Privacy Flag combines crowd sourcing, ICT technology and legal expertise to protect citizen privacy when visiting websites, using smart-phone applications, or living in a smart city. It will enable citizens to monitor and control their privacy with a user friendly solution provided as a smart phone application, a web browser add-on and a public website.

Privacy Flag will:

  1. Develop a highly scalable privacy monitoring and protection solution with:
    1. Crowd sourcing mechanisms to identify, monitor and assess privacy-related risks;
    2. Privacy monitoring agents to identify suspicious activities and applications;
    3. Universal Privacy Risk Area Assessment Tool and methodology tailored on European norms on personal data protection;
    4. Personal Data Valuation mechanism;
    5. Privacy enablers against traffic monitoring and finger printing;
    6. User friendly interface informing on the privacy risks when using an application or website.

  2. Develop a global knowledge database of identified privacy risks, together with online services to support companies and other stakeholders in becoming privacy-friendly, including:
    1. In-depth privacy risk analytical tool and services;
    2. Voluntary legally binding mechanism for companies located outside Europe to align with and abide to European standards in terms of personal data protection;
    3. Services for companies interested in being privacy friendly;
    4. Labelling and certification process.

  3. Collaborate with standardization bodies and actively disseminate towards the public and specialized communities, such as ICT lawyers, policy makers and academics. 11 European partners, including SMEs and a large telco operator, bring their complementary technical, legal, societal and business expertise; strong links with standardization bodies and international fora; and outcomes from over 20 related research projects. It will build a privacy defenders community and will establish a legal entity with a sound business plan to ensure long-term sustainability and growth.

More information about the project can be found here.

Project duration: 01.05.2015 - 30.04.2018.