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Free interactive tool

The Jargon Decoder

Paste any privacy text — a policy excerpt, a vendor email, a regulator's guidance — and I'll highlight the jargon in plain language. Hover, tap, or Tab to any dotted-underlined term for its definition. Nothing you paste ever leaves your browser.

Same engine, site-wide:every insight article on movahedi.ca now decodes its own jargon automatically — the dotted underlines you see in articles are this tool, running as progressive enhancement.

Decode privacy jargon

How it works

The decoder matches your text against the 57-termprivacy glossary— Law 25, PIPEDA, OPC, and CAI concepts, each with a plain-language definition. Matching is case-insensitive and longest-term-first (so "Right to erasure / de-indexation" wins over a bare "de-indexation"), and only the first occurrence of each term is underlined to keep the page readable.

Terms are real keyboard-focusable buttons described by a shared tooltip, so screen-reader and keyboard users get the definitions too. The tooltip is absolutely positioned (it never shifts your layout), respects prefers-reduced-motion, and dismisses on Escape, scroll, or tapping elsewhere. Code blocks, quotes, links, and headings are never rewritten.

Embed it on your own site

One dependency-free script tag decodes jargon in any container you mark. Definitions come from a public JSON dictionary, so your site picks up new and revised terms automatically — no updates needed on your end.

<script src="https://movahedi.ca/scripts/jargon-decoder.js"
        data-jargon-dictionary="https://movahedi.ca/glossary-dictionary.json"
        data-jargon-selector=".post-content"
        data-jargon-glossary="https://movahedi.ca/glossary"
        defer></script>
<!-- then mark the container whose text should be decoded: -->
<!-- <article class="post-content" data-jargon-decode> … </article> -->
  • data-jargon-selector — CSS selector for the containers to decode (default:[data-jargon-decode]).
  • data-jargon-dictionary — JSON dictionary URL (default:/glossary-dictionary.json on your own origin; point it athttps://movahedi.ca/glossary-dictionary.jsonto reuse this glossary).
  • data-jargon-glossary — base URL for the "Full glossary entry" links in tooltips.
  • The script is ~13 KB, deferred, and fails silently — if the dictionary can't load, your page renders exactly as before.

What it can't do

This is a dictionary lookup, not legal analysis: it explains what terms mean, not whether they apply to your situation. "Consent" decoded in plain language won't tell you whether the consent you collected was valid. For decisions with legal consequences, talk to a qualified privacy lawyer — and if the gaps look worth closing properly, you're welcome to send me a note.