Using AI to evaluate privacy policies while users browse

Adding handl to your browser helps you see which sites have more thorough privacy policies.

We’re all just one data breach or one inappropriate data-sharing incident away from online exposure. In addition to the personal information we knowingly convey to website operators, we also reveal seemingly benign information such as our operating system, internet service provider, and browser information. What they can collect, store, and use is governed by the privacy policy they offer us.

Privacy policies have become long, complicated legal documents that we often fail to read, even though, deep down, we know they’re important: 90% of Americans said they care about controlling the information others collect about them, and 93% would like to control who can access that information, according to the Pew Research Center.

However, sight unseen, we consent to invasive privacy policies. We click OK and I Agree as soon as the banner or popup comes on our screens, and we roll our eyes if we need to scroll down to the bottom of a long passage of text to even find the buttons. As a result, we often permit website operators to track information about us that can be be used to raise the prices offered to us for goods and services we purchase online or even whether we get a loan.

Buried in the fine print of each of these policies should be an explanation of how the website or app tracks its users and details regarding the permissions users grant the site or app to share the data they collect. Sometimes the proper explanations and details are there, sometimes they are not.

We designed and developed handl to make it easier for users to see which websites offer them more comprehensive privacy policies than their competitors. As you browse the Internet, handl finds each website’s privacy policy and then uses artificial intelligence to evaluate it compared to those policies on similar websites.

While several tools exist to help users generate secure passwords, identify dangerous apps, and obscure or disguise a user’s browsing activity, handl is the first that helps users determine, how, in practice, a company’s promised privacy practices compare to others by their competitors.

Want to try it for yourself? You can get handl for free through the Google Chrome Store!