Check360 | Devpost

Inspiration

The inspiration for Check360 came from a simple but serious problem: people agree to terms and conditions every day without truly understanding what they are signing. Most of the time, nothing bad happens — but sometimes, the consequences can be life-changing.

A well-known example is a case involving a family at Disneyland. A man with a severe peanut allergy suffered a fatal reaction after eating at one of the park restaurants. When his wife tried to take legal action, she discovered that they had unknowingly agreed to a Terms & Conditions document while purchasing the tickets — one that contained clauses limiting the company’s liability in situations like this.
This heartbreaking situation shows how important these documents really are, and how easily people can miss critical information simply because the language is overwhelming or hidden behind pages of legal text.

We realized that millions of people face the same problem every day — not just at theme parks, but in rental agreements, subscription services, apps, and websites. Complicated language, confusing layout, and lack of clear translations make important information difficult to understand.

What it does

Check360 is a browser extension designed to make the internet more transparent and understandable through two core features:

Fake News Detection
It analyzes online articles and flags whether the information appears relatively calm or suspicious, helping users spot potential misinformation using writing-style patterns like clickbait, excessive caps, missing sources, and loaded language.
Smart T&C Simplifier + Translation
When a user opens a Terms & Conditions / Privacy / cookie-consent page or banner, Check360 automatically offers to scan it, simplify the legal jargon into everyday language, and translate the summary into the user’s preferred language.
The extension shows a quick “this is what you’re roughly agreeing to” toast and also provides a detailed summary view with key points and risks.

How we built it

We integrated text analysis, summarization, translation, and simple classification into a unified workflow. The extension identifies page types (news vs. T&C/policy), processes content in real time, and generates simplified, human-readable outputs. Each module works together—fact-checking and T&C simplification—to create a smooth and intuitive user experience. We built this project's tech entirely within the 48 hour hackathon period and made perfected the idea.

Challenges we ran into

Distinguishing between legitimate and misleading news in a consistent way using only on-device heuristics.
Detecting when a page or popup actually contains Terms & Conditions or a cookie consent and triggering the simplifier at the right time.
Making translations appear naturally without interrupting the user’s browsing flow.
Keeping the extension lightweight so it remains fast and responsive, even on heavy pages.

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

Building an extension that genuinely improves digital literacy and online safety.
Making legal and policy documents more accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds.
Combining real-time page scanning, T&C simplification, translation, and fake-news detection into one seamless product.
Designing a workflow that feels natural, intuitive, and helpful rather than intrusive.

What we learned

We learned how hard it is to present information in a way that's both accurate and easy to digest. Working across classification, translation, summarization, and smart page detection taught us how important it is to design experiences around real users—not just around technical features.