Google Analytics also in focus in Finland after unlawful use
Data Protection Commissioner reprimands Finnish cities for violations of applicable data protection law
The related press release indicates that Capital Region Libraries’ websites used tracking technologies in a manner that may have unlawfully transferred usage data and personally identifiable information to the United States. The two Google services in use were Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.
This data transfer has been illegal in many cases since the “Schrems II” ruling in the summer of 2020 and the accompanying end of the Privacy Shield agreement between the EU and the United States.
In addition to cases in Austria, France, Denmark and Italy, there is now also a case in Finland that clearly opposes the widespread practice in connection with the Google services mentioned.
What is particularly interesting about this case is this explicit reference:
The Deputy Data Protection Ombudsman stresses that users should be able to use online services provided by authorities without data on their website visits ending up in commercial use, for example.
We can only agree with this advice :) Google tools are free only because they are paid with data from visitors.
Therefore lalalytics, no linking or selling of data.