Last updated: May 9, 2026
White & Gray Publishers ("White & Gray", "we", "our", or "us") respects the privacy of authors, reviewers, editors, subscribers, readers, institutional partners, and website visitors. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, disclose, and protect personal information when you use our website, author account area, manuscript submission system, editorial workflows, payment services, newsletter subscription forms, and related publishing services.
We handle personal information in line with applicable data protection principles, including lawful and fair processing, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimization, accuracy, security, retention limitation, and accountability.
1. Who We Are
White & Gray Publishers is an academic publishing platform supporting scholarly journals, books, editorial review, peer review, article processing charge administration, and related publishing communication.
For privacy questions, requests, or complaints, please contact us:
- Email: info@whiteandgraypublishers.com
- Address: P. O. Box 25454, Ggaba, Kampala, Uganda
2. Information We Collect
We may collect personal information directly from you, from account activity, from manuscript and editorial workflows, and from service providers that support the platform.
The information we collect may include:
- Identity details such as name, title, username, affiliation, role, professional profile, and reviewer expertise.
- Contact details such as email address, phone number, postal address, and institutional contact information.
- Account details such as login credentials, account status, verification status, security settings, access roles, and audit logs.
- Submission and editorial details such as manuscript title, authorship information, abstract, keywords, uploaded files, editorial notes, peer-review assignments, reviewer decisions, production status, and publication metadata.
- Payment-related details such as article processing charge records, payment method, bank transfer reference, payment proof, transaction reference, invoice status, and gateway response data.
- Communication details such as contact form messages, support requests, newsletter preferences, editorial notifications, and email broadcast records.
- Technical details such as IP address, browser type, device information, security verification tokens, cookies, access timestamps, and usage logs.
3. How We Use Personal Information
We use personal information for legitimate publishing, editorial, administrative, communication, payment, security, and compliance purposes. These purposes include:
- Creating and managing author, reviewer, and administrator accounts.
- Receiving, screening, reviewing, editing, producing, and publishing manuscripts.
- Assigning manuscripts to editors and peer reviewers.
- Communicating editorial decisions, review requests, copyediting notices, production updates, and APC payment notices.
- Managing article processing charges, payment confirmations, waivers, invoices, refunds, and transaction records.
- Sending newsletters, calls for papers, journal updates, and publishing announcements where you have subscribed or otherwise requested updates.
- Responding to enquiries submitted through contact forms or official email channels.
- Protecting the platform from spam, abuse, unauthorized access, fraud, and other security risks.
- Maintaining audit trails, system logs, records, and reporting required for operational accountability.
- Complying with applicable laws, lawful requests, publishing ethics standards, and dispute-resolution requirements.
4. Legal Basis for Processing
Depending on the context, we process personal information where it is necessary to provide publishing services, perform editorial and contractual obligations, comply with legal requirements, protect legitimate interests, maintain platform security, or act on your consent. You may withdraw consent for optional communications such as newsletters at any time, but this will not affect processing already carried out lawfully before withdrawal.
5. Manuscripts, Peer Review, and Editorial Confidentiality
Manuscripts, reviewer identities, review comments, editorial assessments, suitability decisions, production notes, and related files may contain personal information and confidential scholarly material. We restrict access to authorized authors, editors, reviewers, administrators, and service providers who need access for legitimate publishing purposes.
Reviewers and editors are expected to treat manuscripts and review materials as confidential and to use them only for the assigned editorial purpose.
6. Payments and Third-Party Services
Where article processing charges apply, payment may be handled through online payment gateways such as Flutterwave or through bank deposit/transfer records submitted to White & Gray Publishers. We do not intentionally store full card details on our platform. Payment providers may process payment data under their own privacy and security terms.
We may also use third-party services for email delivery, spam prevention, analytics, hosting, backups, and security verification. For example, Cloudflare Turnstile may process technical data required to verify that website interactions are legitimate and to reduce automated abuse.
7. Cookies and Security Technologies
Our website may use cookies, sessions, logs, and security technologies to keep users signed in, protect forms, remember preferences, prevent spam, monitor platform performance, and improve security. You may control cookies through your browser settings, but disabling certain cookies may affect account access, form submission, or security verification.
8. Newsletter and Marketing Communications
If you subscribe to our newsletter or updates, we use your email address and related subscription information to send publishing announcements, calls for papers, journal updates, book news, and other relevant scholarly communication. You may unsubscribe or request removal from the subscriber list at any time by contacting us.
9. Disclosure of Personal Information
We do not sell personal information. We may share personal information only where necessary for legitimate publishing operations, including with:
- Editors, peer reviewers, production personnel, and authorized administrators involved in editorial workflows.
- Payment processors, email service providers, hosting providers, security services, analytics tools, and technical support providers.
- Professional advisers, auditors, or compliance personnel where required for governance, legal, financial, or operational purposes.
- Regulators, courts, law enforcement, or other authorities where disclosure is required by law or necessary to protect rights, safety, integrity, or security.
10. International Transfers
Some service providers used for hosting, email delivery, security verification, payment processing, analytics, or technical support may process information outside Uganda or outside your country of residence. Where this occurs, we take reasonable steps to ensure that personal information is protected through appropriate contractual, technical, and organizational safeguards.
11. Data Retention
We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including publishing administration, editorial records, payment records, legal compliance, dispute handling, audit trails, and platform security.
Typical retention considerations include:
- Account data is retained while the account remains active and for a reasonable period afterwards for security and audit purposes.
- Editorial, manuscript, review, and publication records may be retained for scholarly integrity, publishing history, dispute resolution, and archiving purposes.
- Payment and transaction records may be retained for accounting, tax, audit, refund, and compliance purposes.
- Newsletter subscription records are retained until you unsubscribe or request deletion, subject to any lawful retention requirements.
- Contact form messages and routine enquiries are retained only for as long as needed to respond and maintain appropriate records.
12. Data Security
We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards to protect personal information against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. These safeguards may include access controls, role-based permissions, authentication controls, audit logs, secure configuration, backups, spam prevention, and staff access limitations.
No online platform can guarantee absolute security. Users are responsible for keeping account credentials confidential and for notifying us promptly if they suspect unauthorized access to their account.
13. Your Rights
Subject to applicable law, you may have rights to request access to your personal information, correction of inaccurate information, deletion of information where legally permitted, restriction or objection to certain processing, withdrawal of consent, and information about how your data is handled.
To exercise any privacy rights, contact us at info@whiteandgraypublishers.com. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. Some requests may be limited where information must be retained for legal, editorial, publishing integrity, accounting, audit, security, or dispute-resolution reasons.
14. Children's Privacy
Our publishing services are intended for researchers, authors, reviewers, editors, institutions, and adult users. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children through the platform. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, please contact us so we can review and take appropriate action.
15. External Links
Our website may contain links to third-party websites, journals, indexing services, payment providers, or partner resources. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security, or content of external websites. Users should review the privacy policies of those third-party services before submitting personal information.
16. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, technology, legal requirements, editorial workflows, payment methods, or privacy practices. The updated version will be posted on this page with a revised "Last updated" date.
17. Contact Us
If you have questions, concerns, complaints, or requests about this Privacy Policy or how White & Gray Publishers handles personal information, please contact us at:
Email: info@whiteandgraypublishers.com
Address: Address shall be updated when available