Danish organizations and companies are no longer allowed to use Google Analytics unless they take additional measures such as setting up a proxy, the Danish privacy regulator has ruled. In doing so, the Danish data protection authority follows other European privacy regulators, including those from Austria, Italy and France, who also prohibit the use of Google’s analysis tool. Danish organizations and companies that want to use Google Analytics are obliged to take additional measures. If this is not possible, the use of the tool should be discontinued. In June, the French privacy regulator came up with a possible solution in the form of a proxy. The condition is that all data that the proxy sends to Analytics does not contain information that identifies the user. For example, no IP address may be forwarded and the proxy must replace the user identifier. Furthermore, the referer must be removed and collected urls must not contain any parameters. It is also important that data on the proxy server does not leave the European Union. The Dutch Data Protection Authority previously investigated whether the use of Google Analytics is permitted in the Netherlands. However, the conclusion of this investigation will be announced in the course of the year. On its own website, the AP still warns that the use of Google’s statistics program may soon not be allowed.
