Google Analytics Suspected Of Providing Leaked Information To US Intelligence, France Worried

Google Analytics is suspected of sending transatlantic data. (photo; doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - Google Analytics, the world's most widely used web analytics service developed by Alphabet's Google, risks giving US intelligence services access to user data of French websites. This is of particular concern to the French watchdog, CNIL, Thursday, 10 February.

In a decision targeting an unnamed French website manager, the data privacy regulator -- one of the most vocal and influential in Europe -- said the US tech giant was not taking adequate measures to guarantee data privacy rights under current EU regulations. data is stored and transferred between Europe and the United States.

"This (action) is not sufficient to exclude the accessibility of this data to US intelligence agencies," the regulator said in a statement. "Therefore, there is a risk for users of French websites who use these services and whose data is exported."

CNIL said the manager of the French website in question had one month to comply with EU regulations and had issued similar orders to operators of other websites.

Google declined to comment on CNIL's decision. The company previously said that Google Analytics does not track people on the Internet and that organizations using the tool have control over the data they collect.

CNIL's decision follows a similar decision by its Austrian counterpart, coming after a complaint by Vienna-based noyb (Non Of Your Business), an advocacy group founded by Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems that won a high-profile case with Europe's top court in 2020.

European Union courts at the time overturned a transatlantic data transfer deal known as Privacy Shield, which thousands of companies rely on for services ranging from cloud infrastructure to payroll and finance, due to similar issues.

Several large companies, including Google and Facebook Meta, have called for a new transatlantic data transfer pact to be approved immediately because of the legal risks they face.

"In the long term, we need proper protection in the United States, or we will end up with separate products for the US and the EU," Schrems said in reaction to CNIL's decision.

"I personally would prefer better protection in the US, but this is up to US legislators - not for anyone in Europe," he said.