1. The "Zero PII" Promise

Your identity belongs to you. BAM operates on a strict anonymous framework:

• No Personal Identifiable Information (PII): We do NOT ask for, track, or store your name, email, phone number, physical address, or IP address.
• No Private Credentials: We do NOT have access to your passwords, bank details, or logged-in session cookies.
• Local-First Demographics: Any basic demographic data you provide during onboarding (Age group, Profession, City) is processed locally to generate your behavioral persona and is fully anonymized if synced for research.

2. What Information We Analyze

BAM is designed to evaluate digital environments, not the human behind the screen. When active on supported e-commerce platforms, we analyze:

• Public Webpage Data: Product names, displayed prices, and currency symbols visible on the screen.
• Interaction Metrics: Scroll depth, dwell time (how long you stay on a product page), and basic click intents (e.g., clicking "Add to Cart") to understand decision-making lag.
• Platform Ecosystem: The domain name (e.g., amazon.in) to build comparative trust scores.

3. Explanation of Browser Permissions

To function seamlessly as an intelligent shield, BAM requests specific browser permissions. We believe in full transparency regarding why these are needed:

• Read and change all your data on all websites (<all_urls>): BAM utilizes a "Hybrid Standby" architecture. By default, active tracking only occurs on whitelisted e-commerce platforms. On all other websites (blogs, news, etc.), BAM remains in a "Sleep/Dull" mode, observing nothing. This permission is strictly necessary so that the BAM interface can render in a dormant state, allowing you the manual choice to enable it (Add to Whitelist) for 2 hours if you find a new shopping site.
• Storage: To save your local settings, preferences, and offline tracking history directly on your hard drive.

4. Data Storage & Research Sync

BAM operates primarily within your browser. If an analysis token is used, completely anonymized and aggregated telemetry (Product price, dwell time, demographic category) is sent to our secure university research database (via Google Webhooks) to generate the AI Trust Score. This data is purely statistical and cannot be reverse-engineered to identify you.

5. We Do Not Sell Your Data

BAM is strictly an academic research tool. We do not participate in affiliate marketing, ad-retargeting, or data brokering. Your data is never sold, traded, or shared with third-party commercial entities.

6. Your Absolute Control

You have full sovereignty over your browser environment:

• Review Data: You can view all tracked telemetry within the BAM Dashboard at any time.
• Clear Data: Chrome's local storage automatically flushes old data. You may also clear your browser extension data at any point.
• Instant Removal: You can disable or uninstall the BAM extension from your browser settings at any moment, which immediately destroys all locally stored BAM data.

7. Contact Information

If you have questions regarding the academic methodology, ethical compliance, or data handling of this PhD project, please reach out via the developer contact provided on the Chrome Web Store extension page.