Who We Are

Forensic Times is a global research and publishing community platform operating at forensictimes.com. We provide publishing services, community membership, funding access, and professional development resources for students and professionals in forensic science, law, criminology, cybersecurity, intelligence, AI, and related fields.

For the purposes of applicable data protection law, Forensic Times is the data controller responsible for your personal information collected through this website and its associated services.

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your data, please see Section 16 for our contact details.

Information We Collect

We collect information in the following ways:

Information you provide directly to us:

• Account registration: Full name, email address, password, country of residence, professional discipline, and institution or employer name.
• Membership profile: Profile photo, biography, academic qualifications, professional credentials, LinkedIn or institutional profile URL, and areas of expertise.
• Published content: Articles, research papers, dissertations, case studies, whitepapers, and field reports you submit for publication on our platform.
• Funding and grant applications: Institutional affiliations, research project details, travel and event information, bank account or payment details for disbursement, and supporting documentation.
• Payments and billing: Payment card details (processed securely via third-party providers — we do not store full card numbers), billing address, and transaction history.
• Communications: Any messages, emails, or enquiries you send to us, including support requests and feedback.
• Campus Ambassador applications: University name, student ID, social media handles, and referral activity records.

Information collected automatically:

• Usage data: Pages visited, articles read, time spent on page, search queries made within the platform, and features accessed.
• Device and technical data: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, device identifiers, and referring URLs.
• Leaderboard and engagement metrics: Article view counts, publication engagement statistics, and community activity associated with your member account.
• Cookies and similar technologies: As described in Section 9.

How We Use Your Information

We use your personal information for the following purposes:

• Account management: To create and manage your member account, verify your identity, and provide you with access to membership benefits.
• Publishing services: To receive, review, process, and publish your submitted content on forensictimes.com, including displaying your author name and profile.
• Leaderboard and awards: To track article and research view counts, operate the monthly leaderboard, administer the $10,000 monthly Research Excellence Award, and process prize payments.
• Funding and grant administration: To process your applications for conference funding, research grants, exchange programme sponsorship, and field visit funding, and to disburse approved payments.
• Membership billing: To process your membership subscription payments, issue receipts, and manage renewals and cancellations.
• Community features: To enable participation in the members' community, mentorship programme, peer review system, and professional networking features.
• Communications: To send you account notifications, membership updates, editorial decisions on submitted content, newsletter communications (where opted in), and responses to your enquiries.
• Platform improvement: To analyse usage data, improve our platform features, and understand how members engage with our content and services.
• Legal and compliance: To comply with applicable laws, respond to legal requests, enforce our Terms and Conditions, and protect the rights and safety of our users and platform.

Legal Basis for Processing

Where applicable data protection law (including the UK GDPR and EU GDPR) requires us to have a legal basis for processing your personal data, we rely on the following:

• Contractual necessity: Processing required to perform our contract with you — including delivering your membership, publishing your content, processing payments, and administering funding applications.
• Legitimate interests: Processing for our legitimate business interests, such as improving our platform, preventing fraud, operating the leaderboard and awards programme, and sending service-related communications — where these interests are not overridden by your rights.
• Legal obligation: Processing necessary to comply with applicable laws and regulations.
• Consent: Where we rely on your consent, such as for optional marketing communications or non-essential cookies. You may withdraw consent at any time.

How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We may share your information in the following limited circumstances:

• Service providers: Trusted third-party suppliers who process data on our behalf, including payment processors, cloud hosting providers, email delivery services, and analytics platforms. These providers are contractually bound to process data only on our instructions.
• Funding and grant partners: Where you apply for funding sponsored by a third-party organisation, relevant application details may be shared with that sponsor for evaluation purposes. You will be informed at the point of application.
• Institutional partners: Where your membership is purchased by a university or organisation under an institutional plan, your name and membership status may be shared with the relevant institutional administrator.
• Legal requirements: Where required by law, court order, or regulatory authority, or where necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Forensic Times, our members, or others.
• Business transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred to the acquiring entity, subject to equivalent data protection commitments.

Published Content & Public Profile

When you publish an article, research paper, or any other content on Forensic Times, your author name, profile photo, professional title, and institutional affiliation will be displayed publicly alongside that content. This is a core feature of the publishing service you have subscribed to.

Your published content, including your name as the author, will be publicly accessible on forensictimes.com, may be indexed by search engines, and may be shared and cited by other users and third parties. Please consider this carefully before submitting content for publication.

Leaderboard rankings display member names and article view statistics publicly. If you do not wish to appear on the public leaderboard, please contact us to discuss your options — however, note that leaderboard participation is a core feature of the monthly award programme.

If you wish to have published content removed from the platform after publication, please contact our editorial team. Removal requests will be assessed on a case-by-case basis in accordance with our Editorial Policy.

Membership, Payments & Billing

Membership payments are processed by a third-party payment provider. We do not store your full payment card details on our servers. Your billing information is handled in accordance with the payment provider's own privacy and security standards, which comply with PCI-DSS requirements.

We retain records of your transaction history, membership tier, renewal dates, and billing address for the duration of your membership and for a reasonable period thereafter as required for accounting, legal, and dispute resolution purposes.

For institutional memberships, we may hold contact details for the designated billing administrator at your university or organisation.

Funding & Grant Applications

When you apply for conference funding, research grants, exchange programme support, or field visit sponsorship, we collect additional information necessary to evaluate and process your application. This may include:

• Research project descriptions, proposals, and supporting academic documentation
• Event or conference registration details and cost breakdowns
• Bank account or payment details for disbursement of approved funding
• Institutional letters of support or supervisor endorsements
• Post-event or post-visit reports submitted as a condition of funding

This information is used solely to assess, administer, and disburse funding. Where funding is provided by a named sponsor, relevant application details will be shared with that sponsor as disclosed at the point of application. We retain funding application records for a minimum of seven years for financial compliance purposes.

Cookies & Tracking Technologies

Forensic Times uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to operate and improve our platform. The categories of cookies we use are:

• Essential cookies: Required for the platform to function — including maintaining your login session, processing payments, and remembering your preferences. These cannot be disabled.
• Analytics cookies: Used to understand how visitors use our platform, which articles are most read, and how members navigate the site. This data is aggregated and anonymised where possible. We use analytics tools such as Google Analytics.
• Functional cookies: Used to remember your settings and personalise your experience, such as your preferred language or display settings.
• Marketing cookies: We do not use third-party advertising cookies. We may use first-party cookies to understand which features members engage with to improve our communications.

You can manage your cookie preferences through the cookie settings panel on our website or through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the platform.

Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law. Our general retention approach is as follows:

• Active member accounts: Retained for the duration of your membership and for up to two years after your membership lapses, to allow for account reactivation.
• Published content: Author name and published articles are retained indefinitely as part of the platform's public research archive, unless a removal request is granted.
• Payment and billing records: Retained for a minimum of seven years for accounting and tax compliance purposes.
• Funding application records: Retained for a minimum of seven years for financial compliance and audit purposes.
• Communications and support records: Retained for up to three years after resolution.
• Analytics and usage data: Retained in anonymised or aggregated form indefinitely; identifiable usage data retained for up to 26 months.

When data is no longer required, it is securely deleted or anonymised in accordance with our internal data management procedures.

International Data Transfers

Forensic Times is a global platform with members worldwide. Your personal information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in countries outside your country of residence, including countries that may not provide the same level of data protection as your home jurisdiction.

Where we transfer personal data from the UK or European Economic Area (EEA) to countries not deemed adequate by the relevant authority, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission or UK International Data Transfer Agreements, or we rely on other lawful transfer mechanisms.

By using our platform, you acknowledge that your information may be transferred internationally as described in this policy.

Your Rights

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Right of access: Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to rectification: Request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Right to erasure: Request deletion of your personal data, subject to our legal obligations and legitimate interests (such as retention of published content and financial records).
• Right to restriction: Request that we restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability: Request a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format.
• Right to object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing purposes.
• Right to withdraw consent: Where processing is based on consent, withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.
• Right to lodge a complaint: Lodge a complaint with your national data protection supervisory authority if you believe we have not handled your data lawfully.

Children's Privacy

Forensic Times is intended for users aged 16 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16. If you are under 16, please do not register for a membership or submit any personal information through our platform.

If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 16, we will take prompt steps to delete that information from our records. If you believe we may have collected information from a child under 16, please contact us immediately at [email protected].

Security

We take the security of your personal information seriously. We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data against unauthorised access, loss, destruction, or alteration. These measures include:

• SSL/TLS encryption for all data transmitted between your browser and our platform
• Secure server infrastructure with access controls and monitoring
• Password hashing and secure authentication mechanisms
• Third-party payment processing compliant with PCI-DSS standards
• Regular security reviews and vulnerability assessments

However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure. While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify you and the relevant supervisory authority as required by applicable law.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or applicable law. When we make material changes, we will notify you by email (to the address registered with your account) and by displaying a prominent notice on our website.

The date of the most recent revision is shown at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Your continued use of Forensic Times following the posting of an updated policy constitutes your acceptance of those changes.