PRIVACY POLICY

Effective Date: July 12, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how the "Prolific Shield: Auto-reject & Screen-out protection" Chrome extension ("the Extension") collects, uses, processes, and protects your data.

We are committed to maintaining the trust of our users. Our primary principle is simple: we do not sell, rent, or trade your data, and we process as much information as possible locally on your device.

1. INFORMATION WE PROCESS AND STORE LOCALLY

The Extension operates entirely locally. No user data is transmitted to remote servers, and no tracking is performed off-device.

All data processed by the Extension is stored locally in your browser:

• Study Completion Estimates: The Extension reads the estimated completion duration text from the Prolific study page to set the floating timer.
• User Activity Logs: When you click the "Start now" button on Prolific, or when the Extension intercepts and blocks an automatic redirect completion request, this event is recorded in a local log.
• Settings & Preferences: Your preferences (such as enabling/disabling the floating timer, audio alerts, and side panel configuration) are saved in your browser's local storage.
• Storage Location: All the above data is stored using the chrome.storage.local API and stays on your device. You can clear this data at any time by clearing the logs or uninstalling the Extension.

1. CHROME EXTENSION PERMISSIONS AND DATA ACCESS

To perform its single function of protecting participants from automatic study rejections, the Extension requests the following permissions. Here is how they relate to your privacy:

• scripting & activeTab: Used to inject a temporary audio alert script to play a completion beep in the active browser tab when the safe timer expires. We do not inspect or record page content outside the Prolific study page.
• storage: Used to save your settings and local study logs on your device.
• alarms: Used to run background countdown timers that do not suspend when the browser worker goes idle.