Open Access Button is committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to our website, our users, and activists. We have established this Privacy Policy to explain what information we collect through our website and how it is used. In this policy, Open Access Button refers to Open Access Button team members.
We do not sell or rent member, donor or website visitor information under any circumstances, and we do not share member, donor or visitor information without prior consent except as compelled by law. To date we have not received any requests for user information from any government or any law enforcement agency.
All communications with our servers are transmitted over SSL (HTTPS) for both access to the public website as well as the API. The data is stored on servers in Europe, which are only accessible via Secure Shell Public Key Cryptography and are fully firewalled. The data centres comply to ISO standards.
Cookies are used for our account system. Users remain logged in but this can be controlled by the user and their own browser. We use session cookies on certain portions of the website. Session cookies expire when you close your browser. If you wish to keep your connection information anonymous, there are various free and paid services available that will keep your connection information anonymous, but please note that you can still be identified if you log in.
In general, the Open Access Button uses the data collected to further its Vision and Mission. We use user information to manage your membership and contact authors on your behalf. We may occationally use your email address to send you updates and alerts on Open Access and Open Access Advocacy. In addition to the metadata of the research papers, usernames, professions, and approximate locations will be publicly displayed in our data and website. To protect your privacy, the location data we collect is blurred by 11 kilometres.
Open Access Button provides links to or interacts with a wide variety of third-party websites, including interactive links to sites like social media via application programming interfaces (APIs). Open Access Button is not responsible for, and does not have any control over, the privacy practices or the content of such third parties. We encourage users to read the privacy policies of any website visited via links from or interactions with the Open Access Button website. Where appropriate, we will provide specific notice of these third-party services at the point of interaction.
The Open Access Button can be downloaded from Mozilla Addons, Chrome Web Store. We encourage users to read the privacy policies of these stores. The Open Access Button can also be used directly from our website.
We will provide relevant data for use by advocates to further the mission of the Open Access Button. This data will be released under a Creative Commons 0 licence.
We understand that some users may require a higher level of privacy. If you'd like to maintain privacy don't use your real name as your username as it will be publicly displayed. In addition, use a unique username that is not used on any other sites or service.
You may choose to correct, update, or delete the information you have submitted to us by sending an email requesting changes to hello@openaccessbutton.org. If we inadvertently collect more personal information than intended, we endeavor to delete the extraneous information. However, please understand that deleted information may continue to persist on backup media.
Open Access Button has HTTPS turned on by default for both access to the public website as well as for our API. We make good faith efforts to store information collected by Open Access Button in an environment that is secure, however we cannot guarantee complete security. We will store any information collected for a length of time appropriate to our needs. The data collected by the Open Access Button is stored on servers in Europe, which are only accessible via Secure Shell Public Key Cryptography and are fully firewalled.
This policy is current as of October 19th, 2016. Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. However, any revised privacy policy will be consistent with our mission. If we make any substantive changes to our policies, we will place notice in our blog, post notice of changes on this page, and email users.
October 24, 2016: Updated to reflect changes in the Open Access Button team, how we use data, and make structural improvements to the page.
