Ghost Audit- Digital Privacy Tool
A user-friendly consumer privacy audit tool that scans for and provides active recommendations on how to better protect your digital identity.
HTML | CSS | Javascript | Node.js | Express | Passport.js | MongoDB
Features
Privacy Score --- A comprehensive overview of your online privacy, scoring your security and data protection measures to highlight areas for improvement.
Privacy Knowledge Test --- An interactive quiz to assess your understanding of privacy practices, helping you identify gaps in your knowledge and improve your digital security awareness.
IP Stealth Review/Test --- Automatically generates and reviews your IP information, assessing your online anonymity and so you can highlight any exposure risks related to your IP address.
Email Leak Checker --- Scans the web for potential breaches involving your email address, alerting you to any compromised accounts or exposed personal information.
Action Items List --- A personalized list of steps to enhance your privacy and security, providing clear, actionable recommendations based on your audit results.
Tools
Development:
HTML/CSS
Client-side and server-side JavaScript
Node.js
Express
Passport.js
Design:
Figma / FigJam
UX Design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Role
Solo UX Engineer
Product Development Process
The Challenge
Consumers are increasingly concerned about their personal data being exposed, misused, or stolen online. However, they often lack the knowledge, resources, or tools to effectively assess and manage their digital privacy. The challenge is to empower consumers with an easy-to-use solution to understand and improve their privacy posture, identify potential risks, and take actionable steps to protect their data.
Target Audience
Tech-Savvy Consumers: People who are familiar with the internet but may not have deep knowledge about privacy risks or tools to address them
.
Privacy-Conscious Individuals: Those who are proactive about protecting their data and are seeking to improve their online security.
Digital Natives: Young adults and millennials who have grown up online and are aware of the growing risks related to personal data but need practical help understanding their own privacy.
Business Problem
Consumers often fail to take appropriate steps to address privacy risks (e.g., checking for email leaks, using IP anonymization). By providing a simple, engaging tool with actionable steps, businesses can help bridge this gap and motivate users to actively manage their privacy.
How do the features address the business problem?
Privacy Score: Provides users with a clear and quantifiable assessment of their privacy level. This feature helps consumers easily understand how vulnerable their personal data is and incentivizes them to take steps to improve their score, addressing the consumer inaction problem.
Privacy Knowledge Test: Educates users on privacy best practices and exposes gaps in their understanding. This increases consumer awareness, positioning the brand as a thought leader in privacy education while fostering trust through transparency.
IP Stealth Review: Identifies if the user's IP address is exposed or being tracked. This directly addresses the growing concern over location and identity tracking, encouraging consumers to take action to anonymize their browsing and protect sensitive data.
Email Leak Checker: Scans for data breaches involving the user's email, allowing them to identify if their personal information has been compromised. This empowers users to take immediate action, such as changing passwords or enabling two-factor authentication, addressing privacy threats and security concerns.
Action Items List: Provides a personalized list of tasks for the user to improve their privacy. By offering clear, actionable steps, the tool makes it easier for users to take control of their online security, driving engagement and satisfaction.
Initial Planning and Approach
The original plan was to create a social-media-based privacy audit tool using the Instagram API. The idea was to leverage Instagram’s data to give users insights into how their information was being exposed on social media platforms. However, during early stages, the project ran into a verification issue with the API that delayed progress.
Snapshot of API Research Notes
API Research and Feature Mapping
With the Instagram API verification issue at a standstill, the focus shifted to finding alternative APIs that could provide useful data for consumers. The goal was to match available API features with privacy audit functionalities. However, many other social media APIs either required paid access or lacked the detailed user data necessary to effectively support privacy protection features. Even when I got through the Instagram API verification process, I found that implementing it would require a longer timeline than I had.
Snapshot of API Research Notes
Shift in focus and scope
After facing limitations with social media-specific APIs, the decision was made to broaden the scope of the project. Instead of focusing exclusively on social media privacy, the project expanded to cover broader digital privacy. This pivot allowed access to a wider range of APIs that were better suited to helping users understand and protect their personal information.
Snapshot of Developer Log
Research and API Integration
The expanded research led to the discovery of APIs that could provide comprehensive insights into users’ privacy. Each API was assessed for how it could support the product’s key features, such as email leak checks, privacy score assessments, and IP tracking via FigJam. Once the APIs were validated, they were integrated into the tool one by one.
Snapshot of FigJam: Exploring what the response of the Malicious IP Address API means and what that means for the user.
Snapshot of FigJam: Conducting secondary research via affinity mapping to understand the benefits of informing users’ about their current detected IP address.
Snapshot of FigJam: Listing Malicious IP API response and IP address API response to think about what those mean for the user and what to show in the front-end.
Design and development
While technical research and API integration were underway, attention was also given to product design. The logo was developed, and the user journey was iterated upon, starting with low-fidelity wireframes and progressing to high-fidelity design. The design process aimed to ensure a seamless user experience alongside robust functionality.
Snapshot of Figma: My initial low-fi flow and in-progress hi-fi design for the social media privacy audit which centered on the action item list. After Instagram API challenges and further API research I decided to expand the features to IP detection, email leaks, and a privacy score in later designs.
Snapshot of Figma: After deciding to expand product scope to general privacy I created a one-page low-fi that detailed the new features and the corresponding development logic to be implemented.
Snapshot of Figma: Hi-fi design which includes the Privacy Score, Privacy Knowledge Test, IP Stealth Review, Email Leak Check, and Action Items List.
Next steps and future considerations
The next step involves implementing the high-fidelity design and refining the tool’s features. Additionally, the long-term goal is to revisit the Instagram API to incorporate it into the tool at a later stage, once more time is available for integration.
©2025 Brandi Nichols. All Rights Reserved.
Ghost Audit- Digital Privacy Tool
A user-friendly consumer privacy audit tool that scans for and provides active recommendations on how to better protect your digital identity.
HTML | CSS | Javascript | Node.js | Express | Passport.js | MongoDB
Features
Privacy Score --- A comprehensive overview of your online privacy, scoring your security and data protection measures to highlight areas for improvement.
Privacy Knowledge Test --- An interactive quiz to assess your understanding of privacy practices, helping you identify gaps in your knowledge and improve your digital security awareness.
IP Stealth Review/Test --- Automatically generates and reviews your IP information, assessing your online anonymity and so you can highlight any exposure risks related to your IP address.
Email Leak Checker --- Scans the web for potential breaches involving your email address, alerting you to any compromised accounts or exposed personal information.
Action Items List --- A personalized list of steps to enhance your privacy and security, providing clear, actionable recommendations based on your audit results.
Tools
Development:
HTML/CSS
Client-side and server-side JavaScript
Node.js
Express
Passport.js
Design:
Figma / FigJam
UX Design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Role
Solo UX Engineer
Product Development Process
The Challenge
Consumers are increasingly concerned about their personal data being exposed, misused, or stolen online. However, they often lack the knowledge, resources, or tools to effectively assess and manage their digital privacy. The challenge is to empower consumers with an easy-to-use solution to understand and improve their privacy posture, identify potential risks, and take actionable steps to protect their data.
Target Audience
Tech-Savvy Consumers: People who are familiar with the internet but may not have deep knowledge about privacy risks or tools to address them
.
Privacy-Conscious Individuals: Those who are proactive about protecting their data and are seeking to improve their online security.
Digital Natives: Young adults and millennials who have grown up online and are aware of the growing risks related to personal data but need practical help understanding their own privacy.
Business Problem
Consumers often fail to take appropriate steps to address privacy risks (e.g., checking for email leaks, using IP anonymization). By providing a simple, engaging tool with actionable steps, businesses can help bridge this gap and motivate users to actively manage their privacy.
How do the features address the business problem?
Privacy Score: Provides users with a clear and quantifiable assessment of their privacy level. This feature helps consumers easily understand how vulnerable their personal data is and incentivizes them to take steps to improve their score, addressing the consumer inaction problem.
Privacy Knowledge Test: Educates users on privacy best practices and exposes gaps in their understanding. This increases consumer awareness, positioning the brand as a thought leader in privacy education while fostering trust through transparency.
IP Stealth Review: Identifies if the user's IP address is exposed or being tracked. This directly addresses the growing concern over location and identity tracking, encouraging consumers to take action to anonymize their browsing and protect sensitive data.
Email Leak Checker: Scans for data breaches involving the user's email, allowing them to identify if their personal information has been compromised. This empowers users to take immediate action, such as changing passwords or enabling two-factor authentication, addressing privacy threats and security concerns.
Action Items List: Provides a personalized list of tasks for the user to improve their privacy. By offering clear, actionable steps, the tool makes it easier for users to take control of their online security, driving engagement and satisfaction.
Initial Planning and Approach
The original plan was to create a social-media-based privacy audit tool using the Instagram API. The idea was to leverage Instagram’s data to give users insights into how their information was being exposed on social media platforms. However, during early stages, the project ran into a verification issue with the API that delayed progress.
Snapshot of API Research Notes
API Research and Feature Mapping
With the Instagram API verification issue at a standstill, the focus shifted to finding alternative APIs that could provide useful data for consumers. The goal was to match available API features with privacy audit functionalities. However, many other social media APIs either required paid access or lacked the detailed user data necessary to effectively support privacy protection features. Even when I got through the Instagram API verification process, I found that implementing it would require a longer timeline than I had.
Snapshot of API Research Notes
Shift in focus and scope
After facing limitations with social media-specific APIs, the decision was made to broaden the scope of the project. Instead of focusing exclusively on social media privacy, the project expanded to cover broader digital privacy. This pivot allowed access to a wider range of APIs that were better suited to helping users understand and protect their personal information.
Snapshot of Developer Log
Research and API Integration
The expanded research led to the discovery of APIs that could provide comprehensive insights into users’ privacy. Each API was assessed for how it could support the product’s key features, such as email leak checks, privacy score assessments, and IP tracking via FigJam. Once the APIs were validated, they were integrated into the tool one by one.
Snapshot of FigJam: Exploring what the response of the Malicious IP Address API means and what that means for the user.
Snapshot of FigJam: Conducting secondary research via affinity mapping to understand the benefits of informing users’ about their current detected IP address.
Snapshot of FigJam: Listing Malicious IP API response and IP address API response to think about what those mean for the user and what to show in the front-end.
Design and development
While technical research and API integration were underway, attention was also given to product design. The logo was developed, and the user journey was iterated upon, starting with low-fidelity wireframes and progressing to high-fidelity design. The design process aimed to ensure a seamless user experience alongside robust functionality.
Snapshot of Figma: My initial low-fi flow and in-progress hi-fi design for the social media privacy audit which centered on the action item list. After Instagram API challenges and further API research I decided to expand the features to IP detection, email leaks, and a privacy score in later designs.
Snapshot of Figma: After deciding to expand product scope to general privacy I created a one-page low-fi that detailed the new features and the corresponding development logic to be implemented.
Snapshot of Figma: Hi-fi design which includes the Privacy Score, Privacy Knowledge Test, IP Stealth Review, Email Leak Check, and Action Items List.
Next steps and future considerations
The next step involves implementing the high-fidelity design and refining the tool’s features. Additionally, the long-term goal is to revisit the Instagram API to incorporate it into the tool at a later stage, once more time is available for integration.
©2025 Brandi Nichols. All Rights Reserved.
Ghost Audit- Digital Privacy Tool
A user-friendly consumer privacy audit tool that scans for and provides active recommendations on how to better protect your digital identity.
HTML | CSS | Javascript | Node.js | Express | Passport.js | MongoDB
Features
Privacy Score --- A comprehensive overview of your online privacy, scoring your security and data protection measures to highlight areas for improvement.
Privacy Knowledge Test --- An interactive quiz to assess your understanding of privacy practices, helping you identify gaps in your knowledge and improve your digital security awareness.
IP Stealth Review/Test --- Automatically generates and reviews your IP information, assessing your online anonymity and so you can highlight any exposure risks related to your IP address.
Email Leak Checker --- Scans the web for potential breaches involving your email address, alerting you to any compromised accounts or exposed personal information.
Action Items List --- A personalized list of steps to enhance your privacy and security, providing clear, actionable recommendations based on your audit results.
Tools
Development:
HTML/CSS
Client-side and server-side JavaScript
Node.js
Express
Passport.js
Design:
Figma / FigJam
UX Design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Role
Solo UX Engineer
Product Development Process
The Challenge
Consumers are increasingly concerned about their personal data being exposed, misused, or stolen online. However, they often lack the knowledge, resources, or tools to effectively assess and manage their digital privacy. The challenge is to empower consumers with an easy-to-use solution to understand and improve their privacy posture, identify potential risks, and take actionable steps to protect their data.
Target Audience
Tech-Savvy Consumers: People who are familiar with the internet but may not have deep knowledge about privacy risks or tools to address them
.
Privacy-Conscious Individuals: Those who are proactive about protecting their data and are seeking to improve their online security.
Digital Natives: Young adults and millennials who have grown up online and are aware of the growing risks related to personal data but need practical help understanding their own privacy.
Business Problem
Consumers often fail to take appropriate steps to address privacy risks (e.g., checking for email leaks, using IP anonymization). By providing a simple, engaging tool with actionable steps, businesses can help bridge this gap and motivate users to actively manage their privacy.
How do the features address the business problem?
Privacy Score: Provides users with a clear and quantifiable assessment of their privacy level. This feature helps consumers easily understand how vulnerable their personal data is and incentivizes them to take steps to improve their score, addressing the consumer inaction problem.
Privacy Knowledge Test: Educates users on privacy best practices and exposes gaps in their understanding. This increases consumer awareness, positioning the brand as a thought leader in privacy education while fostering trust through transparency.
IP Stealth Review: Identifies if the user's IP address is exposed or being tracked. This directly addresses the growing concern over location and identity tracking, encouraging consumers to take action to anonymize their browsing and protect sensitive data.
Email Leak Checker: Scans for data breaches involving the user's email, allowing them to identify if their personal information has been compromised. This empowers users to take immediate action, such as changing passwords or enabling two-factor authentication, addressing privacy threats and security concerns.
Action Items List: Provides a personalized list of tasks for the user to improve their privacy. By offering clear, actionable steps, the tool makes it easier for users to take control of their online security, driving engagement and satisfaction.
Initial Planning and Approach
The original plan was to create a social-media-based privacy audit tool using the Instagram API. The idea was to leverage Instagram’s data to give users insights into how their information was being exposed on social media platforms. However, during early stages, the project ran into a verification issue with the API that delayed progress.
Snapshot of API Research Notes
API Research and Feature Mapping
With the Instagram API verification issue at a standstill, the focus shifted to finding alternative APIs that could provide useful data for consumers. The goal was to match available API features with privacy audit functionalities. However, many other social media APIs either required paid access or lacked the detailed user data necessary to effectively support privacy protection features. Even when I got through the Instagram API verification process, I found that implementing it would require a longer timeline than I had.
Snapshot of API Research Notes
Shift in focus and scope
After facing limitations with social media-specific APIs, the decision was made to broaden the scope of the project. Instead of focusing exclusively on social media privacy, the project expanded to cover broader digital privacy. This pivot allowed access to a wider range of APIs that were better suited to helping users understand and protect their personal information.
Snapshot of Developer Log
Research and API Integration
The expanded research led to the discovery of APIs that could provide comprehensive insights into users’ privacy. Each API was assessed for how it could support the product’s key features, such as email leak checks, privacy score assessments, and IP tracking via FigJam. Once the APIs were validated, they were integrated into the tool one by one.
Snapshot of FigJam: Exploring what the response of the Malicious IP Address API means and what that means for the user.
Snapshot of FigJam: Conducting secondary research via affinity mapping to understand the benefits of informing users’ about their current detected IP address.
Snapshot of FigJam: Listing Malicious IP API response and IP address API response to think about what those mean for the user and what to show in the front-end.
Design and development
While technical research and API integration were underway, attention was also given to product design. The logo was developed, and the user journey was iterated upon, starting with low-fidelity wireframes and progressing to high-fidelity design. The design process aimed to ensure a seamless user experience alongside robust functionality.
Snapshot of Figma: My initial low-fi flow and in-progress hi-fi design for the social media privacy audit which centered on the action item list. After Instagram API challenges and further API research I decided to expand the features to IP detection, email leaks, and a privacy score in later designs.
Snapshot of Figma: After deciding to expand product scope to general privacy I created a one-page low-fi that detailed the new features and the corresponding development logic to be implemented.
Snapshot of Figma: Hi-fi design which includes the Privacy Score, Privacy Knowledge Test, IP Stealth Review, Email Leak Check, and Action Items List.
Next steps and future considerations
The next step involves implementing the high-fidelity design and refining the tool’s features. Additionally, the long-term goal is to revisit the Instagram API to incorporate it into the tool at a later stage, once more time is available for integration.
©2025 Brandi Nichols.
All Rights Reserved.