This extension is part of a study conducted by Dr. Serge Egelman in the EECS department at the University of California, Berkeley. Its purpose is research into people's behavior on the web.

By participating in this study, you acknowledge that your interactions with the Security Assistant extension will be collected for analysis after the study has completed. For example, among other events, the extension notifies the researchers when you log into one of your online accounts, are shown a security notification, and which buttons you click in security notifications.

Events generated by the extension include several persistent identifiers: one for the name of the website you are visiting, and one for the specific user account that you logged into. These identifiers are calculated in a privacy preserving way that prevents the researchers from learning the names of the websites that you visit or the usernames of your accounts. The names of the websites that you visit and your account usernames are explicitly not collected and cannot be derived from the data that is collected. Collected data will be kept confidential to the degree permitted by the technology being used.

To enable the functionality of the Security Assistant, your usernames and passwords will be securely stored on your local device when you log into your accounts on various websites. They will also be anonymously compared to a remote list of previous data breaches without exposing your username and/or password to the researchers or any third parties.

You can completely delete the information that is securely stored on your local device by uninstalling the Security Assistant from your browser (uninstalling the extension during the study will invalidate your participation). After the study has completed, the Security Assistant will automatically uninstall itself.

Users who were formally recruited to participate in the study will be compensated for participation. To receive your payment, enter the confirmation code you receive after installing the extension into the crowdsourcing platform from which you were recruited. Incomplete surveys or obvious attempts at cheating will not receive compensation.

This study has no direct benefits.

Participation in research is completely voluntary. You are free to decline to take part in the project. You are free to stop taking part in the project at any time and can do so by uninstalling the extension. Whether or not you choose to participate, to answer any particular question, or continue participating in the project, there will be no penalty to you or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.

If you have any questions about your rights or treatment as a research participant in this study, please contact the University of California at Berkeley's Committee for Protection of Human Subjects at 510-642-7461, or e-mail subjects@berkeley.edu.