Which Properties has an Icon? A Critical Discussion on Evaluation Methods for Standardised Data Protection Iconography

Following GDPR's Article12.7's proposal to use standardized icons to inform data subject in "an easily visible, intelligible and clearly legible manner," several icon sets have been developed. In this paper, we firstly critically review some of those proposals. We then examine the properties that icons and icon sets should arguably fulfill according to Art.12's transparency provisions. Lastly, we discuss metrics and evaluation procedures to measure compliance with the Article.