Having said that, then isn‘t now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a future Government as a Platform service isn’t a cross-government analytics system hosted from the UK. I just don’t see the pressing need for it, based on the assumption that Google actually are anonymising the data. If you want to disagree with that assumption then that’s a valid viewpoint too, but I see no evidence for it.

This is exactly the wrong way around. For every sensitive area, such as privacy, it is upon the company to prove proper handling of data. But if that company is outside your legislation, without any legal means in their country, how could that ever be possible?

Taking just their word is like trusting the food industry with hygienics until their customers become undeniably sick.

A better strategy is not to create sensitive datasets in the first place. In Germany, this principle is called "Datensparsamkeit", which could be translated to "data frugality".

Moreover, every country should have something like the FDA for data hygienics. Unfortunately, even in Germany where we do have "Datenschutzbeauftragte" (designees for data protection), those can make a lot of noise but don't have much power. This is still better than not having those people, though.

[1] https://www.cloud.service.gov.uk

You absolutely should be taking precautions to make sure that what you're doing on AWS is secure. And in fact erring on the side of using providers who host in European countries, preferably European organisations.

(addendum - I spent a lot of the early part of this year working on AWS-based data processing systems for a large bank, they took massive precautions with the transport and storage of their data within the AWS system, including IPSec overlays, 14 day maximum node lifetimes and various other things. I realise that at some point you're trusting amazon, but there's a lot can be done to avoid having problems in the first place. "Not sending data to places you don't absolutely have to" seems pretty basic)

Google Analytics is a certainty, and reasonable alternatives are available.

I think it shows a terrible attitude from the department responsible to use GA. Not everything should be done by the lowest bidder, regardless of the costs. Maybe I'll write to my MP...

Or, in full: "Government should only do what only government can do. If we’ve found a way of doing something that works, we should make it reusable and shareable instead of reinventing the wheel every time. This means building platforms and registers others can build upon, providing resources (like APIs) that others can use, and linking to the work of others. We should concentrate on the irreducible core."

Slightly different than the title.

Can't do privacy because the principle says "Do Less"? Why do anything?

That's surely secondary to privacy and security?

>> If you want to disagree with that assumption then that’s a valid viewpoint too, but I see no evidence for it.

I see a whole litany of problems with your assumption, based on the state of the world in terms of large-scale leaks and hacks, on the laws in the US which are much weaker than our own protections, and on the actions of various US agencies when they desire access to privately held information.

I see no reason to believe that anonymisation of the date somewhere within google infrastructure is an adequate protection, whether it actually happens as contracted or not.

Look, it's clear that you don't consider this important enough to do something about. Some of us do, and some of us would rather that if you can't do this with private analytics, you don't do it at all. And if that makes delivering your service harder, slower and more expensive - so be it. What's happening here is not right.

I mean, what you're saying when you reference point 2 of your design principles, is that it's alright to throw user privacy under a bus, so long as you can deliver the software effectively. This isn't a good justification.

Actually thinking about it, the best way would be to apply for GDS’s recently opened Deputy Director of Technology and Operations role :) https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jco...

Maybe this particular case is an example where the principle of a lean government fails?

Preserving our users’ anonymity is one of our major priorities and we actively work to improve how we do this.

If you don't mind another dumb question, is the benefit great enough for the hassle of complaints and the possible compromise of ostensibly private information?

There are self-hosted solutions, but I imagine they'd entail experts to interpret and implement. I wonder if they could just do A/B testing and get the same results or if they could simply do surveys? Though, I suppose those come with new faults, variables, and expenses.

Again, thanks for the answer.

The hassle of complaints and the possible compromise of "private" information (like what your browser sends) isn't that significant. The pain from complaints is trivial, largely confined to Hacker News threads of no significance whatsoever. The ostensibly private data is protected contractually and legally.

I'm not aware of any approach that both yields useful information and eliminates any possible risk of compromise. Surveys and A/B testing and self-hosted solutions all have the same problems and risks, and generally extra costs to boot.

In short, the cost-benefit analysis isn't all that different from that of a company considering an analytics tool.

Once in a while, chaos theory or traffic modeling come up. So, I get to give back. ;-)

Again, my sincere thanks.