Privacy Policy Generator

A privacy policy is a public document disclosing what personal data a site or app collects, how it's used, who it's shared with, where it's stored, and what rights users have. GDPR, CCPA, and most consumer-protection regimes require one for any commercial site that handles user data.

The generator produces a starting template based on inputs (data types collected, third-party services, data retention, jurisdiction). The output is a draft, not legal advice — final review by counsel is required for sites operating in regulated industries or multiple jurisdictions.

The required content is well-defined for major regimes. Under GDPR, a compliant policy must identify the data controller, state the lawful basis for each processing activity (consent, contract, legitimate interest, legal obligation, vital interest, public task), describe data categories collected, list recipients including processors and any international transfers, state retention periods or the criteria for determining them, explain data subject rights (access, erasure, portability, objection, restriction), and give the route to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. CCPA requires similar disclosures plus the explicit 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' mechanism. PIPEDA, LGPD, and APP (Australia) impose largely overlapping requirements. The template assembles each required section based on declared data practices.

A worked example. A SaaS marketing tool collects: name and email at signup, payment data via Stripe, IP address and browser metadata for security, behavioral analytics via PostHog, support conversations via Intercom. Data is stored on AWS US-East and replicated to EU for EU customers. Generated policy structure: Identity (company name, address, controller designation), Data collected (categorized by type with collection method), Lawful basis (contract for service delivery, legitimate interest for analytics and security, consent for marketing emails), Recipients (Stripe, PostHog, Intercom, AWS), International transfers (mention of Standard Contractual Clauses for non-EEA recipients), Retention (account data 7 years post-termination for tax compliance, analytics data 14 months, support data 5 years), Rights (access, erasure with caveats for tax-required data, opt-out of marketing, complaint route to ICO/CNIL/etc.), Cookies (link to cookie policy), Updates (last-modified date). The generated text covers each section in plain language.

Limitations and where the generator stops being enough. The template handles standard service-business cases. Industries with sector-specific rules need professional input: healthcare (HIPAA), finance (GLBA, PSD2), children (COPPA, age-appropriate design code), education (FERPA), employment (state-by-state US, country-by-country EU). Cross-border data flows have become much more contentious since the Schrems II ruling — Standard Contractual Clauses plus Transfer Impact Assessments are now the de-facto baseline for EU-to-US data flow, and the wording in your policy should reflect this. The biggest miss in generated templates is that they describe what you say you do, not what you actually do — if the generated retention says 14 months but your database holds analytics events for 5 years, the policy is non-compliant. Audit data flows before publishing.