RedFlag

Inspiration

We often click “I agree” without knowing what we are agreeing to. Privacy policies and terms are long, confusing, and easy to ignore. We built RedFlag to help people understand how websites handle their data and spot concerning terms while they browse.

What it does

RedFlag is a Chrome extension that finds public privacy policies, cookie policies, and terms of service. It turns those documents into clear summaries, grades from S to E, and red flags supported by quotations and source links.

Users can ask questions about the policies and explore community reviews. When RedFlag cannot find any policies, it shows a clear message. When there is not enough evidence to assign a grade, it leaves the policy unrated.

How we built it

We built RedFlag with TypeScript and Chrome Manifest V3. The extension connects policy discovery, document extraction, analysis, and local storage through a background service worker and popup interface.

A Node.js backend handles AI requests and keeps API credentials outside the extension. RedFlag validates supporting quotations before using them in its grading rubric and includes attributed community information from ToS;DR.

Challenges we ran into

Websites publish policies in many different ways. Some use unusual link names, combine privacy and cookie statements, or place policy text inside complex page layouts. We improved discovery and extraction to handle these cases.

Another challenge was making grades trustworthy. Finding a policy does not always mean we can read the entire document or gather enough evidence to score it. We built separate states for missing policies, incomplete extraction, and insufficient evidence.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We created a working Chrome extension that connects policy discovery, evidence validation, grading, summaries, and chat.

During live testing, RedFlag analyzed Boeing’s privacy statement and displayed a grade with sourced concerns. We also verified the no results screen and passed 77 unit tests, TypeScript checks, and the extension build.

What we learned

We learned that useful policy analysis requires more than a summary. Reliable extraction, clear grading rules, and traceable evidence all matter.

We also learned how to coordinate a Chrome extension with a backend, protect API credentials, and communicate uncertainty clearly to users.

What's next for RedFlag

We want to support more policy formats, improve discovery across more websites, and make setup easier with a secure hosted backend.

We also plan to expand testing and give users clearer explanations of each grade and any gaps in the available evidence.

Built With

• and
• browser
• chrome
• chrome-extension-apis-(manifest-v3)
• google-gemini
• local
• node.js
• node?s
• playwright
• runner
• storage.
• support
• test
• the-tos;dr-api
• typescript
• unittesting