Privacy Policy
When you use PlagScan in order to check text for plagiarism any personal data you may have in that text is being processed by us and the text as a whole is being attributed to your account data. This document helps you understand how we process the data in particular and which rights you have regarding your personal data.
In the document "we", "us" or "our" refers to PlagScan GmbH, which is the entity responsible for processing your personal data. With "Policy" we refer to the Privacy Policy at hand and with "Website" and "Service" to our applications and all of PlagScan's websites.
1. Personal data - what we collect and what we use it for
1.1 Account data
When you register, we create a personal account for you on PlagScan ("Account"). Data for your account is:
- Your username as in your email address
- Your securely encrypted password
This is mandatory, in order provide you with a plagiarism analysis results and make and keep them accessible to you. You can choose to add further personal data to your profile. The additional data you can add is your name, language and gender. Account data is not public. It is being used to identify you and your documents internally for using the software towards PlagScan and (if applicable) to your organization.
1.2 Single-Sign-On
If you employ an authentication from another web service (e.g. Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) account data is being imported from that service.
1.3 Information in documents
When you run a plagiarism analysis for your text, the data from the text is processed in order to find matches with other documents. Semantically relevant word pairs are being extracted and are anonymously being sent to databases as search queries in a randomized fashion.
1.4 Your IP address, browser settings and location
When you visit the Website, we register your computer’s IP address and browser settings. The IP address is the numerical address of the computer used to visit the Website. Browser settings can include the type of browser you use, browser language, and time zone. We collect this information so that we can trace the computer used in cases of misuse or unlawful actions in connection with visits to or use of the Website. We also use the IP address to approximate your location (at city level) and so that we know which sets of our Terms & Conditions apply to your use of our Website.
1.5 Newsletters and digest emails
We collect the information you provide us with when you subscribe to receive our newsletters, digest emails or similar (we collect your name, email address and newsletter preferences). If you no longer wish to receive our newsletters, digest emails or similar, you can unsubscribe by following the respective link at the bottom of the newsletter.
1.6 For what purpose do we use your personal information?
We will use the information you provide to us to:
- Provide our services to you, including generating, displaying and downloading your plagiarism scan results.
- Identify you as a registered user when you log in to the Website and re-visit the Website.
- Improve the Website and our services.
- Respond to your questions and provide related customer service.
- Contact you, if you participate in the plagiarism prevention pool, in case a user has questions regarding a match with a document of yours.
- Send you our newsletter (if opted in).
- Sharing documents with other users of your organization, in case you actively decide to do so.
- Engage in various internal business purposes, i.e data analysis, audits, fraud monitoring and prevention, developing new products and services, improving or modifying the Website, or our services, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and operating and expanding our business activities.
- Comply with legal requirements and legal process, requests from public and governmental authorities, relevant industry standards and our internal policies.
- Enforce our Terms & Conditions.
- Protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates.
- Protect our rights, privacy, safety or property and/or that of our affiliates, you or others.
- Allow us to pursue available remedies or limit any damages that we sustain.
We will also use the information in other ways for which we provide specific notice at the time of collection and processing.
1.7 On what legal basis do we process your personal data?
We need to process your personal information in order to:
- Perform our contract with you (see Article 6.1.b of the GDPR).
- Comply with our legal obligations (see Article 6.1.c of the GDPR) and operate an online plagiarism checker software.
- Pursue legitimate business interests of our own related to operating the Website and providing our services to you, or to pursue the legitimate interests of third parties as long as your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests (see Article 6.1.f of the GDPR).
- For the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, where necessary (see Article 9.2.f of the GDPR).
Some of these grounds for processing your personal data overlap, so there may be several reasons which justify us processing your personal information. In those limited circumstances where you have expressly given your consent to us to process your personal data (see Article 6.1.a of the GDPR), for example, when subscribing to our newsletters, you are free to revoke your consent at any time. However, please be aware that we may have the right to continue to process your information on legal grounds.
You have the right to object to how we process your personal information, or ask us to restrict the processing. Please see below, at 13, for more details.
If you would like more information about our legal basis for processing your personal information, please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) - see 14, below.
2. Disclosure of personal information
2.1 Disclosure of personal information on the Website
We do generally not disclose personal information on the Website. If we do (e.g. for testimonials or success stories) an explicit consent is required.
2.2 Disclosure on services to which you connect your profile
Besides the personal data you share with them, they will learn about the fact that you use PlagScan and receive information about the timing of your logging in and out of PlagScan.
2.3 Disclosure to other services, websites and companies
- Search queries to external databases: As described in 1.3 of our data policy we do send word pairs to external databases, in order to identify semantically similar documents. If personal data is contained within a document, it will be sent out of context, that is the queries are randomized and sent in parallel from different documents as well as randomized within one and the same document.
- Plagiarism prevention pool: If you participate in the plagiarism prevention pool, you will allow other PlagScan users to search for matches with your document. By default the other user can only see snippets around the direct matches between the documents. If a user requests access to one of your documents for that purpose, your identity will not be disclosed but you stay anonymous to that user. Upon a message you can choose whether to reveal your identity and/or allow full-text access to your document.
- Organization archive: As an organization customer of PlagScan you can choose, whether full-text access between your organization users is allowed. By default the process is the same as for the plagiarism prevention pool (see above).
2.4 Other disclosures
In addition to the above, we disclose your personal information to the following parties and in the following circumstances:
- To allow third party vendors, consultants and other service providers to perform services on our behalf.
- To comply with laws or to respond to claims, legal process (including but not limited to subpoenas and court orders) and requests from public and government authorities.
- To cooperate with regulatory bodies and government authorities in connection with investigations or case referrals.
- To third parties in connection with enforcement of our Terms & Conditions and Guidelines.
- To third parties in order for us to protect our operations or those of our affiliates.
- To third parties in order for us to pursue available remedies, or limit damages that we may sustain.
- To third parties in order for us to investigate, prevent or take action regarding suspected or actual prohibited activities, including but not limited to fraud and misuse of our Website.
- To a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, acquisition, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business or assets (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).
3. Data controller
3.1 Information for which we are the data controller
We are the data controller of the Account Data you enter to create and maintain your profile, which includes but is not limited to your email address and password, as well as the registration of your IP address.
We are also the data controller of the information which is disclosed to other services (see 2.3). Germany’s data protection laws govern our collection of your data.
3.2 Information for which you are the data controller
You are the data controller for the content you choose to check for plagiarism, and for the personal data disclosed when you use a third party as single-sign-on service.
4. Links to websites
Our Website and in particular the plagiarism reports contain links to other websites. Our inclusion of such links does not imply that we endorse those websites. We do not control the content of those third party websites, and assume no responsibility for the third party or their policies or practices.
We encourage you to review the privacy policies for these third party websites because their procedures for collecting, handling and processing personal data will be different from ours.
5. Data processors and transfer of personal information outside the EU
We use external companies to maintain the technical operation of the Website and our services. These companies are data processors for the personal data for which we are the data controller. By accepting this Policy, you agree that we may also allow the data for which you are the data controller to be processed by these data processors.
We have data processing agreements in place with the data processors and it follows from these agreements that they must act solely in accordance with our instructions. By accepting this Policy, you authorize us to instruct the data processors to process data in accordance with the Policy and for the purposes of using the Website.
The data processors have taken reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect against the information being accidentally or illegally destroyed, becoming lost or deteriorating, and to protect against the information being disclosed to unauthorized persons, being misused, or in other ways being processed in violation of data protection laws.
On your request – and possibly in return for remuneration at the data processors' applicable hourly rates at any time for such work – the data processors must supply you with sufficient information to demonstrate that the above-mentioned technical and organizational safety measures have been taken.
We do not work with data processors outside of the EU for maintaining and operating our website and our plagiarism checking. Some data processors and third party services for Email support and web analytics are located outside of the European Union, such as in the US. You consent to us using data processors for support emails and to gather web analytics data for our homepage in insecure third countries provided that there is a legal framework governing the transfer of your personal data and ensuring adequate protection of it, for example if the data processor is part of the EU-US Privacy Shield framework.
6. Data retention
We keep the Account Data and other personal data you provide, including your plagiarism reports, for as long as you have an Account or as needed to provide you with our services. If you choose to delete your Account please note that all your plagiarism reports and documents will also be deleted. We will delete this information upon your request and we will only save a log with the following information: your name, email address and the date of the deletion of your Account and title, word count, creation and deletion date of your documents. We will keep the log for 1 year. All other information will be deleted.
In some cases, even if you close your account, we then choose to retain certain information (e.g. visits to our Website) in an anonymized or aggregated form.
7. Security measures and email communication
We use reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures to protect your personal information within our organization and we regularly audit our system for vulnerabilities. However, since the internet is not a 100% secure environment, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of the information you transmit to us. Emails sent via the Website may not be encrypted, and we therefore advise you not to include any confidential information in your emails to us.
8. Cookies
The Website uses cookies and similar technologies, text files, which are stored on your computer and enable an analysis of the usage of the website. By using our Website, you accept that we use Cookies as described below.
8.1 What types of Cookies do we use?
Cookies are small pieces of information that the Website places on your computer's hard disk, on your tablet or on your smartphone. Note that HTML5 introduced Web Storage that has a similar nature to Cookies, and that we therefore consider that as a Cookie in the following.
Cookies contain information that the Website uses to make the communication between you and your web browser more efficient. Cookies identify your computer or device rather than you as an individual user.
We use session cookies, persistent cookies, HTML5 sessionStorage and HTML5 localStorage session cookies and HTML5 sessionStorage objects are temporary in nature and are deleted when you exit your web browser. Persistent cookies are permanent in nature and are stored and remain on your computer until they are deleted. Persistent cookies expire or auto delete after a certain period of time, which is set per cookie, but are renewed each time you visit the Website. HTML5 localStorage objects are permanent in nature and remain on your computer until they are deleted.
8.2 What do we use Cookies for?
We use Cookies for:
- Generating statistics: Measuring Website traffic such as the number of visits to the Website, which domains the visitors come from, which pages they visit on the Website and in which overall geographical areas the visitors are located.
- Monitoring Website performance and your use of our Website: Monitoring the performance of the Website, our applications and how you use our Website and applications.
- Authentication and improving the functionality of our Website: Optimizing your experience with the Website, which includes remembering your username and password when you return to the Website, and remembering information about your browser and preferences (e.g. which language you prefer).
- Quality assurance: Ensuring the quality of our Website and to prevent misuse or irregularities in connection with plagiarism checking and using the Website.
8.3 Third party Cookies
Third party Cookies are set by third party websites – not our Website. When you visit our Website, the following third party Cookies may be set:
- Facebook cookies, set when you log in to our Website with Facebook.
- Google cookies, set when you log in to our Website with Google.
- Microsoft cookies, set when you log in to our Website with Microsoft.
- Yahoo cookies, set when you log in to our Website with Yahoo.
- This website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service of Google Inc. Google Analytics employing cookies. Information produced by the cookie about the usage of this website (NOT your usage within the area, which requires authentication) (including your IP address) is transmitted to a server of Google in the US. Google uses this information to analyze your usage of this website, in order to create reports about website activity for the website provider and to adduce further services related to internet usage. Google may also transmit this data to a third party, if this may be lawfully mandatory or third parties process the data on account of Google. In no case Google will link your IP address to other data stored about you. You can prevent the installation of cookies by the settings of your browser software; this may cause some functionality of this website being unavailable for you.
By using this website you agree with the processing of your data Google adduces in the described way and for the named purpose. -
You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. You can also prevent specific services from collecting the data generated by the cookie and relating to your use of the website (including your IP address, which is recorded anonymously - so-called IP masking) and from processing this data by Google in particular by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available under the following link (http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en). Alternatively, click here to deactivate Google Analytics on PlagScan.com in this browser in the future - this will save an opt-out cookie.
8.4 Deletion of cookies
You can delete the cookies already on your device. You can typically delete cookies from the Privacy or History area, available from the Settings or Options menu in the browser. In most browsers, the same menu can be reached through the Ctrl+Shift+Del keyboard shortcut or Command+Shift+Del if you're on a Mac.
If you do not accept Cookies from our Website, you may experience inconvenience in your use of the Website, and you may be prevented from accessing some of its features.
9. Access and insights into the personal data we have about you
If you have an Account on PlagScan, you can log in to your Account and see what information we have about you, including your documents.
You can email pro@plagscan.com and request information about your personal data. Upon receiving your request, we will let you know what personal information we have about you, how we collect the information, the purpose for which we process your personal data, and who we share your personal information with.
10. Download your personal data (data portability)
If you have a user profile on PlagScan, you can download your plagiarism reports.
11. Correction and deletion of your personal data
If any of the Account Data or other personal information that we have about you in our capacity as a data controller is incorrect or misleading, you can correct most of the information yourself via your Account. We recommend that you make any the correction(s) yourself. Otherwise, you are welcome to ask us to assist with correcting your information.
You may at any time correct or delete any content and personal information on the Website for which you are the data controller (see 3.2). If your personal information changes, or if you no longer wish to appear on the Website, you can update or delete the information by logging in to your Account.
If your Account is deleted, all the data associated with your Account will be deleted, including your Account Data and plagiarism reports.
We reserve the right to block access to your Account and/or delete it if the Account or the content associated with your Account or your documents is, in our assessment, discriminating, racist, sexually oriented, unethical, threatening, offensive, harassing or otherwise violates applicable laws, third party rights or our User Guidelines, or is inconsistent with the purpose of the Website. If we block access to or delete your Account, we will inform you of the reason for blocking or deleting your Account by sending an email to the address you provided when you created your Account.
12. Other rights
In addition to the rights set out above concerning your personal data, you also have the following rights:
- You also have the right to object to the processing of your personal data and have the processing of your personal data restricted.
- In particular, you have an unconditional right to object to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes.
- If our processing of your personal information is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Your withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of the processing of data carried out before you withdrew your consent. You may withdraw your consent by emailing us at pro@plagscan.com.
In some circumstances, these rights may be limited or conditional. For example, whether or not you have the right to data portability in a particular case depends on the specific circumstances of the processing activity.
13. Children’s information
Our Website is not intended for children. If you become aware that a child under the age of 13 has provided us with their personal information, please contact us.
14. Our Data Protection Officer
We have a Data Protection Officer (DPO). If you have any questions about the data processing activities performed by us, you are welcome to contact our DPO by email at: pro@plagscan.com.
15. Changes to this Policy
We reserve the right to make changes to this Policy. The date shown at the start of this Policy indicates when it was last revised. If we make material changes to it, we will provide notice through our Website, or by other means, to give you the opportunity to review the changes before they come into effect. If you object to our changes, you can close your account. Your continued use of our Website after we publish or send a notice about the changes to the Policy will mean that you accept and agree to the updated Policy.
16. Contact information and where to send questions or complaints
If you have questions or concerns about our Policy, how we process your personal information, or would like us to correct your personal information, feel free to contact us at: pro@plagscan.com.
You can also reach us by post.
If contacting us does not resolve your complaint, you have further options, for example you may always lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, e.g. The German Data Protection Agency.
Our contact details are:
PlagScan GmbH,
Subbelrather Strasse 15
50823 Cologne, Germany
General Terms & Conditions
§1 Applicability
These terms are valid for any service delivered by PlagScan. Terms & conditions of a customer do not apply, unless something else is arranged.
§2 Data protection
Uploaded documents or text (data) are stored on our servers and excerpts from them are anonymously compared to the internet an internal data bases by a search engine. The user does have full rights to delete documents from our servers and whether documents can be considered for other plagscan users' plagiarism analysis.
§3 Personal Data
Protection of your personal data at census, processing and use on the occasion of your visit of our homepage is very important for us. Any personal data you pass to us in the course of using our services will be protected by the regulations of 'Bundesdatenschutz-Gesetz'. We also make sure that your address data is only handed on to a third party, if this serves the purpose of contract and invoice, respectively, or you agreed to the same explicitly. You have all discretionary rights necessary to withdraw your agreement from PlagScan with impact for the future.
Deletion of saved personal data occurs automatically, if you withdraw your agreement from storage, or if their knowledge is not necessary anymore for the purpose upon the agreement, or if storage is illegal by any lawful means and delete the same if instructed.
Upon written demand we will ungrudgingly inform you about your personal data we store and delete the same if instructed.
§4 Security Advice
We are anxious to store your personal data by any technical and organizationally means such that they are inaccessible by third parties. Communication via email cannot assure complete data safety. Accordingly, we recommend regular mail for confidential information.
§5 External Links
PlagScan does not take any responsibility for content of web pages beyond the domain plagscan.com. Especially, the automatically generated links are provided to you without direct or indirect guarantee and "AS IS" for inspection of particular information concerning plagiarism analysis.
§6 Availability and Guarantees
The website, information and services are provided to our customers and interested parties "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" with any possibly present errors and without any guarantee either explicitly or implicitly including (but not restricted to) marketability, adequacy for a particular purpose, over-adequacy or non-existence of an infringement.
PlagScan does not guarantee correctness or completeness of the supplied results. Those are mere indications and serve the reader as support, who eventually has to inspect the designated text passages regarding its true plagiarism level as well as to check undesignated passages for an assured result. PlagScan is an online service and as such dependent on infrastructure third party providers. Besides greatest diligence we cannot assure a permanent availability and freedom from defects. Especially, in case of disturbance or adjustment of third party developers we can give no guarantee for the accessibility of PlagScan.
PlagScan is entitled to discontinue the availability of its services without previous announcement, if its reason is maintenance or improvement of the website, server, software or data bases. PlagScan will keep these breaks as little as possible and inform customers in time, as far as it is possible.
In case of a contract violation by a customer or user PlagScan reserves the right to refuse further access of the customer or user to its services and to remove documents partially or completely from the data base.
§7 Duration, dismissal and changes
You are entitled to cancel your order at PlagScan within 14 days by a written statement to the PlagScan GmbH. The right of withdrawal expires, as soon as you call upon a service from PlagScan. PlagScan is able to change terms and appointed prices ex parte. Those changes apply at the next contract extension or the next executed recharging of the user account. If terms are modified, customers gain the right to cancel. Cancellation though must be carried out not later than one month after announcement of the modified terms on the website.
Accounts nobody logs in for 12 months will be deleted.
If any of our service has to be abandoned for one or another reason, all customers will be informed as early as possible. A redemption of credit is transmitted, if customer information is less than 3 months on short notice before cancellation of the service. Already consumed credit cannot be repaid due to this reason.
§8 Attribution
1.) When forwarding plagiarism reports you are not allowed to manipulate the results. Particularly, you shall not remove the reference of the report's creator, i.e. the PlagScan Logo is not to be removed. You are not granted any rights in any PlagScan Logo, trademark, or service mark, and you will not use any PlagScan Logo, trademark, or service mark without PlagScan's prior written approval.
2.) You shall not issue a press release or other written public statement regarding these terms without PlagScan's written approval. PlagScan may publicly or otherwise list you as a user of PlagScan.
3.) You understand and acknowledge that PlagScan is not certifying nor endorsing, and has no obligation to certify or endorse, any aspect of your Offering or your PlagScan usage.
§9 User's rights and duties
1.) By completing registration to our services every user gets a personal account with associated user chosen name and password.
2.) Any user is completely responsible for all activities originating from his account. Also any user does take responsibility for concealment of the accounts password and confidentiality. The user obligates oneself to report any illegitimate usage of the account or security infringement in written form or via email.
3.) Before employing the service, users must make sure that he has the right to pass the respective text (data), in particular for the purpose of a plagiarism analysis.
4.) The user obligates himself to employ PlagScan's services exclusively in the manner described by the present regulations and remarks. Especially, it applies not to upload data, which contains a virus and not to overload, damage, deactivate servers. Beyond that any attempts are prohibited to hack the website, ascertain passwords or by other means to get access to the service, accounts or any stored data.
§10 Nonliabilities
For indirect loss or consequential loss or those caused by default, loss of data or immaterial loss, as well as for escaped profit, which are connected to the contract or result from usage or lacking usability of the service and data bases, PlagScan is only liable to customers if intent or gross negligence of persons in charge or executive staff of PlagScan caused it. In that case PlagScan is liable for maximally 100% of customer's quarterly costs or the maximal costs of a singular charging. Customers and users of our service are committed to self dependent data-backup.
A plagiarism analysis can yield several results, but the final claim, whether it is about a true plagiarism delict, does rely on the user's judgment.
PlagScan is not obliged to carry out contracts to the extent, where this is not possible due to a force majeure, that is circumstances PlagScan cannot influence as strike, blackout, telecommunicational disturbance, natural catastrophes, terror attack or war.
§11 Assignment Provision
Neither party may assign any of its rights or obligations under this Agreement, whether by operation of law or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the other party (not to be unreasonably withheld). However, either party may assign this Agreement in its entirety without consent of the other party, to its affiliate, or in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate reorganization, or sale of substantially all of its assets not involving a direct competitor of the other party.
§12 Final Clause
If one or several regulations - also parts of them - of these terms are or become invalid or incomplete, this does not change the validity of the residual terms. In that case parties are to replace the defaulted term with an agreement that corresponds best to the dropped out term, unless the cause is a mere translational error from its German version to English. Accordingly, a professional translation of the corresponding German term is coming into effect.