The GDPR impacts your business in several ways. But have you thought about whether your Google Analytics is GDPR compliant? This is worth considering if you want to avoid any penalties and fines.
I do not assume that any professionals have missed the issue of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from the European Union in 2018. But to put it very briefly, the GDPR was issued to make sure that companies handle personal data in a way that protects the privacy of their EU stakeholders.
What will happen if you do not follow the GDPR?
If your company does not follow the GDPR, it can ultimately result in a fine of up to €20 million, or 4% of your firm’s worldwide annual revenue from the preceding financial year. Therefore, it is very important for all business owners to make sure they are running their business in accordance with the GDPR.
You are responsible for getting a correct consent
As mentioned above, the GDPR impacts your business in several ways, e.g. the way you communicate with your customers, and how you store sensitive personal data. But the GDPR also affect your business within marketing, for example if you make use of Google Analytics to track your website.
Google Analytics is a very valuable tool to gain information about who visits your website and how they do it – information that your company can use to improve the customer journey. However, using Google Analytics also means setting third-party cookies on your visitors’ browsers and thereby collecting sensitive personal data from them. According to the GDPR, this is only legal, if you get a clear consent from your EU visitors, before you collect any personal data. Any retrieval of information on visitors without prior consent is a violation of the GDPR and may lead to a penalty.
So, to sum up: If your company makes use of Google Analytics, you are responsible for getting a correct consent from your end-users in order to collect and process personal data.
Use Google Consent in accordance with the GDPR
But how do you get a correct consent from your visitors and thereby make sure, that you follow the GDPR when using Google Analytics? One way is to use Google Consent Mode which launched on September 3, 2020.
With Google Consent Mode you can run all your Google-services – including Google Analytics – using the consent state of your end-users. This happens in integration with a so-called consent management platform (CMP) – like Cookiebot which can be installed on your website to gather user consent in compliance with the GDPR. Cookiebot works by scanning and finding all cookies and trackers on your website to automatically control them based on the consent of your end-users.
Thereby, you can use your valuable data from Google Analytics with an easy conscience – benefitting both your business and your visitors.
Want a more thorough guide?
The above-mentioned Cookiebot has made a more thorough guide on how to make your Google Analytics GDPR compliant. You can find it bare following this link: GDPR Google Analytics.