OJS registration form: Add checkbox for "declaration of consent" about personal data

@florianruckelshausen wrote:

This is not exactly a question but our current workaround is not perfect. Thats why i post it in questions.

As we are located in Germany we had to create a so called “register of processing information” for our data protection officer because we store personal data of our users in OJS (especially the email, but also names, country,…). From our point of view there is no legislation that allows us to save the personal data that’s why we need to get the consent of the OJS-users (readers, authors, reviewer, editors,…) to store their personal data upon registration.

Therefore we implemented a mandatory checkbox into the registration form which links to a PDF-version of a “declaration of consent”. The user has to accept it before he can register.

You have to add the checkbox to the template in /lib/pkp/templates/frontend/pages/userRegister.tpl e.g. behind the recaptcha

<div class="datapolicy">
<label>
<input type="checkbox" name="einwilligung" id="einwilligung" required>{translate key="user.einwilligung"}
<span class="required"><font color="#FF4040">*</font></span>
<span class="pkp_screen_reader">{translate key="common.required"}</span>
</label>
</div>

You can name the defined translate key in the appropriate translation files including an URL to the PDF-file with the consent text.

In \lib\pkp\classes\user\form\RegistrationForm.inc.php you have to read the new element called “einwilligung” in our case

function readInputData() {
parent::readInputData();
$this->readUserVars(array(
...
'einwilligung',

And you have to check it (also in RegistrationForm.inc.php):

//Validation checks for this form
...
$this->addCheck(new FormValidator($this, 'einwilligung', 'required', 'user.profile.form.einwilligungRequired'));

The solution works fine for us. The mentioned files are for the default OJS theme. If you apply different themes it is possible that the button doesn’t show up. Then check the tpl-files of the theme.

I assume that this topic is only relevant for OJS service provider in the EU. Nonetheless it would be great to improve the workaround perhaps as optional parameter like the recaptcha that can be enabled if needed. And it also would be fine to store the consent in the database (which is required by legislation and/or EU-DSGVO, if i am not mistaken).

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