The PIPWatch toolbar: Combining PIPEDA, PETs and market forces through social navigation to enhance privacy protection and compliance

This paper describes the prototype development of the PIPWatch toolbar, a software interface device embedded within a Web browser designed to enable consumers to easily assess and compare the compliance of on-line businesses with Canadian private-sector privacy legislation - the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. (PIPEDA). It represents a new form of privacy enhancing technology (PET) that employs social navigation techniques to help an on-line community of individuals concerned about the handling of their personal information to build and share a database that tracks the privacy performance and regulatory compliance of Websites they visit.