or researcher, or a clinical trial investigator, your professional data may be included in these databases and consequently be transferred to Authenticus. These data may include your name, your institutional email, your degree level and your specialization. If you have questions regarding this issue, please contact.
    
3. Data extracted from publication metadata
   Authenticus aggregates publication metadata from external databases (namely, WOS, SCOPUS, CrossRef and DBLP) and uses advanced algorithms to process the metadata in order to extract the information necessary to associate  publication authors with registered Portuguese Researchers. This may include author names, institutional email addresses, affiliation, co-authors and/or scientific fields. If one publication’s author is associated with your Researcher, all these data becomes available at your Researcher Profile.
    
4. Cookies and other data collected by using standard Web technologies 
   Authenticus collects information about your use of the system. This includes server logs and cookies (read more in the “Use of Cookies” section). 
   You can sign in to Authenticus through Federated Authentication, a functionality provided by FCCN that allows you to login into Authenticus using another system’s credentials. If you choose this option, the personal data collected by Authenticus will depend on the privacy settings of your account provider.
   When you access the Authenticus system, some information is collected through web analytics tools: your IP address, the type and version of the Internet browser and the type of device you are using. This information is not combined with any other information Authenticus collects about you.

Purposes of personal data processing by Authenticus

Authenticus processes personal data for the following purposes.

1. To provide and manage your access to and use of the Authenticus platform.
2. To provide you technical and product support and contact you about Authenticus user-related administrative tasks. 
3. To notify you about new functionalities of the Authenticus platform, about updates of your Researcher Profile or of your Associated Institution that directly apply to you, or to make any other announcements related to the Authenticus service.
4. To provide a customized web interface to researchers and institutions. 
5. To develop data analysis, statistics and bibliometric indicators, for the purposes of research, audits or reporting. 

Data Sharing

Authenticus does not share any of the data, defined by you as ‘Private’. Also, your information is not shared with, or sold to marketers, advertisers or any third party entities with which you are not associated.  

Authenticus shares your personal information: 

1. With the Public - Only ‘Public Data” from your Researcher Profile plus the public metadata of your publications, meaning publications where one of the authors was associated with your Researcher and you validated this relation.  
2. With your Institution(s) - Your information may be shared with the Institution(s) with which you are associated. In this case, personal data can be shared in the form of data reports, aggregated or summarized information, publication metadata listings, statistical reports, etc. 
3. With the Authenticus personnel, whose roles require access to your data. Authenticus personnel are bound to confidentiality terms which cover their obligations to protect your personal data.
4. For Legal reasons - Your personal information may be used when required by law or to detect and prevent security, fraud or technical issues.

Your rights and choices

At Authenticus you may review, edit, and delete information in your User and Researcher profiles. This includes data that you provided when creating a user account and some data provided to Authenticus by third parties. 

You can not edit nor delete publication metadata associated with you, which was aggregated in Authenticus from external databases. You can however, delete the association of a publication with you and thus exclude that publication from your Researcher Profile.

The use of cookies

The Authenticus.pt website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on the website and to help understand how you use the website. Cookies are placed on your computer when you open Authenticus website on your browser. 

Information gathered through cookies and web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed and the time spent on the website. Additionally, temporary “session” cookies are placed on your computer or device to help confirm who you are and to help you navigate the website during your visits. Session cookies are deleted automatically when you close your website browsing session. 

You can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level. If you reject cookies, through your computer or device’s Internet browser settings, you can still use Authenticus system but some of its features may not operate correctly. You should check your Internet browser settings if you have any doubts regarding disabling cookies.

Authenticus additionally uses third party services, namely Google Analytics, to collect information about how users interact with the site. This service allows us to produce reports and improve the system functionality. Google Analytics collects aggregated non-personal information and this is defined by the service provider privacy settings (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245).

Data security

Authenticus maintains appropriate administrative, technical, and physical security measures to safeguard your personal data against accidental loss and/or unauthorized access or use. These measures include encryption, firewalls, role-based data access and physical access controls to data centers. Despite these measures, we cannot completely guarantee that unauthorized persons will not be able to hack our system or otherwise defeat our security measures.

Legal Grounds

Authenticus processes your personal information in accordance to the rules of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation EU 2016/679, also known as GDPR) and the applicable Portuguese law on Data Protection.

The lawfulness of the processing is based on point (f) of Article 6(1) of GDPR: 

“processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject (…)”.

The legitimate interests pursued by Authenticus are:

• to build a repository of publications for all authors affiliated with Portuguese Institutions;
• to provide a platform for researchers to add, validate and consult bibliometric information on their scientific output;
• to provide a platform that allows Institutions to obtain validated bibliometric analytics of their scientific outputs;
• to ensure transparency by allowing third party scrutiny of the researchers’ scientific production.

Under GDPR, and as a data subject, you have the right of access, rectification, and erasure regarding your personal data. You can exercise these rights directly in the Authenticus Platform, as described above, under section “Your rights and choices”. You also have the right to object to the processing of your personal data. To exercise this right please contact .

Contact

If you have any questions, comments, complaints or requests regarding this privacy policy or the processing of your personal data, please contact Authenticus at