What is GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)? Impact on Analytics

Gdpr (general data protection regulation)

EU regulation enforcing consent, data minimization, and transparency in analytics to protect personal data.

Overview and Scope

• Who must comply?

  Controllers and processors offering goods or services to, or monitoring the behavior of, EU residents must adhere to GDPR.

  • Data controllers:

    Entities that determine the purposes and means of processing personal data.

  • Data processors:

    Entities that process personal data on behalf of controllers under a contract.

• Definition of personal data

  GDPR defines personal data as any information related to an identified or identifiable natural person.

  • Identifiers:

    Names, identification numbers, and location data.

  • Online identifiers:

    IP addresses, cookie identifiers, and device fingerprints.

Core Principles of GDPR

• Lawfulness, fairness, and transparency

  Data must be processed legally, fairly, and in a transparent manner relative to the data subject.

• Purpose limitation

  Data should be collected for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes and not further processed incompatibly.

• Data minimization

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

• Accuracy

  Personal data must be accurate and kept up to date; inaccuracies should be corrected without delay.

• Storage limitation

  Data should be retained only as long as necessary for the intended purposes.

• Integrity and confidentiality

  Appropriate security safeguards must be in place to protect personal data against unauthorized access or processing.

• Accountability

  Data controllers are responsible for demonstrating compliance with all GDPR principles.

GDPR Compliance in Analytics

• Consent requirements

  Before setting non-essential cookies or tracking users, explicit opt-in consent must be obtained and recorded.

  • Opt-in consent:

    Consent must be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous.

  • Consent records:

    Maintain logs of when, how, and what consent was given by users.

• Anonymization & pseudonymization

  Transform data so individuals cannot be identified, e.g., hashing IPs or removing user identifiers.

  • Ip anonymization:

    Truncate or mask IP addresses to prevent precise location identification.

  • User id hashing:

    Replace direct identifiers with hashed values that cannot be reversed.

• Data retention policies

  Configure analytics tools to automatically delete or archive personal data after a set period.

  • Retention limits:

    Define clear retention periods based on business needs and legal requirements.

  • Automated cleanup:

    Use built-in tool features to purge data once the retention period expires.

• Data subject rights

  Enable users to access, correct, delete, or export their data and to withdraw consent at any time.

  • Right of access:

    Provide a way for users to see what data you hold about them.

  • Right to erasure:

    Implement processes to delete personal data upon verified user requests.

Practical Examples with SaaS Tools

• Cookie-free analytics with plainsignal

  PlainSignal uses no cookies or personal identifiers and routes data through an EU-based endpoint. Example tracking snippet:

  <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>
  

  • Built-in compliance:

    No cookies are set and all data is aggregated and anonymized by default.

  • Eu data residency:

    Data is processed and stored within EU data centers to comply with GDPR.

• Google analytics 4

  GA4 offers enhanced privacy controls like Consent Mode v2 and IP anonymization. Example configuration:

  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XXXXXXXXXX"></script>
  <script>
    window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
    function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
    gtag('consent', 'default', {
      'analytics_storage': 'denied'
    });
    gtag('js', new Date());
    gtag('config', 'G-XXXXXXXXXX', {
      'anonymize_ip': true,
      'storage': 'none'
    });
  </script>
  

  • Consent mode v2:

    Adjusts data collection based on user consent choices in real time.

  • Ip anonymization:

    Automatically masks IP addresses before storage.

  • Data retention controls:

    Allows configuring how long user-level and event-level data is kept.

Best Practices & Recommendations

• Conduct dpias

  Perform Data Protection Impact Assessments for high-risk processing activities.

• Maintain consent logs

  Store consent records in a secure, tamper-evident system.

• Regular compliance audits

  Periodically review analytics configurations and vendor contracts.

• Staff training

  Educate team members on GDPR principles and internal data handling policies.

• Privacy by design

  Integrate privacy considerations into the architecture of analytics solutions from the start.

Related terms