Privacy Policy

Effective date: 12/06/2025

Publisher: Latent Scholar LLC (the “journal,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), a Washington State limited liability company.

We value your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard personal information when you use the Services or submit content (including prompts, AI-generated outputs, and reviews).

1. Information We Collect

We collect information in three ways: directly from you, through standard website functionality, and from trusted service providers.

1.1 Information you provide:

• Identification & contact details: Name, title, affiliation, role, email, postal address.
• The Name you provide may be published alongside the submitted prompt content if you explicitly opt in for attribution during the submission process.
• Reviewer Information: For reviewers, this includes Name, Email address, and Institution/Affiliation, collected to manage the review process and, if opted in, to publish their name alongside their review.
• Submission & workflow data: Author/reviewer IDs, submission history, conflicts of interest, declarations, consent choices, correspondence.
• Content: Idea Submissions/Research Parameters, manuscripts, figures/appendices, cover letters, and revision files (including timestamps and version history).

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE WARNING: The following information you provide will be publicly published and accessible on the internet indefinitely:
– Title/Topic of your submission
– Short Description
– Type of Expected Output
– Your Name (if you opt in for attribution)

Once published, this information becomes part of the permanent public record and cannot be removed except in extraordinary circumstances (e.g., court order). Do not include sensitive, confidential, or personal information in these fields.

1.2 Information collected through website operations:

• Device and log data (IP address, browser, operating system, referring URLs, pages viewed, date/time, session duration).
• Cookies and similar technologies (as detailed in Section 5).

1.3 Information from service providers:

We may receive information from hosting, analytics, email delivery, production, payment (if applicable), and AI/LLM service providers.

2. How We Use Your Information

We process information for the following purposes:

• Article Generation and Public Attribution (Primary Use):To utilize the submitted prompt content to instruct and execute the Large Language Model (LLM) content generation process. This includes publishing the ‘Title / Topic,’ ‘Short Description,’ and ‘Type of Contribution’ as the source prompt for the resulting article, and publishing your Name if you provide consent for attribution. We also use this data for standard editorial work, review, editing, production, indexing, and archiving.
• Communication: Contacting authors, reviewers, editors, and readers (transactional notices, policy updates, decisions, support).
• Reviewer Management: Coordinating the review process, contacting reviewers, and publishing the reviewer’s name with their review, if the reviewer opts in.
• Integrity & Compliance: Integrity & Compliance: Detecting and preventing fraud, plagiarism, research misconduct, and policy violations; verifying institutional eligibility for platform access; and maintaining audit trails.
• Improvement: Analytics, performance monitoring, user experience, and security.
• Marketing (with consent): Sending newsletters and announcements; you may opt out at any time.
• We Do Not Sell Personal Information: Latent Scholar LLC does not sell personal information to third parties for monetary consideration. However, data sharing with LLM providers may constitute “sharing” under certain privacy laws (e.g., CCPA).

3. Legal Bases for Processing (EU/EEA/UK where applicable)

For users subject to EU/EEA/UK data-protection laws, we rely on one or more of the following bases:

• Contractual necessity: To provide requested Services (e.g., managing submissions and reviews).
• Legitimate interests: To maintain platform security, prevent abuse, run internal analytics, and manage editorial records.
• Consent: For optional features, including non-essential cookies, analytics, marketing, or routing content to third-party AI/LLM tools. Consent may be withdrawn at any time.
• Legal obligations: To comply with applicable laws, subpoenas, or regulatory requirements.

4. Data Sharing and Transfer

We may share your personal information with:

• Service providers who assist with website hosting, analytics, and email systems.
• Editorial participants necessary for workflow management (Reviewers, Editors, external advisors).
• Affiliates or third parties if required by law or to protect our rights.
• Third-party large language model (LLM) providers or services for content processing, generation, or analysis, as detailed in Section 6.
• Your information may be transferred to and processed in countries outside your location, which may have different data protection laws.

5. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies.

5.1 What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files stored on your device that help the site remember information about your visit, such as language preference, login status, or site navigation.

5.2 Types of Cookies We Use

• Essential/Functional Cookies: Necessary for the website to operate correctly (e.g., enabling logging in, submission). These cannot be disabled.
• Analytics/Performance Cookies: Collect anonymous information about how visitors use the site (e.g., tracking visitor numbers, improving site performance). These cookies are only deployed upon receiving your explicit consent.
• Third-Party Cookies: Third-party plugins or embedded content (e.g., social media, videos, analytics) may set their own cookies. We do not control the operation of these cookies.

5.3 Managing Cookies and Consent

You may manage your preferences for Analytics/Performance Cookies at any time by clicking the “Revisit Consent” floating button/widget (or similar mechanism) typically located on the website. You may also control cookies via your browser settings. Disabling essential cookies may limit some features of the site.

5.4 Do Not Track Signals

Our website does not currently respond to ‘Do Not Track’ browser signals. You may manage cookies and tracking technologies through the mechanisms described in Section 5.3.

6. AI/LLM Processing and Third-Party Services

The Journal may route structured research parameters (Idea Submissions), content, or metadata to third-party large language model (LLM) providers or service providers for processing, generation, or analysis.

While Latent Scholar LLC aims to utilize service tiers or configurations that limit the processing of submitted content for LLM model training whenever possible, Contributors acknowledge that the data transferred to third-party LLM providers (e.g., Google, OpenAI) may still be subject to their general data retention and usage policies, including potential use for model improvement.

As of the effective date of this Policy, we may transmit data to the following LLM providers:

• OpenAI (ChatGPT/GPT models) – Privacy Policy: https://openai.com/privacy
• Google (Gemini models) – Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
• Anthropic (Claude models) – Privacy Policy: https://www.anthropic.com/privacy

This list may be updated without notice. Contributors should review each provider’s privacy policy before submitting content. We will make reasonable efforts to update this list, but you acknowledge that additional providers may be added at our discretion.

Contributors understand and agree that such third parties operate under their own terms of service and data security measures, which are outside the control and responsibility of Latent Scholar LLC. Contributors also understand that by submitting their research parameters, they are knowingly transferring information across a service boundary, and Latent Scholar LLC cannot guarantee that the third-party providers will strictly adhere to internal data minimization efforts. By submitting content, Contributors consent to such transfers and explicitly accept the terms and data risks associated with the third-party providers.

Contributors acknowledge that the Publisher is not responsible for the data handling, storage, or security practices of any third-party provider, and that such transfers may affect the confidentiality of the submission. Each third-party provider remains solely responsible for compliance with its own privacy and security obligations.

Automated Decision-Making

Our Services use automated processing (Large Language Models) to generate scholarly content from your submitted research parameters. This processing is essential to our core service and you consent to it by submitting content. However, we do not use automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on you. All editorial decisions regarding publication, rejection, or modification involve human review.

7. Data Retention and Security

7.1 Data Retention

We retain personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes in this Policy:

• Editorial records (submission/review metadata, decisions, correspondence, audit logs): typically at least 7 years after publication or withdrawal.
• Prompt/LLM telemetry and human-edit logs: retained in line with the above editorial-record period.
• Reviewer information: retained as long as necessary to manage the review process and maintain reviewer records, or until you request deletion.
• We may anonymize data for research and statistics. When retention is no longer required, we delete or anonymize data.

7.2 Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect personal data. However, no method of transmission over the Internet is completely secure; we cannot guarantee absolute security.

7.3 Data Breach Notification

In the event of a data breach that compromises your personal information, we will:

(a) Notify affected users via email within 72 hours of discovering the breach, where feasible;
(b) Comply with applicable data breach notification laws, including notification to relevant authorities;
(c) Provide information about the nature of the breach, types of data affected, and steps being taken to address it;
(d) Offer guidance on steps you can take to protect yourself.

Note: We are not responsible for data breaches occurring at third-party LLM providers. Any such breaches must be addressed directly with those providers.

8. Your Privacy Rights

8.1 General Rights

You may request access to or correction of your personal information held directly by Latent Scholar LLC by contacting info@latentscholar.org.

8.2 Limitations on Deletion Rights

Due to the nature of our Services, deletion rights are significantly limited:

(a) Published Content: Once an article is published with your attributed prompt data (Title/Topic, Description, Type of Expected Output, and Name if opted in), this information becomes part of the permanent scholarly record and cannot be deleted or retracted except in cases of legal necessity (e.g., court order, proven defamation).

(b) Third-Party LLM Systems: We cannot delete or retrieve data that has been transmitted to third-party LLM providers (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, etc.). Any deletion requests must be directed to those providers under their respective policies.

(c) Editorial and Audit Records: Submission metadata, review records, correspondence, and audit logs must be retained for legal compliance, fraud prevention, and defense of potential claims for a minimum of 7 years.

(d) Anonymization Alternative: Where deletion is not feasible, we may offer to anonymize your directly identifying information while retaining the underlying records.

8.3 Response Timeline

We will respond to privacy requests within 30 days for EU/EEA/UK residents (extendable by 60 days with notice) and within 45 days for California residents (extendable by 45 days with notice). For all other users, we will respond within 45 days.

8.4 Verification

We may require verification of your identity before processing rights requests to protect against fraudulent requests.

8.5 California Residents – Additional Rights

California residents have the following additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA):

• (a) Right to Know: You may request disclosure of the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.
• (b) Right to Delete: Subject to the limitations in Section 8.2, you may request deletion of your personal information.
• (c) Right to Opt-Out of Sale/Sharing: Although we do not sell personal information for monetary consideration, data transfers to third-party LLM providers may constitute ‘sharing’ under CCPA. You may opt out of such sharing by emailing info@latentscholar.org with subject line ‘CCPA Opt-Out.’ Note: Opting out will prevent us from processing your submissions through LLM providers, effectively preventing use of the idea submission feature.
• (d) Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA rights.
• (e) Authorized Agent: You may designate an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf.
• (f) Verification: We will verify your identity before processing requests.

9. Children’s Privacy

The Services are intended solely for users who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal data from individuals under 18. By using our Services, you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years old. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from a person under 18, we will take immediate steps to delete such information. Parents or guardians who believe we have collected information from a minor should contact us immediately at info@latentscholar.org.

10. Legal and Administrative Provisions

10.1 Governing Law; Venue

This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the State of Washington, U.S.A.; without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Exclusive venue for disputes is the state or federal courts located in Spokane County, Washington, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

10.2 Changes to this Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of changes by posting the new policy on this page with a new effective date.

11. Contact Information

If you have any questions about this Policy, please contact us at:

Latent Scholar LLC
522 W Riverside Ave Ste N
Spokane, WA 99201 US
Email: info@latentscholar.org
Response Time: We aim to respond within 5 business days.