The application “Privacy Calculator” as an additional measure to protect users’ privacy on the Internet

ZAGREB, October 19 2015 – On the website of the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries (HAKOM) a new application "Privacy Calculator “ created in cooperation with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER), University of Zagreb within the framework of the project "Looking into the Future 2020"was published.
The purpose of the application is to inform the end-users of the Internet access service about the potential dangers of providing personal information online. Many services that are available over the Internet require registration from the user asking for his/her personal information. This way of registration is expected and usual and it does not represent a threat to the users. However, the fraud may occur if malevolent individuals somehow discover personal information of the users. The most common case of the online fraud is when someone gets an unauthorized access to the service where the user stored his / her personal data and in that way ones cans the data and uses them for illegal online activities.
 
The “Privacy Calculator” operates on the following principle when a user selects one of the listed parameters, he /she estimates the risk level (low, medium or high risk) when using certain services on the Internet. At the same time the level of danger is shown on the scale while, depending on the scale level, the value and colour change ranging from green to red. The resulting value is associated with the real-life scenario presented in the form of a comic book.
 
The aim of this application is to educate the users expanding their horizons and warning them about the potential threats to their privacy when data has become available to malevolent persons.