Last updated: April 13, 2026
Overview
AECCS (Automated Cookie Consent Compliance Scanner) is a passive, research-grounded browser extension that analyzes the GDPR cookie-consent compliance of the website you are currently viewing — entirely within your browser.
The short version: AECCS does not collect, sell, store, or transmit personal data. All analysis happens locally in your browser and is discarded when you close the popup.
Data Processing
When you click the extension icon, AECCS performs a one-time, on-demand analysis of the current page. The table below describes every category of data the extension accesses and how it is handled.
| Data | Purpose | Stored? | Transmitted? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Page cookies | Read via browser.cookies API to classify cookie categories (analytics, advertising, etc.) and count pre-consent trackers. |
No | No |
| Page DOM | Scanned for consent banners, accept/reject buttons, dark patterns, and transparency indicators. | No | No |
| Page URL / hostname | Displayed in the popup header. Used to determine first-party vs. third-party cookie domains. | No | No |
| Analysis results | Shown in the popup (compliance score, cookie breakdown, dark patterns found, PET guidance, and study-backed context). | No | No |
| Bundled study snapshot | Static AECCS reference data bundled in the extension package (study-snapshot.js, tracker-index.js) to provide frozen study context without making network requests. |
No | No |
All data listed above is processed in-memory, displayed in the extension popup, and discarded as soon as the popup is closed. Nothing is written to disk, local storage, sync storage, or any remote server.
Permissions
The extension requests the following browser permissions:
cookies— Read cookies set by the current website so they can be classified and counted.activeTab— Access the URL of the currently active tab when you click the extension icon.scripting— Inject the consent-scanner content script into the active tab on demand (only when you click the extension).host_permissions: <all_urls>— Required by thecookiesAPI, which needs a host permission matching the URL whose cookies are being read. The extension never fetches or sends data to those URLs.
No Network Requests
AECCS makes zero network requests. It does not phone home, fetch remote resources, call analytics endpoints, or transmit any data whatsoever. The extension is fully self-contained: all classification rules, scoring weights, and study reference data are bundled in the extension package itself.
No Remote Code
AECCS does not download executable code, load remote scripts, or depend on
remote configuration at runtime. The large study-reference assets bundled
with the extension are generated locally from the repository using
scripts/build_extension_study_snapshot.py and
scripts/build_extension_tracker_index.py, then shipped as
static files inside the extension package.
No Tracking or Analytics
The extension does not include any analytics, telemetry, crash reporting, or usage tracking of any kind. There are no tracking pixels, no session identifiers, and no fingerprinting.
Third-Party Services
AECCS does not integrate with, depend on, or communicate with any third-party service. It has no external dependencies at runtime.
Data Retention and Sharing
AECCS does not retain browsing data after the popup closes, does not share browsing data with any third party, and does not sell personal information. Because the extension does not transmit browsing data off-device, there is no server-side account system, no cloud storage, and no data broker access.
Academic Context
This extension was developed from an academic study examining GDPR cookie consent compliance across 1,000 popular websites. The study data referenced in the extension (compliance statistics, PET effectiveness scores, CMP rankings) is a frozen snapshot from a controlled research crawl and is bundled statically — it is not updated or fetched at runtime.
The source code is publicly available at github.com/erenozen/AECCS.
Public Links and Support
| Purpose | URL |
|---|---|
| Project homepage / source | https://github.com/erenozen/AECCS |
| Support / issue tracker | https://github.com/erenozen/AECCS/issues |
| Privacy policy | https://erenozen.github.io/AECCS/privacy-policy.html |
Changes to This Policy
If this privacy policy is updated, the changes will be reflected on this page with an updated date. Because the extension collects no data, material changes are unlikely.
Contact
For questions about this privacy policy or the extension, please open an issue on the GitHub repository.