You clicked agree.
But do you know what you agreed to?
The research is unambiguous
Nobody reads them.
And that has real consequences.
The evidence has been building for decades. The problem isn't apathy — it's a system designed to be impossible to engage with meaningfully.
Why this isn't just inconvenient
The gap between what people click
and what they understand has real costs.
Data sold without meaningful consent
Under Australia's Privacy Act, not opting out within 30 days of a written notice can be treated as implied consent — a standard most users never encounter because they didn't read the document that mentioned it.
Rights that exist but aren't exercised
Australians have real rights under the Privacy Act — to access, correct, and complain about their data. EU residents have stronger rights still under GDPR. These rights go unused because people don't know they have them.
Identity theft and financial harm
Data shared with third parties — often unknowingly agreed to — becomes a vulnerability. Breaches expose information users didn't realise had been collected or shared, with documented psychological and financial consequences.
AI tools alone don't close the gap
Handing someone a Copilot pop-out and saying "AI has solved this" assumes they know what question to ask, what a useful answer looks like, and what to do with it. People without that map never even start the journey.
The Everyday Technologist · PLAIN TERMS
Not a summariser.
A personalised rights briefing.
PLAIN TERMS starts with the person, not the document. Before analysing any T&C, it asks three simple questions: where you are, what you're signing up for, and what matters most to you. The output isn't condensed legalese — it's a plain-English explanation of what this means for you, under the law that applies to you.
How PLAIN TERMS is different
Other tools summarise.
PLAIN TERMS contextualises.
Other tools exist for this. Some are paid, some work only in specific browsers, and most focus on analysing the document rather than helping people understand what it means for their own lives.
For ICT students & educators
A real brief. Real users.
Real learning opportunities.
PLAIN TERMS is proposed as a collaborative ICT student project — not another to-do app, but a civic technology tool with documented social need and a genuine deployment pathway. The technical challenges span multiple disciplines.
Agentic AI Design
Designing AI agents that intake user context, fetch and parse legal documents, and produce jurisdiction-aware output — moving beyond single-prompt interactions to multi-step reasoning chains.
AI / LLMPrompt Engineering
Developing and iterating system prompts that produce consistent, plain-language output across varied T&C documents — including evaluation methodology for measuring readability and accuracy.
AI / NLPBrowser Widget Development
Building an Edge sidebar extension that detects legal documents, activates contextually, and communicates with the Anthropic API — from manifest configuration to sidebar UI rendering.
Extension DevUI & UX Design
Designing an interface that is genuinely usable by people with low digital confidence — not just technically functional. Includes intake flow design, output hierarchy, and accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1).
UX / AccessibilityAPI & Web Integration
Fetching T&C pages by URL, parsing HTML to isolate legal text, and integrating with the Anthropic API — plus handling rate limits, errors, and variable document structures gracefully.
Backend / APIJurisdictional Knowledge Modelling
Encoding the Australian Privacy Principles, GDPR, and other frameworks as structured context that the AI can reason against — mapping rights to jurisdictions and surfacing them correctly per user.
Information ArchitectureTesting & Evaluation
How do you measure whether a plain-language output is actually more understandable? Designing evaluation methodology — readability scoring, user comprehension testing, accuracy benchmarking — is a genuine research challenge.
QA / ResearchPrivacy & Data Ethics
A tool designed to protect user privacy must itself handle user data responsibly. Students engage directly with the privacy principles they're surfacing for others — a hands-on applied ethics module.
Ethics / GovernanceAccessibility Engineering
The target audience demands it — older Australians, people with lower digital literacy, non-native English speakers. WCAG compliance, plain language standards, and inclusive design are not optional extras here.
Accessibility / WCAGGet involved
This is the beginning.
Not the finished article.
PLAIN TERMS is a working concept pitch from The Everyday Technologist. If you run an ICT programme, community digital literacy initiative, or fund projects that help everyday Australians navigate technology — this conversation is for you.