A Survey on Privacy Policy Languages: Expressiveness Concerning Data Protection Regulations

Privacy policies are a widely used way of expressing the data handling by service providers. However, the legalese used in these documents hinders many users in understanding the important information about what is happening with their data. A privacy policy language and corresponding easy to understand visualization can help users in understanding these policies. In this survey we compare 18 policy languages that can be used in the context of privacy policies. The focus of this survey lies on compatibility with legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union and the formalization of such languages.