What we collect, and what we do not
This page describes what actually happens in our software, not what a template says might happen. If something here stops being true, the page is wrong and we will change it.
Smart Scholars · 304, MK Residency, Srinivasa Colony, Uppal, Hyderabad – 500039, Telangana, India · mou@smartscholars.in
It covers every Smart Scholars site: smartscholars.in, Journal Audit, GetIndexed, DOI Doctor, the Registry and the doors for scholars, institutions, journals, partners and DOI members. DOI Doctor has its own page for what a journal's connected accounts and ORCID add to this. Our cookies · How long we keep things · Your data, and who answers
If you only read the pages
Nothing is asked of you: no account, no advertising, nothing that follows you to other sites. Our web host, and our own server, keep ordinary access logs — the internet address of the request, the time, the page — for a short time, for security. That is how every web server works, and we do not use them to find out who you are.
Visits are counted by our own analytics server (Umami, on our own machine), with no cookie and without keeping your internet address. What is kept is the page, the site that linked to it, and broad facts: the kind of browser, system and device, the screen size, the language, and the country, region and city the address points to. Visits from one browser are linked to each other by a one-way code made from the address and the browser, which starts afresh every month; the address itself is never stored.
Our public pages are also counted by Google Analytics 4, a service of Google: never the sign-in, account, payment or admin pages, nor the Registry's pages (registry.smartscholars.in counts with our own server only, as its policies say), and nothing for advertising (Google signals and ad personalisation are switched off). It sets two cookies, _ga and _ga_4DMW3JCD1M, for 6 months after your last visit. If your browser's time zone is in the European Union, the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, nothing is sent to Google until you press Accept in the cookie bar; elsewhere it counts unless you press Reject. Cookie settings at the foot of every page changes your choice.
The typefaces come from Google Fonts, and the icons of the chat buttons and the world map on some pages from cdnjs (Cloudflare). Your browser fetches those files from them, so they see the internet address the request comes from, as any server does. We have no account with either through which anything about you reaches us.
If you use the contact form
The form asks for your name and your email address and, if you wish, your journal's name, website and ISSN, the services you are interested in, and your message. They are emailed to us. They are not written to a database and they are not passed to anyone else.
The form also carries a hidden field that must stay empty and a note of when the page loaded; both tell a person from a robot and say nothing about you. To stop floods we note, for one hour, a one-way code made from your internet address — never the address itself.
There is a second form inside Journal Audit — Request a service — and that one is different: because it belongs to your account, it is saved with it, along with the service you asked for and the audit it refers to. You get a copy by email at the same moment we do.
If you use the Ask AI button
What you type is sent to the AI service that answers it, with the last few turns of that conversation so the answer makes sense. Today that is Google (Gemini), Groq, OpenRouter; where more than one is set up, the first that answers is used.
To stop abuse we keep three counts and nothing else: how many messages one browser session has sent; the times of the questions asked from each internet address over the last hour, filed under a one-way code made from the address, never the address itself; and how many questions the site has answered that day. No transcript is stored on our servers.
The conversation itself lives only in the open page and is gone when you close it. Please do not type passwords or anything confidential into it — that is true of every chat box, ours included.
If you press the WhatsApp button
It opens WhatsApp with our number. What you send us there is carried by WhatsApp under its own terms, and we see what anyone sees in a WhatsApp chat: your name, your number and your messages. We use them to answer you and for nothing else.
If you have an account with us
Journal Audit, GetIndexed, DOI Doctor and the Smart Scholars doors keep what the service needs: your name and email address, a password kept only in a form that cannot be turned back into it, the journals you have added, and the work we have done on them. One account works on every site.
Where you choose to store a credential so you do not have to type it again — a Crossref login, an OJS key — it is encrypted before it is written down, and it is used only for that journal and only for the work you asked for. We never need it for anything else, and you can remove it at any time.
A failed sign-in, and a request to reset a password, are noted with the internet address they came from, so that passwords cannot be guessed; the address goes within a day.
Where an institution adds its researchers' names and publications to the Research Integrity desk, it does so for its own purposes: we keep them only for that institution's own reports, and delete them when it asks.
If you use a free tool
The manuscript screen keeps counts, the phrases it flagged and short snippets around them — never the text of your manuscript. The text is sent to no one: only the references in it are looked up at Crossref. If you are signed in and tick the box for a second opinion, the text is also sent to Pangram, a commercial classifier, whose verdict is shown beside ours. The reference check keeps the references you gave it and what it found for each.
Each report is kept under its own link, which only someone you give it to can open, and no search engine is let in to it. To count the free uses of the screen, the reference check, the Crossref record report and the Risk Radar, we note a one-way code made from your internet address — never the address itself — and it goes within a day (see How long we keep things).
If you write in the community or leave a review
We keep your name, your email address — never shown on the page — the kind of reader you are, and what you wrote. A first post waits until a person has read it. A review shows your name unless you ask for it not to be shown, and your organisation and journal only if you give them.
With each post we keep, for one day, a one-way code made from your internet address — never the address itself — so that one connection cannot flood the page. Posting also sets one cookie, which lets your next posts from the same browser appear at once (see the table below).
From 9 Oct 2026: what is on the site stays there until you ask us to remove it. What is not on the site — waiting for a person to read it, or turned down or taken off by us — is deleted once it is both 90 days old and 30 days off the site. The code of your browser kept with each topic and reply is blanked after 12 months. How long we keep things
If you ask for our e-mail updates
We keep your e-mail address, the name you give if you give one, when you asked, when you confirmed, and when we last wrote. One mail goes to the address to confirm it, and nothing else is sent until you press the button it links to; an address never confirmed is deleted within 7 days. We write at most once a month, and every mail carries a link that stops them: stopping deletes your address at once.
If we wrote to your journal
We sometimes write once to a journal that is not yet our client, about its own public record: what Crossref, DOAJ and the journal's own website show. The address we write to is the one the journal publishes for contact on its own website. We keep the journal's public details, that address, the name published with it, the mail we sent and any reply.
Every such mail carries a link that stops all further mail, and a reply saying "stop" does the same. From then on the address is kept only on our stop list — for good, so that it is never written to again. Ask, and we delete everything else.
If you add your works to ORCID through DOI Doctor
You sign in at ORCID itself, and ORCID asks whether Smart Scholars may read your record and add works to it. We keep your ORCID iD, your name as ORCID gives it, the permission ORCID grants (encrypted), the works you chose and a dated line for each thing done, and nothing is ever written to your record without your own press. Disconnect withdraws the permission at ORCID and erases it here. The full account is on DOI Doctor's privacy page.
If you pay us
Card, UPI and net-banking payments are made in Razorpay's own checkout: your card and bank details go to Razorpay and never reach us. We receive the payment's reference, its amount and whether it went through. For a direct UPI or bank transfer we keep the reference number (UTR) you give us, and the proof of payment if you upload one.
For the invoice we keep the billing name, organisation, address, state, GST number and country you give us, for as long as India's tax laws require.
Before you pay, you tick that you accept our Terms of service. The order keeps when you ticked it, which version of the terms you accepted, your account, and a one-way code made from your internet address — never the address itself.
If you sign an agreement or approve work online
The record of an online signature keeps your name, your role, the time, and the internet address and browser it came from, as evidence that you signed. An approval given online keeps the time and the internet address it came from. Both stay with the agreement or the order they belong to.
When a file you sent us — a manuscript, a proof of payment — or a file we delivered to you is opened, the order keeps who opened it, when, and a one-way code made from the internet address it was opened from. Your order page shows you that list.
Our cookies
A few, and none of them for advertising or for following you to other sites. Every cookie our sites set is in this table, with when it is set and how long it lasts. Our own visit counter (Umami) sets none; Google Analytics sets the two named below, and only on public pages.
| Cookie | What it is for | When it is set | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
ssaudit | Keeps you signed in, and carries a form from one page to the next. Shared by all our sites (*.smartscholars.in), so one sign-in works on every one. | When you open Journal Audit, GetIndexed, DOI Doctor, the Registry or one of the doors | Until you close the browser |
PHPSESSID | The same, on smartscholars.in itself: the chat's message count, and the community and review forms. | When you use the chat, the community or the reviews page | Until you close the browser |
ss_one | Clears a second, stale copy of the sign-in cookie: the page reloads once without it. | Only when your browser holds two copies | One minute |
ss_lang | Remembers the language you chose. | Only when you change the language | One year |
ss_cm | Lets your next community posts from this browser appear at once, once a first one has been approved. It is a random code; your name and email address are not in it. | Only when you post in the community | One year |
ss_utm | Remembers which of our own posts or mails brought you here — its source, medium and campaign tags, the day and the page you arrived on — so we know which of them helped. If you then sign up or order, that record notes it too. Only our own sites read it. | Only if you came through one of our tagged links and answered Yes when asked | 90 days |
ss_cookie_choice | Remembers your answer in the cookie bar — Accept or Reject Google Analytics — on all our sites (*.smartscholars.in). It holds only that answer. | When you press Accept or Reject | 6 months |
_ga, _ga_4DMW3JCD1M | Google Analytics 4: tell one visit to our public pages from the next, so pages and visits can be counted. Set by Google's script for us; never used for advertising. | On a public page, outside the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland unless you pressed Reject; there only after you press Accept | 6 months after your last visit |
ss_team | Only in the browsers of Smart Scholars' own team: tells our pages not to count our own visits in Google Analytics, on all our sites (*.smartscholars.in). It holds only "1". | Only when one of our team opens our page with the link made for it | 400 days |
- On the payment pages only, Razorpay's checkout runs in your browser and may set its own cookies, under Razorpay's own privacy policy. razorpay.com/privacy
- On GetIndexed and DOI Doctor, the place you had scrolled to is noted in the open tab for a moment (the browser's session storage), so that after you press a button the page comes back to the same place. It never leaves your browser and is gone when the tab closes.
- You can delete our cookies at any time in your browser's settings. The sites go on working: you are signed out, the language goes back to English, and nothing else changes.
What we never do
- We do not sell, rent or trade anything about you. There is no advertising on any of our sites and no advertising network is given access to them.
- We do not build a profile of you across sites. The one script of another company that counts visits is Google Analytics, on public pages only, as described above. No cookie of ours is used for advertising.
- We do not publish a client's name, or anything identifying them, without that client's agreement. Where we describe our own work publicly, the figures are counted across journals and name none of them.
- We do not use your journal's content to train anything.
The public record
Most of what our tools read is already public: Crossref, OpenAlex, the ISSN Portal, DOAJ, the Keepers Registry, and a journal's own website. Reading a public register tells that register only that a request was made — it carries nothing about you. Where we write to a register on your behalf, we write the metadata you approved, and nothing more.
How long we keep things
From 9 Oct 2026 — what you write on this site
- Community topics, replies and reviews that are on the site — published, or a topic closed to new replies — stay there until you ask us to remove them (or we take one off for breaking the house rules). To ask, write to mou@smartscholars.in from the address you posted with; How to have your data deleted says what happens next.
- Topics, replies and reviews that are not on the site — still waiting for a person to read them, or turned down or taken off by us — are kept, with everything typed into the form, until they are both 90 days old and 30 days off the site, and then deleted: one taken down by mistake can still be put back for 30 days. When a topic is deleted, the replies under it are deleted with it.
- The random code of the browser a topic or a reply came from (it lets your next posts appear at once) is kept with it for 12 months after it was written, and then blanked; the post itself stays. The code made from your internet address goes within a day, as below.
- Messages sent with the contact form, here or in the app, are not stored on this site: the form sends them by e-mail to Smart Scholars, and they are kept in our mailbox until they are no longer useful.
The deleting and the blanking are done by the site itself, once a day.
- Chat questions, contact messages, requests for our e-mail updates, Crossref record reports and DOI Doctor's reference checks are counted under a one-way code made from the internet address, never the address itself; a code is dropped once it is an hour old, the next time the count is read.
- Posts, reviews, free screens and reference checks, Risk Radar scores: a one-way code made from the address, never the address itself, erased within a day. Failed sign-ins and password resets: the address itself, erased within a day.
- Conversations about a journal: with that journal's record while they are useful, or until you ask us to delete them.
- Account data: while the account exists. Stored credentials: until you remove them or close the account.
- Visit counts: as counts, which identify no one.
- Invoices and payment records: as long as India's tax laws require. Signatures and approvals: with the agreement or order they belong to.
- Your acceptance of our terms before a payment, and the record of who opened a file of your order: with the order they belong to.
- E-mail updates: your address while you want them; deleted at once when you stop them, and within 7 days if never confirmed.
- The outreach stop list: for good, so that an address on it is never written to again.
- Server access logs: a short period, after which they rotate away.
Your data, and who answers
Write to us and we will tell you what we hold about you, send you a copy, correct it, or delete it. There is no form to fill in and no account required. Questions about how we handle personal data are answered by Rahul Raj Akkali, for Smart Scholars, at mou@smartscholars.in.
How to have your data deleted → Email us
Changes, and who to talk to
If this page changes we will change the date below. If you think something here is wrong, or you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, write to us first — we would rather fix it than have you go elsewhere with it. If our answer does not settle it, you may take the matter to the Data Protection Board of India or, if you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, to your own data protection authority.
Last updated: 5 November 2026 · Smart Scholars, 304, MK Residency, Srinivasa Colony, Uppal, Hyderabad – 500039, Telangana, India · mou@smartscholars.in · +91-9885134413
