Project Assured

Why this project

When COVID-19 threatened our community we looked towards technology and increased our online presence to connect us to our communities and resources. As our online presence increases to help us navigate our new normal, it comes with understanding there are risks involved in doing so.

So how can we achieve that

We chose to implement a page asking users to accept a privacy policy because a study by PEW research found “about eight-in-ten Americans say they are asked to agree to a privacy policy at least monthly, including one-quarter of which who say this happens almost every day” therefor this application is relevant to most peoples lives (PEW). Furthermore, people may consent to the use of their personal data, without being sufficiently aware or informed of the nature and extent of potential implications. Our goal of this project was to get people thinking about how their increased online presence comes at a cost. We aren’t saying everyone should go change all their privacy setting immediately, but we want to create a more conscious community of technology users. A community where people can start to formulate opinions as to where they lie on the issue of personal data collection and cyber security.

What we learned

Coming into this project we had limited knowledge about internet security, now we feel like we have a good grasp of the basics. We are proud to say that we feel confident in our ability to teach people about the basics of personal data collection. We also learned what it's like to work on a research/front-end development project in real life. This was Joo and I's first hackathon and it was very exciting to understand how a project goes from an idea to a deliverable we are proud of.

Our challenges

Before this challenge, we did not know each other and had different technical backgrounds. For example, Bryan and I were comfortable using bootstrap however when Joo went to implement the rest of the designing for the project, the framework he was used to using didn't cooperate with bootstrap. We tried to figure out a solution to this for way too long but eventually, we made it work.

What we are proud of

After this project not only did we learn a lot about personal data collection and were able to utilize our technical skills. We also had the chance to make new friends. Bryan, Joo, and I grabbed dinner last night and realized we have a lot in common. We are very thankful for our DubHacks experience and are ready to take the knowledge learned from this hackathon and apply it in the future.