Anonymity Policy and Its Interpretation

Standing policy of PAMI-TC says:

"Papers submitted to CVPR must not be discussed with the media until they have been officially accepted for publication. Violation of the embargo will result in the paper being removed from the proceedings”

Q: How will PCs interpret this policy?

A: PCs agree that the policy should be interpreted as follows:

The prohibition is on discussion of papers *that have been submitted* rather than papers that *are intended to be submitted*, otherwise the wording would be something like "Potential submissions" rather than "Papers submitted".  Furthermore, it prohibits discussion of papers, not of the underlying technology.

Q: How will PCs interpret "discussed with the media"?

A:   PCs interpret the intention of the policy to be that authors should use reasonable care to avoid communicating their identity to referees. An author might argue that, although they set up a webpage describing their paper as "in submission at CVPR 2025", they did not discuss it with the media. PCs strongly discourage this class of argument as not being consistent with the intention of the policy. PCs have nearly arbitrary powers to interpret policy, and if necessary will exercise them in what PCs see as the interests of the community.

Q: What can an author say about their work before a paper is submitted?

A: Policy prevents discussing a *paper submitted*, but not the essential content of a paper that is to be submitted. So, for example, An author can describe the technology; can discuss how wonderful it is for the company; and can describe supporting experiments, etc. None of this violates the policy, because it doesn't discuss a paper submitted to CVPR. But the author must avoid discussing the *paper that will be submitted*;  ideally, the author would say at most that a paper is in preparation and will be submitted to an important venue.

Q: Can an author post a paper on the web, saying that "this paper will be submitted to CVPR25"?

A: PCs discourage this practice, and have asked authors who are known to have done so to stop.  PCs  are concerned that a reasonable interpretation of the policy would see this as an anonymity violation, and subject the paper to desk rejection.  ACs and referees will *not* be instructed to search for anonymity violations, but PCs will react to any such violation that is found.  

Q: Once a paper is submitted, what can an author not say about the paper?

A: An author clearly cannot say publicly:

- our submission to CVPR shows that ….