What is GDPR Compliance in Analytics? Examples and Tools

Gdpr compliance

Ensures analytics data collection and processing adhere to EU GDPR, focusing on consent, minimization, anonymization, and user rights.

Overview of GDPR Compliance

• Definition of gdpr compliance

  GDPR Compliance means following the legal framework set by the EU to protect personal data and privacy rights of individuals. It ensures that organizations process personal data lawfully, transparently, and for legitimate purposes.

• Key principles for analytics

  Several fundamental GDPR principles directly impact analytics, including:

  • Lawfulness, Fairness, and Transparency
  • Purpose Limitation
  • Data Minimization
  • Storage Limitation
  • Integrity and Confidentiality

  • Lawfulness, fairness and transparency

    Personal data must be processed lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent manner with clear communication about tracking purposes.

  • Purpose limitation

    Data should be collected for specific, explicit, and legitimate purposes and not further processed in an incompatible manner.

  • Data minimization

    Only data that is adequate, relevant, and limited to what is strictly necessary should be collected.

  • Storage limitation

    Personal data should not be kept longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was processed.

  • Integrity and confidentiality

    Data must be processed in a way that ensures appropriate security, including protection against unauthorized or unlawful processing.

Impact on Analytics Practices

• Consent-based data collection

  Under GDPR, tracking that relies on cookies or personal identifiers requires explicit user consent before it can run.

  • Consent management platforms

    Tools like Cookiebot or OneTrust provide customizable banners to obtain and document user consent.

  • Granular consent options

    Allow users to accept or decline analytics cookies separately from other categories such as marketing or preferences.

• Anonymization and pseudonymization

  Techniques to avoid storing identifiable personal data while maintaining useful analytics insights.

  • Ip anonymization

    Methods like Google’s IP anonymization mask part of the IP address before it is written to disk.

  • Aggregated reporting

    Focus on cohort-level or aggregated data rather than individual user paths to mitigate privacy risks.

• Data subject rights

  GDPR grants individuals rights that analytics operations must accommodate, affecting data retrieval and deletion workflows.

  • Right to access

    Users can request a copy of their personal data and the purposes it is used for.

  • Right to erasure

    Also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’, users can ask to delete their personal data.

  • Right to portability

    Users can receive their data in a commonly used, machine-readable format for transfer to another controller.

GDPR-Compliant Analytics Tools

• PlainSignal: cookie-free simple analytics

  PlainSignal operates without cookies or personal identifiers, providing a privacy-first analytics approach that is GDPR-compliant by design.

  • No cookies

    Tracks pageviews and events without storing any cookies, eliminating the need for cookie consent banners.

  • Simple setup

    Just insert a lightweight script tag to start collecting anonymized statistics.

  • Compliance by design

    Collects only aggregated data with no capability to identify individuals.

• Google analytics 4 (GA4)

  GA4 includes features to help meet GDPR obligations, such as IP anonymization, consent mode, and data retention controls.

  • Ip anonymization

    Automatically anonymizes user IP addresses before storage, reducing personal data handling.

  • Consent mode integration

    Adapts tracking behavior based on user consent signals to ensure compliance with opt-in requirements.

  • Data retention controls

    Customizable settings to define how long user and event data are kept before automatic deletion.

• Consent management platforms (cmps)

  CMPs help orchestrate and document user consent, integrating seamlessly with analytics solutions.

  • Cookiebot

    Automated cookie scanning and consent banner generation.

  • Onetrust

    Comprehensive privacy management suite with consent and preference management.

  • Custom solutions

    In-house or specialized consent implementations tailored to unique requirements.

Example Implementation: PlainSignal Tracking Code

• Tracking code

  <link rel="preconnect" href="//eu.plainsignal.com/" crossorigin />
  <script defer data-do="yourwebsitedomain.com" data-id="0GQV1xmtzQQ" data-api="//eu.plainsignal.com" src="//cdn.plainsignal.com/plainsignal-min.js"></script>
  

• Gdpr compliance aspects

  This implementation ensures GDPR compliance by leveraging cookie-free tracking and anonymized data collection.

  • No personal identifiers

    Captures only high-level metrics like pageviews and events without linking to individual users.

  • Cookie-free tracking

    Reduces reliance on cookies, eliminating the need for explicit cookie consent.

  • Data minimization

    Collects only the necessary information for basic analytics, adhering to the minimization principle.

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