Blacklight - A Real-Time Website Privacy Inspector

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Who is peeking over your shoulder while you work, watch videos, learn, explore, and shop on the internet? Blacklight is a real-time website privacy inspector, which will scan any website entered to reveal the specific user-tracking technologies on the site—and who’s getting your data.

The tool emulates how a user might be surveilled while browsing the web. Users type a URL into Blacklight, and it visits the requested website, scans for known types of privacy violations, and returns an instant privacy analysis of the inspected site.

Blacklight works by visiting each website with a headless browser, running custom software built by The Markup. This software monitors which scripts on that website are potentially surveilling the user by performing seven different tests, each investigating a specific, known method of surveillance.

The types of surveillance that Blacklight seeks to identify are:

  • Third-party cookies- Ad trackers- Key logging- Session recording- Canvas fingerprinting- Facebook tracking- Google Analytics “Remarketing Audiences” To find out more and try Blacklight visit Blacklight here.