Last updated: 11 May 2026
Controller: KNOWDYN LTD, company registered in England and Wales.
Website: scientomics.com
Privacy contact: info@scientomics.com
1. Our position
Scientomics deals with information that can affect careers, institutions, funders, publishers, patients, investors, and the scientific record itself. Privacy is therefore not a courtesy note at the foot of the website. It is part of the operating discipline.
This policy explains how KNOWDYN LTD, operating as Scientomics, collects, uses, protects, retains, and discloses personal information through the Scientomics website, ordinary contact channels, confidential enquiries, investigative work, and the Whistleblower Protocol.
The rule is simple. We collect what is necessary, keep what is defensible, restrict access to those with a proper need, and treat confidential disclosures as sensitive from the moment they arrive.
2. Who is responsible
KNOWDYN LTD is the data controller for personal information collected through the Scientomics website and direct communications. In some client engagements, Scientomics may also process information under written instructions or alongside another controller. The engagement terms will govern that position.
Questions about privacy should be sent to info@scientomics.com.
3. Website information
When you visit scientomics.com, the website may process technical information required to deliver the site, secure it, and prevent abuse. This may include your internet protocol address, browser and device details, operating system, referring page, pages viewed, date and time of access, approximate network location, error events, and security logs.
This information is not collected to watch ordinary readers. It is processed because a public website cannot operate safely without basic technical and security records. Those records help detect malicious traffic, unauthorised access attempts, spam, automated abuse, and other activity that could compromise the service.
Scientomics does not sell website information. It does not use website traffic data to build advertising profiles. It does not use ordinary visitor logs to identify a confidential source who has chosen not to identify themselves.
4. Contact and enquiry information
When you contact Scientomics, we may process your name, email address, telephone number if supplied, professional role, organisation, country, message content, attachments, links, case summaries, research identifiers, institutional identifiers, and any other information you choose to provide.
We use this information to understand and respond to the enquiry, assess whether Scientomics can assist, manage legal or conflict issues, prepare an engagement if appropriate, and maintain a record of the exchange.
If you contact us in a professional capacity, information about your institution, funder, publisher, employer, legal representative, or professional role may form part of the record.
5. Comments, forms, and public submissions
Where the site allows comments, forms, or public interactions, Scientomics may process the information entered into the relevant field together with technical information such as internet protocol address and browser user agent. This is used for moderation, spam prevention, abuse detection, and site security.
If you place information in a public area of the site, it may be visible to others. Scientomics cannot control what other visitors copy, store, or republish from public material.
Comments and similar submissions may be checked by automated security or spam-prevention services to protect the site from malware, fraudulent links, impersonation, and automated nuisance activity.
6. Files and metadata
Files sent to Scientomics may contain more than the visible text. Images, documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, screenshots, email files, and archives may contain author names, usernames, device data, location data, creation dates, revision history, hidden comments, file paths, embedded identifiers, or institutional markings.
Scientomics may process this material where needed to assess an enquiry, conduct an investigation, preserve evidence, verify provenance, protect a source, or comply with law. You should remove unnecessary metadata before submission where doing so does not damage the evidential value of the material.
Do not submit patient-level, child-level, genetic, biometric, criminal-offence, immigration, financial, medical, or other highly sensitive personal information unless it is strictly necessary and you are legally entitled to provide it.
7. Cookies and external content
The site may use cookies and similar technologies to operate securely, remember limited preferences, support forms, maintain sessions where applicable, prevent spam, and understand basic site performance. Necessary cookies are used so that the site can function. Non-essential cookies, where used, will be handled according to applicable consent rules.
You can control cookies through your browser. Blocking necessary cookies may affect site function.
The site may also link to or display material from external websites, databases, journals, repositories, identifier systems, regulators, institutions, publishers, or media platforms. Those third parties may process information under their own policies. Scientomics is not responsible for the privacy practices of external services.
8. The Whistleblower Protocol
The Scientomics Whistleblower Protocol exists for confidential disclosures about research misconduct, paper-mill activity, fabricated data, manipulated images, peer-review fraud, citation manipulation, editorial misconduct, institutional concealment, and related threats to the scientific record.
A submission may include names, professional identifiers, ORCID records, ROR records, DOIs, grant references, manuscript details, journal or publisher information, correspondence, screenshots, datasets, document extracts, narrative allegations, and information about people or organisations affected by the alleged conduct. It may also include the source’s identity if the source chooses to reveal it.
The protocol is designed to allow a source to submit information without identifying themselves. A source who wishes to remain anonymous should not include names, email addresses, initials, job titles, internal filenames, document metadata, writing habits, or facts that only they could know unless they accept the identification risk.
Where the encrypted intake facility is enabled, the substantive submission is intended to be encrypted in the browser before transmission. Scientomics’ operational design is that decryption is handled by authorised personnel outside the public-facing system and that private decryption material is not held by that system. This is a strong source-protection measure. It is not a promise of absolute anonymity.
No internet-based channel can defeat every risk. Internet service providers, workplace monitoring, network operators, browser extensions, compromised devices, upstream infrastructure, document metadata, writing style, and the facts of the disclosure itself may create identification risk outside Scientomics’ direct control.
Scientomics will not seek to identify a confidential source who has chosen not to identify themselves unless required by law or necessary to address a serious and imminent risk. Scientomics will not disclose a confidential source’s identity unless the source authorises disclosure, disclosure is legally compelled, disclosure is necessary to address a serious risk, or non-disclosure is no longer legally defensible after careful assessment.
9. Why we process personal information
Scientomics processes personal information to operate and secure the website, respond to enquiries, receive and assess confidential disclosures, decide whether a matter falls within its remit, conduct forensic metascience investigations, verify identifiers, analyse evidence, prepare confidential reports, communicate with clients and advisers, preserve records, protect sources, prevent misuse, comply with law, and establish, exercise, or defend legal rights.
Scientomics may also process information to decide not to proceed. In serious or sensitive matters, the reason for taking no further action may itself need to be recorded.
10. Lawful basis
Scientomics processes personal information only where a lawful basis exists. For website operation, security, spam prevention, and service protection, we rely on legitimate interests and, where applicable, legal obligations. For enquiries and engagements, we rely on pre-contract steps, contract performance, legitimate interests, and legal obligations. For investigative work and confidential disclosures, we may rely on legitimate interests, contract, legal claims, substantial public interest conditions where available, and legal obligations.
Where sensitive or special-category information is processed, Scientomics will do so only where a further legal condition is available. Depending on the facts, this may include explicit consent, legal claims, substantial public interest, employment or social-protection obligations, public-health interests, research or archiving conditions, or another lawful condition under the applicable regime.
Where consent is used, it may be withdrawn. Withdrawal does not affect processing already carried out lawfully and may not require deletion where Scientomics must retain information for legal, evidential, contractual, security, regulatory, or source-protection reasons.
11. Analysis and human judgement
Scientomics may use statistical, linguistic, bibliometric, metadata, image-integrity, citation-network, document-analysis, and other specialist tools to support forensic review. These tools assist professional judgement. They do not replace it.
Scientomics does not make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about individuals solely by automated processing without appropriate human review.
12. Disclosure
Scientomics discloses personal information only where there is a lawful, necessary, and proportionate reason. Recipients may include authorised personnel, contractors, legal advisers, forensic specialists, technical and security providers, insurers, auditors, clients under mandate, courts, regulators, law-enforcement bodies, public authorities, publishers, funders, institutions, and affected organisations.
Whistleblower material is handled on a restricted basis. Before sharing material derived from a confidential source, Scientomics will consider whether redaction, aggregation, paraphrase, delayed disclosure, legal review, or non-disclosure is appropriate. Relevance alone does not make disclosure safe.
Where a court order, regulatory demand, statutory duty, or binding legal process requires disclosure, Scientomics will comply. Where lawful and practicable, it may seek to narrow the request, protect privileged or confidential material, or notify affected persons. In some cases, the law may prevent notification.
13. International transfers
Scientomics is based in the United Kingdom, but visitors, sources, clients, advisers, service providers, institutions, publishers, funders, and repositories may be located elsewhere. Personal information may therefore be processed or accessed internationally where necessary.
Where transfer safeguards are required, Scientomics will use an appropriate mechanism. This may include an adequacy decision, standard contractual clauses, the United Kingdom international data transfer addendum, contractual confidentiality duties, encryption, access controls, transfer risk assessment, or another lawful safeguard.
14. Retention
Scientomics keeps personal information only for as long as necessary or legally defensible. Website security records are normally kept for a limited operational period unless needed to investigate misuse or preserve evidence. Enquiries that do not lead to engagement are kept only as long as needed to manage the enquiry and legal risk. Client and investigation records may be kept longer because they may be needed to evidence work performed, defend conclusions, resolve disputes, comply with obligations, or support lawful follow-up.
Whistleblower submissions that are not taken forward may still be kept for a limited period where necessary to identify patterns, prevent abuse, preserve an audit trail, protect a source, or document why no action was taken. When retention is no longer justified, Scientomics will delete, anonymise, or restrict access to the material as appropriate.
Backups, encrypted archives, and evidential records may not allow immediate selective deletion. Where deletion is delayed for technical or legal reasons, access will be restricted and the information will not be used for ordinary operational purposes.
15. Security
Scientomics applies technical and organisational safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the material. These may include encryption in transit, encryption at rest where appropriate, restricted access, separation of sensitive material, limited administrative privileges, confidentiality obligations, monitoring, redaction, offline decryption controls for designated whistleblower material, and incident review.
Security is a discipline, not a slogan. No online service is invulnerable. Scientomics will respond to suspected incidents according to applicable law and will notify regulators or affected persons where legally required.
16. Allegations and disputed information
Research-integrity material often contains allegations, contested facts, incomplete records, inferences, and information about people who have not yet responded. Scientomics treats such material according to its status. An allegation is not treated as established fact merely because it was submitted.
Scientomics may retain disputed information where needed to assess it, preserve evidence, protect a source, document a conclusion, comply with law, or defend legal rights. Where appropriate, Scientomics may record that information is disputed, unverified, partially verified, or superseded.
17. Your rights
Depending on where you live and the circumstances of the processing, you may have rights to access your personal information, receive a copy, correct it, request deletion, restrict processing, object to processing, withdraw consent, request portability, limit certain uses of sensitive information, or complain to a regulator.
These rights are real, but not absolute. Scientomics may refuse, limit, or delay a request where necessary to protect a confidential source, protect another person’s rights, preserve legal privilege, maintain evidential integrity, avoid prejudicing an investigation, comply with law, prevent abuse, or establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.
Requests should be sent to info@scientomics.com with the subject line “Privacy Rights Request”. Scientomics may need to verify your identity. Requests involving whistleblower material, confidential investigations, third-party information, or legally sensitive evidence will be assessed with particular care.
18. Regional notices
For individuals in the United Kingdom, European Union, European Economic Area, and Switzerland, rights may arise under the UK GDPR, EU GDPR, Swiss data-protection law, and related national legislation. You may complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the United Kingdom or to your local supervisory authority where applicable.
For California and other United States state privacy laws, Scientomics does not sell personal information and does not share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. Residents may have rights to know, access, correct, delete, obtain a copy, limit certain uses of sensitive information, and be free from unlawful discrimination for exercising privacy rights.
For Canada, Australia, Brazil, Singapore, India, and other jurisdictions with comparable privacy laws, Scientomics will consider applicable local rights according to the law that applies to the person, information, and processing activity.
United States requests may be sent to info@scientomics.com with the subject line “US Privacy Request”. Other privacy requests may use the subject line “Privacy Rights Request”.
19. Children, vulnerable persons, and protected material
The site is not directed at children. Scientomics does not knowingly invite children to submit personal information.
Where a research-integrity concern involves children, patients, students, junior staff, dependent researchers, clinical subjects, vulnerable persons, or others exposed to heightened risk, only the minimum necessary information should be provided. Consider legal, ethical, safeguarding, or professional duties before submitting identifiable material.
Submitting information to Scientomics does not automatically create legal privilege, statutory whistleblower protection, employment-law protection, immunity from contractual duties, or immunity from civil or criminal liability. Those protections depend on the jurisdiction, the person making the disclosure, the recipient, the subject matter, the motive, and the method of disclosure. A person uncertain about legal risk should obtain independent legal advice before submitting confidential, privileged, regulated, employment-related, or contractually restricted material.
20. Changes and contact
Scientomics may update this Privacy Policy when the law, website, security posture, services, or operational practices change. The updated version will be published with a revised date.
Privacy questions and rights requests should be sent to info@scientomics.com.
Confidential research-integrity disclosures should be made through the designated Whistleblower Protocol where that route is available. Ordinary email should not be treated as an anonymous or high-security channel.