Privacy Policy Violation Detection via Structured Parsing

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing privacy policies are often lengthy, written in legal language, and difficult for users to find or understand, making it challenging for users to detect violations and make informed decisions about sharing information.

Innovation Solution

A system and method for managing privacy policy violations by extracting a privacy policy from a website in natural language, parsing it to generate a formal intermediate representation, comparing website behavior against this representation to detect violations, and enforcing the policy through security actions such as notifications or auto-filled complaint forms.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If privacy policies are written in detailed legal language to comprehensively cover all data practices, then the policy completeness and legal compliance are improved, but the readability and user understanding deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepolicy completenessVSAvoiduser understanding

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the complex privacy policy into machine-readable structured components (data elements, practices, purposes, legal bases) that can be independently analyzed and compared against website behavior, while presenting simplified visual summaries to users instead of the full legal text

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary layer (the browser extension with policy parsing engine) that translates between the legal policy language and machine-readable representations, automatically comparing website data practices against the policy without requiring users to read or understand the legal text

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If privacy policies are made comprehensive and detailed to cover all data collection and sharing practices, then the policy coverage is improved, but the time required for users to read and understand the policy increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepolicy coverageVSAvoidreading time

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary extraction and structuring of the privacy policy into machine-readable formats before the user needs to understand it, enabling automatic comparison of website behavior against the policy without requiring users to spend time reading comprehensive documents

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent replaces the mechanical process of human reading and understanding with automated computational processes that parse, structure, and compare policy content against website behavior, eliminating the time burden on users while maintaining comprehensive coverage

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

3Reliability

If privacy policies are distributed among multiple separate documents to provide detailed information, then the information completeness is improved, but the ease of finding and accessing the policy deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveinformation completenessVSAvoidpolicy accessibility

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges multiple separate privacy policy documents into a unified structured representation that captures all data practices across different documents, allowing the browser extension to access complete policy information from a single integrated source rather than requiring users to locate and cross-reference multiple separate documents

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

4Adaptability or versatility

If companies reserve the right to change policies unilaterally to maintain operational flexibility, then the adaptability is improved, but the user ability to rely on previous policy understanding deteriorates

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvepolicy flexibilityVSAvoidpolicy consistency

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements continuous feedback by automatically monitoring website behavior against the privacy policy and notifying users of violations in real-time, creating an ongoing verification process that maintains policy consistency even when policies are updated unilaterally by companies

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

Data Source

PatentUS12314449B1Systems and methods for managing privacy policy violations

Publication Date: 2025.05.27 GEN DIGITAL INC

AI summary

The disclosed computer-implemented method for managing privacy policy violations may include obtaining, by the computing device, an intermediate representation of a privacy policy, wherein the intermediate representation denotes a formal policy and is generated by extracting the privacy policy in natural language from a website and parsing the privacy policy. The method may also include comparing, by the computing device, behavior of the website against the intermediate representation, thereby detecting at least one violation of the formal policy. The method may further include enforcing, by the computing device, the formal policy at least in part by taking a security action in response to the violation. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.