How can we help?

Install and turn it on

1. Open the Privacy Shield page in the Chrome Web Store and choose Add to Chrome.
2. Click the puzzle-piece icon in the toolbar and pin Privacy Shield so it is always one click away.
3. Click the icon, then the switch at the top right of the popup. Tabs that were already open are covered straight away.

The popup headline tells you what everyone else can see (“You’re covered” or “Out in the open”). The shield is drawn on top of the page only: your display and system settings are never changed.

Choose a mode

The three tabs at the top of the popup choose what the shield does. Only the controls for the selected mode are shown.

• Overlay tints, blurs or dims the whole page. Start from Dark, Frosted, Warm or Blackout, then adjust Strength and Blur.
• Spotlight covers everything except a window. Choose whether it follows the Cursor, your Eyes, or Both (the cursor leads while it moves, your eyes take over when it rests), and choose a circle, box or band.
• Look-away keeps the screen clear while you look at it and blurs it when you look away. Set the blur and whether it reacts instantly, quickly, after a moment or slowly.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Alt + Shift + P: switch the shield on or off (Option + Shift + P on a Mac).
• Esc twice, quickly: the same toggle, with the popup closed. Turn it off under More if it clashes with a page.
• Alt + Shift + C: recentre eye tracking while you look at the middle of the page.

To change the two Alt shortcuts, open chrome://extensions/shortcuts in the address bar.

Set up eye tracking

Eye tracking is used by the Look-away guard and by Spotlight when it follows your Eyes or Both. It takes about a minute.

1. Choose one of those modes and click Set up eye tracking.
2. Allow the camera when your browser asks, then check the live indicators: face found, distance, centred and lighting.
3. Calibrate: look at each dot and click it. Nine dots train the model and four more are held back to measure your real accuracy, so the number you see is measured, not guessed.
4. Use Try it to watch a ring follow your gaze, then turn the shield on.

Keep it accurate

• Recentre when it drifts: look at the middle of the page and press Alt + Shift + C, or use the Recentre button in the popup.
• The Response slider trades steadiness for speed: Steady is calmer, Responsive follows faster.
• Improve accuracy from clicks (on by default) treats a click on a link or button as “I was looking here” and nudges the fit. Only small numbers are kept, on your device.
• Recalibrate if you change seats, lighting or monitor. Each screen resolution keeps its own calibration.

Camera and privacy

Frames are analysed on your computer and discarded. Nothing is recorded or uploaded. The camera is on only while a mode that follows your eyes is active, and it is released when you switch the shield off, change to a mode that doesn’t need it, or leave the browser in the background for a few seconds.

The optional alert that turns the shield on when a second face appears keeps the camera running at a low frame rate while it is enabled. Details are in the privacy policy.

The overlay isn’t showing

• Check the status line in the popup. It says whether the shield is on and explains if this site is excluded.
• Browsers don’t let extensions touch chrome:// pages, the Chrome Web Store or the built-in PDF viewer. Open a normal website to test.
• Open More and check your site rules: you may have set it to run only on, or everywhere except, certain sites.
• For Incognito windows, turn on Allow in Incognito for Privacy Shield at chrome://extensions.
• Fullscreen video and some pop-ups are drawn by the browser above every page, so the overlay can’t cover them.

The spotlight is off target

Webcam tracking is approximate: a few hundred pixels of error is normal. To get the best from it:

• Keep Auto-size window on, or make the spotlight a little larger than your accuracy figure.
• Light your face from the front. A bright window behind you hurts more than anything else.
• Sit at arm’s length with the camera at eye level, then recentre or recalibrate.
• If the popup asks you to move the mouse over the page once, do so: that lets it measure browser zoom and display scaling.

The camera won’t start

• Make sure you chose Allow on the camera prompt. If it was blocked, open chrome://settings/content/camera and allow the Privacy Shield page.
• Close other apps that may be holding the camera, such as video-call software.
• With more than one camera, pick the right one under More → Eye tracking.
• Still stuck? Send us the details from More → Diagnostics using the form below.