LADFA: A Framework of Using Large Language Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Personal Data Flow Analysis in Privacy Policies

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Main Authors: Yuan, Haiyue, Matyunin, Nikolay, Raza, Ali, Li, Shujun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Yuan, Haiyue
Matyunin, Nikolay
Raza, Ali
Li, Shujun
author_facet Yuan, Haiyue
Matyunin, Nikolay
Raza, Ali
Li, Shujun
contents Privacy policies help inform people about organisations' personal data processing practices, covering different aspects such as data collection, data storage, and sharing of personal data with third parties. Privacy policies are often difficult for people to fully comprehend due to the lengthy and complex legal language used and inconsistent practices across different sectors and organisations. To help conduct automated and large-scale analyses of privacy policies, many researchers have studied applications of machine learning and natural language processing techniques, including large language models (LLMs). While a limited number of prior studies utilised LLMs for extracting personal data flows from privacy policies, our approach builds on this line of work by combining LLMs with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and a customised knowledge base derived from existing studies. This paper presents the development of LADFA, an end-to-end computational framework, which can process unstructured text in a given privacy policy, extract personal data flows and construct a personal data flow graph, and conduct analysis of the data flow graph to facilitate insight discovery. The framework consists of a pre-processor, an LLM-based processor, and a data flow post-processor. We demonstrated and validated the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed approach by conducting a case study that involved examining ten selected privacy policies from the automotive industry. Moreover, it is worth noting that LADFA is designed to be flexible and customisable, making it suitable for a range of text-based analysis tasks beyond privacy policy analysis.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_10413
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle LADFA: A Framework of Using Large Language Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Personal Data Flow Analysis in Privacy Policies
Yuan, Haiyue
Matyunin, Nikolay
Raza, Ali
Li, Shujun
Artificial Intelligence
Cryptography and Security
Privacy policies help inform people about organisations' personal data processing practices, covering different aspects such as data collection, data storage, and sharing of personal data with third parties. Privacy policies are often difficult for people to fully comprehend due to the lengthy and complex legal language used and inconsistent practices across different sectors and organisations. To help conduct automated and large-scale analyses of privacy policies, many researchers have studied applications of machine learning and natural language processing techniques, including large language models (LLMs). While a limited number of prior studies utilised LLMs for extracting personal data flows from privacy policies, our approach builds on this line of work by combining LLMs with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and a customised knowledge base derived from existing studies. This paper presents the development of LADFA, an end-to-end computational framework, which can process unstructured text in a given privacy policy, extract personal data flows and construct a personal data flow graph, and conduct analysis of the data flow graph to facilitate insight discovery. The framework consists of a pre-processor, an LLM-based processor, and a data flow post-processor. We demonstrated and validated the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed approach by conducting a case study that involved examining ten selected privacy policies from the automotive industry. Moreover, it is worth noting that LADFA is designed to be flexible and customisable, making it suitable for a range of text-based analysis tasks beyond privacy policy analysis.
title LADFA: A Framework of Using Large Language Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Personal Data Flow Analysis in Privacy Policies
topic Artificial Intelligence
Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.10413