Last Revised: April 2026

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how the African Journal of Social Sciences and Management (AJSSM) collects, uses, and shares your Personal Information.

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Information Collected Directly From You

AJSSM collects Personally Identifiable Information either directly from you, a co-author, or from third parties. This may include, but is not limited to:

Full name, email address, institutional affiliation, social media handle, telephone number, and home or postal address
Usernames (email address), passwords, and educational and/or professional profiles (including your field of expertise and area of research interest)
Where applicable — such as in the case of online payments — our financial partners may require payment information, including credit or debit card details

1.2 Usage and Technical Data

AJSSM may also collect information relating to how you interact with our platform. This may include your browser type, IP address, and other technical identifiers. Such data is collected through cookies and similar technologies. You may control or disable cookies through your browser settings at any time.

1.3 Information Obtained From Third Parties

AJSSM may collect your Personal Information from external sources, including but not limited to:

Your institution of affiliation or employer
Publicly available sources, including institutional websites and social media networks
Partners involved in promoting AJSSM’s visibility or marketing activities
Individual and organisational partners who support or facilitate our service delivery

2. How We Use Your Information

Your personal information may be used by AJSSM for any of the following purposes, without limitation:

To facilitate, enable, manage, and support your use of AJSSM services
To manage or administer any contract you have entered into with AJSSM
To improve AJSSM’s communications with partners and relevant third parties concerning you
To facilitate direct engagement or communications with you
To support and process payments between you and AJSSM
To invite you to submit or peer-review manuscripts
To evaluate and improve your experience with AJSSM services
To provide technical support
To notify you of relevant updates, announcements, or changes
To carry out promotional activities, including marketing and research mentorship initiatives
To invite you to conferences, capacity-building programmes, and events
To enable and administer the manuscript peer review process
To carry out any other legitimate activity as required or permitted by applicable law

3. Sharing Your Personal Information

AJSSM may share your personal information with partners and third parties, including but not limited to:

Educational and research institutions
Conference and scholarship organisers
Other journal publishers, for the purpose of advancing research activities
Successor publishers, in circumstances where publication rights are transferred to another publisher
Researchers and development partners
Civil society organisations, governmental and non-governmental organisations
Web-based service providers and web analytics service providers
Any other legitimate parties, where AJSSM has a good-faith belief that such disclosure is legally permissible or required by law

4. Your Rights

You have the following rights with respect to your personal information held by AJSSM:

Access: You may request access to the personal information we hold about you within our systems.

Correction: You may request that we correct any inaccurate personal information in our systems.

Erasure: You may request the deletion of your personal information from our systems.

Opt-out of Marketing: You may request that AJSSM cease sending you marketing communications at any time.

Withdrawal of Consent: Where AJSSM processes your information based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out prior to the withdrawal.

Please note: These rights are not absolute. AJSSM may decline or modify requests where exceptions apply, or where the exercise of such rights is not available under the laws of your jurisdiction.

5. Data Retention

AJSSM retains your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this policy. As a general rule, AJSSM retains personal information for a period of five (5) years following your last recorded interaction with AJSSM’s website.

Exceptions to this standard retention period include:

Early deletion: AJSSM may delete your personal information before the five-year period if it determines that the information is no longer needed.
Extended retention: AJSSM may retain your personal information beyond the five-year period where it determines that the information remains necessary.

6. Changes to This Policy

AJSSM reserves the right to update or revise this Privacy Policy at any time. Any modifications will be published on this page, along with the date of the most recent revision. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

7. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this Privacy Policy, or about how your personal information has been handled by AJSSM, please contact the Editor at:

[email protected]