PrivacyCheck

PrivacyCheck automatically summarizes online privacy policies and provides consumers an overview of the ways in which companies use their personal data in a graphical, ‘at-a-glance’ format.

PrivacyCheck v3 adds the ability to (1) find the competitors of an organization with Alexa traffic analysis and compare policies across them,  (2) follow privacy policies the user has agreed to and notify the user when policies change, (3) track policies over time and report how often policies change and their trends, (4) automatically find privacy policies in domains, and (5) provide a bird's-eye view of privacy policies the user has agreed to.

Version 2 provided faster results, an assessment of the privacy policy with respect to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), new interface, and top 3 competitors with better privacy policies in the same market sector.

A U.S. Department of Justice report issued July 2014 estimated that roughly 7% American households reported some type of identity theft in the previous year.  What do consumers need to know in order to protect themselves and their families from identity theft?  Information is key.  The more we know about how companies use our personal information, the better prepared we are when deciding whether or not to divulge it.  PrivacyCheck is a valuable resource that consumers can use to get an overview of the essential attributes of a company’s online privacy policy in way that is quick and easy to understand.

Federal and state laws require businesses to publicly post a privacy policy stating how they use customers’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has successfully prosecuted companies for deceptive and misleading practices when using consumers’ data in ways contrary to what is stated in their privacy policy. As a result, most companies’ privacy policies are easily accessible online.  The problem is that many people do not have time to read these lengthy and sometimes technical documents.

PrivacyCheck is a browser add-on intended to provide consumers an overview of the ways in which companies use their personal data in a graphical, ‘at-a-glance’ format.  Similar, currently available resources fall short of this goal due to their lack of comprehensive web coverage.  For example, TRUSTe and P3P are sign-up services that require a business to enroll in order to participate, and multiple crowd-sourced efforts only provide information for websites that have been manually checked.

PrivacyCheck surpasses existing add-ons, apps, and certifications by using a Machine Learning algorithm to access the text of any webpage.  The user provides the URL for the company’s privacy policy and PrivacyCheck searches the page, returning icons that indicate the level of risk for several types of PII. 

Copyright © 2021 The University of Texas at Austin, Center for Identity, All Rights Reserved.

Contact: Razieh Nokhbeh Zaeem, razieh@identity.utexas.edu.