France’s CNIL Considers Google Analytics as Illegal

France’s data protection watchdog CNIL has figured out that Google Analytics can’t be trusted as there is a possibility that it can share Europeans’ personal data with the US government. In a statement, the CNIL said that an unnamed French website should not be permitted to use Google Analytics as it is in violation of Article 44 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

France’s CNIL Considers Google Analytics as Illegal

Sharing European data is only allowed if the other country has privacy laws that are “almost” the same as those in the EU. That’s not to say that the US doesn’t have privacy protections but they are far lesser as compared to the EU. This means that EU users don’t know if their data is being collected or how it is being used or who it is being shared with.

In a statement, CNIL remarked,

Although Google has adopted additional measures to regulate data transfers in the context of the Google Analytics functionality, these are not sufficient to exclude the accessibility of this data for US intelligence services. There is therefore a risk for French website users who use this service and whose data is exported.

The operator of the website in question has been given a month to comply by only sharing anonymous statistics, or “if necessary, to stop using this service under the current conditions.” The CNIL says it has also ordered other website operators in France to follow the same trajectory.

Furthermore, it says that it is also looking into other tools for measuring how many people are on a website and how they use it, and it has started an evaluation program to see which ones can be used.” Also, some additional may be made in this regard in the near future.

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