According to France's watchdog CNIL, Google Analytics, arguably the most popular and widely used web analytics program in the world that has been built by Alphabet's Google, carries the risk of allowing intelligence services of the United States to gain access to data from users of French websites.
The data privacy regulator — which has been among the most vociferous and impactful regulators of Europe — said the not enough measures had been taken by the US tech giant to make sure that data privacy rights of website users under European Union regulation are upheld when their personal and other data is transferred between Europe and the United States. This comment was made by the regulator while announcing a decision that was targeted at a French website manager who was not named in the case.
"These (measures) are not sufficient to exclude the accessibility of this data to U.S. intelligence services," the regulator said in a statement.
"There is, therefore, a risk for French website users who use this service and whose data is exported."
The unnamed French website manager in the case had been given a time period of a month to comply with regulations of the EU, the CNIL stated and added it had passed similar orders for other website operators.
The CNIL ruling was met with silence by Google.
Google Analytics does not track users throughout the Internet, according to a company's statement issued previously, and added that users of the service have complete discretion over the data they collect.
Following objections from Vienna-based noyb (Non Of Your Business), an advocacy group formed by Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems, who won a high-profile lawsuit with Europe's top court in 2020, the CNIL made a similar judgment.
At that time, a transatlantic data transfer deal known as the Privacy Shield was scrapped by the Court of Justice of the European Union because of similar concerns. The Privacy Shield is a system that is relied upon by thousands of firms for offering their services ranging from cloud infrastructure to payroll and finance.
Because of the legal dangers they face, several prominent businesses, notably Google and Meta's Facebook, have asked for a new transnational data transfer treaty to be quickly agreed upon
"In the long run we either need proper protections 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 would personally prefer better protections in the US, but this is up to the US legislator - not to anyone in Europe."
(Source:www.usnews.com)
The data privacy regulator — which has been among the most vociferous and impactful regulators of Europe — said the not enough measures had been taken by the US tech giant to make sure that data privacy rights of website users under European Union regulation are upheld when their personal and other data is transferred between Europe and the United States. This comment was made by the regulator while announcing a decision that was targeted at a French website manager who was not named in the case.
"These (measures) are not sufficient to exclude the accessibility of this data to U.S. intelligence services," the regulator said in a statement.
"There is, therefore, a risk for French website users who use this service and whose data is exported."
The unnamed French website manager in the case had been given a time period of a month to comply with regulations of the EU, the CNIL stated and added it had passed similar orders for other website operators.
The CNIL ruling was met with silence by Google.
Google Analytics does not track users throughout the Internet, according to a company's statement issued previously, and added that users of the service have complete discretion over the data they collect.
Following objections from Vienna-based noyb (Non Of Your Business), an advocacy group formed by Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems, who won a high-profile lawsuit with Europe's top court in 2020, the CNIL made a similar judgment.
At that time, a transatlantic data transfer deal known as the Privacy Shield was scrapped by the Court of Justice of the European Union because of similar concerns. The Privacy Shield is a system that is relied upon by thousands of firms for offering their services ranging from cloud infrastructure to payroll and finance.
Because of the legal dangers they face, several prominent businesses, notably Google and Meta's Facebook, have asked for a new transnational data transfer treaty to be quickly agreed upon
"In the long run we either need proper protections 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 would personally prefer better protections in the US, but this is up to the US legislator - not to anyone in Europe."
(Source:www.usnews.com)
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