Privacy Icons

Privacy Icons

The Challenge:

Design a simple set of icons that can educate users of the privacy policies of websites. (Think of something as simple as the Fair Trade Coffee label on food or creative commons logos for copyright)

Objective:

• Increase internet users awareness about privacy issues
• Educate internet users on privacy policies of websites
• Create a simple standard to explain privacy policies (make privacy policies not suck)

Strategy:

Launch a design challenge that involves experts and the community to create icons that can summarize privacy policies.

Program Outline:

Already completed:

• Commissioned a Japanese design company to do some initial design work

In process (January):

• Engage Zittrain’s joint Stanford-Harvard law school class to:
  

1. Assess what aspects of privacy we want/can visualize
   
2. Determine what, if any online privacy related legal text can be modularized
   
3. Draft the legal orthogonal statements: a) a list of privacy “settings” we are trying to visualize; and b) an outline of the “on” and “off” states of these privacy “settings”
   

Future steps

1. Design challenge – (crowdsource) learn parameters, submit your designs of the icons
2. Crowdsource challenge – Ask community members to test the logic of the icons. Where do the icons work and when to they break (e.g. works in a business setting, not in personal setting or a given icon does not work on website "x")
3. Crowdsource consumer reviews of websites (like all the social networking sites) using the icons
4. Determine who will be the curator of this project? (e.g. What will the governance be? (Mozilla, a spin-off, other?)
   
   

Immediate Next Steps

• Meet with Aza, schedule time on talk to Zitrain about his January class offer
  
• Also find ways for other people to participate in this part of the process.
  
• Conduct a scan of other people who may be doing something similar (privacychoice.org) and inviting them to be part of the process

Design Criteria:

• Concept is explainable – icons need to be as simple as creative commons
• Each privacy issue must have an  “on” or “off” (Safe or unsafe) state