Google Analytics update

Published: 21 January 2022

In January 2022 we removed Google Analytics capability from our website. 

We had been using it in a limited capacity following the launch of our new website in December 2020 solely to monitor what parts of our website were most popular. We never used it to identify individual people and their use of our site. In December 2021, when our website was one year old, we started a scheduled review of whether the analytics were useful. Because we were using it in such a limited way, and in light of the January 2022 judgment by the Austrian Data Protection Authority on its use within the EU, we decided to remove it from our website. 
 
What’s the issue? 
The Austrian judgment rests on the fact that Google Analytics send data to the US, giving their intelligence agencies potential access. The Austrian DPA deemed this illegal under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) because it infringes EU citizens’ rights over information about them. 

Ethics and accountability are talked about a lot, so we wanted to be open and transparent about our position. And we hope this encourages others to think carefully about all their own data collection and processing activities. International developments like the judgment outlined above are a reminder to us all that data protection is not a static box-ticking exercise. It evolves and shifts. And as accountable controllers, we all need to constantly review what we do, and respond to developments. 

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