It's hard if visitor numbers would directly translate into revenue or similar. The trouble you're running in then is discerning organic hits from clickfarming.
If all you care about is when, where what content is popular on your website, there's a pretty simple method: Tally 200 and 304 responses. 200 tells you how many visits you get. 304 tells you, how often people hit refresh, or re-visit your page within the expiration time of the URL that 304s.
Also there's little value in identifying individual visitors. Getting a coarse idea where visitors are located in the world might be nice (for a regional news outlet for example). So just slap some coarse grained. GeoIP on it.
Why do you think you can control what I do with data you send to me? Don't send me data I'd you don't want me to have it.
Are you really interested in rehashing this conversation? You got plenty of answers last time¹, I doubt you'll get new ones
Don’t reflect light in my direction if you don’t want me having pictures of you!
Legal protections, like the GDPR.
Not sure what is so difficult to understand about this.
> Shouldn't it be Walmart's right to do what they want on their property, and my right to decide not to visit Walmart if I don't agree with that. Isn't the converse an infringement of Walmart's rights?
No. Property "rights" are secondary to human rights. Like, Walmart can't knowingly sell poison as food just because it's their property...
In your example, Walmart is free to record you on security cameras for security / theft purposes. However, they can't record what you're looking at and reuse that information for targeted advertising without consent - profling is simply not required to do business, so your right not to be profiled wins.
What law prevents them from doing this?
There's an asymmetry between what a company can do politically/legally given it's resources and what an individual can do. This is why countries generally have some kind of laws protecting consumers.
Security cameras recording footage and it not being used in 99.999% of the time when no crime occurs is fine. The tapes aren't kept forever. Just as having server logs to identify malicious actors i.e. hackers or scammers is fine. What's not fine is e.g. running facial recognition on the security camera footage, or figuring out who bought what (cough Amazon Go).
"Tesco is set to install hi-tech screens that scan customers' faces in petrol stations so that advertisements can be tailored to suit them, it has been reported.
The retailer will introduce the OptimEyes screen, developed by Lord Sugar's Amscreen, to all 450 of its UK petrol stations, in a five-year deal, according to The Grocer.
The screen, positioned at the till, scans the eyes of customers to determine age and gender, and then runs tailored advertisements."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/03/privacy-tes...
I'm not sticking up for all the big data perverts, but what about an individuals right to speak freely and disclose information they have observed/recorded? The 'right to be forgotten' seems at odds with everyone else's right to remember and disclose occurances.
Go read GDPR article 17.3, it's easy to read. A few things for which the right to forgotten does not apply:
- exercising the right of freedom of expression and information
- for compliance with a legal obligation (e.g. keeping records for tax reporting)
- for public interest reasons related to health, science, historical research
Seriously, there is too much FUD about the GDPR.
The only bad thing that I've noticed about GDPR is that some niche sites that rely on ad revenue are getting fucked over by Google (if you turn off personalized tracking for your visitors you still need the consent to track, there is no difference) so their income might break down.
That's quite sad but on the other hand they're exploring alternative methods of income and I'm certain adtech will adapt.
This time it bites back tho.
Also, what pii is tracked (by default) by piwiki or ga or access logs? I certainly cannot think of anything.
Cookies and other artifacts in the request headers or query parameters that can identify a unique user.
How careful are you with tacking cookies to requests? Be mindful, and keep documentation.
https://eugdprcompliant.com/personal-data/
PII or not PII it is still covered by GDPR.
You can disable the tracking parts in Piwik, or you can assume a legal stance under one of the 6 exceptions like "Legitimate interests" (https://matomo.org/blog/2018/04/lawful-basis-for-processing-...).
My first thought is that you could impersonate a person by spoofing their IP address. PII identifies a person but I don't think anyone is advocating for (solely) IP-address based bank logins.
https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/
Even though in many cases this won't help you identify a specific natural person (ie, you don't know whether whether you're dealing with a specific person or multiple people on a shared connection, and an IP address on its own usually isn't enough for you to de-anonymize a person), they're still a considered a personal identifier, are often coupled to a general physical location, and are now explicitly legally protected.
Couple an IP address with a browser user-agent, and you've got the basis for a strong unique fingerprint for a specific person.
You might not like that, but the regulators are pretty clear on this point.
That's actually the most frightening thing I've heard in a long time. Does the GDPR actually make that connection? If so, it literally links people to an IP address, rather than simply a connection.
If that line is accurate, I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned before, associating an IP address to an specific person. I have to believe you are wrong, otherwise the legal implications are scary.
For those that don't understand: my concern is that in the US, for a long time, in copyright claims by the RIAA or MPAA, for example, was to go after someone because of an IP address, a common defense was basically: An IP Address is not a person. The above commenter made the claim that an IP address alone can be associate a specific person. So, I'm wondering if 1) that's accurate and 2) what are the ramifications of an IP address being a person in the world of law enforcement?
The ICO (furthermore) has given guidance that they don't think an IP address is uniquely identifying an individual, and have confirmed this to me on the phone.
Where you get into trouble is in transmitting your browser logs/activity to a third party who wants to keep them for their own purposes (e.g. Google). In this circumstance, you have to let people know that you've done this, and to transmit their preferences that you receive onward.
Again, it's not always saying an IP address is a personal identify. It just is often enough.
Well, that's not what you said or implied. I'm just thinking of all the cases in the US were the defense is you can't assume that an IP address ties to a specific person. Anyone could use the computer, or someone could attach to an open wifi.
Basically, if the legal argument is the IP address can be associated with a person, that raises legal concerns.
Can it always identify an individual? No. Is the standard of identification good enough for a criminal case? Certainly not. But why are you comparing these? The GDPR is a standard about privacy and data protection; a UK postcode (like a zip code in the US) is considered personal data for exactly the same reason.
Under GDPR, an IP address must explicitly be considered as personal data, and any processing of them must be written in the documentation of the data processing activities:
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-da...
As another commenter has mentioned, this is included in the legislation. There isn't much interpretation to apply here.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17060280
The GDPR requires informing of use, transmitting preference, and protecting rights, of things that can potentially identify an individual, but this is easy to accommodate by simply not being an asshole. You're not under any requirement to actually identify an individual with your IP log.
"online media services provider may collect and use personal data relating to a user of those services, without his consent, only in so far as that [..] that data are necessary to facilitate and charge for the specific use of those services by that user"
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...
This is related to the DPA; but the GDPR doesn't change anything here, only strengthens it (i.e. making IP addresses explicitly personal data).
So if you're arguing collecting IP addresses is absolutely necessary for you to facilitate the service, no, you don't need consent. But I would not want to have to defend that, since disabling collection is as simple as a webserver reconfig.
I have not read any legal opinion that agrees with yours. I have also been to ICO events where they have stated they expect to treat it as personal data. That's reflected in their site (I gave you a specific example).
I understand that's not the outcome you're looking for.
> if you're arguing collecting IP addresses is absolutely necessary for you to facilitate the service, no, you don't need consent. But I would not want to have to defend that, since disabling collection is as simple as a webserver reconfig.
Using IP addresses for audit and security is best practices; I can use the IP address to make sure that a user isn't logging in from two countries at the same time (and then require a call e.g. to whitelist).
Thinking of an IP address in binary, as you're suggesting is extremely dangerous: The GDPR is not supposed to prevent you from thinking about what you're doing.
> That's reflected in their site (I gave you a specific example).
Your example doesn't come out and say IP Addresses are always personal data. Try again.
They've previously said the opposite:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1591/pe...
Second, I've said before IP addresses might not always be personal data. But the issue is they sometimes are, and if you record them without discrimination then you're recording personal data. The old guidance says "An IP address is only likely to be personal data if relates to a PC or other device that has a single user" - ok, so are you able to not record IP addresses that do relate to a single-user device? No?
Third, the ICO do think IP addresses count. I've given you a GDPR reference already, even their DPA tool treats them as such:
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/making-data-protection-...
It genuinely doesn't matter what the ICO might have said in the past. Right now, they say IP addresses are personal data. The courts say that. The law says that. I've given you multiple references for all of this.
Says:
a dynamic IP address registered by an online media services provider when a person accesses a website that the provider makes accessible to the public constitutes personal data within the meaning of that provision, in relation to that provider, where the latter has the legal means which enable it to identify the data subject with additional data which the internet service provider has about that person.
if you're not the Internet Service Provider, or more broadly, that you don't have "legal means which enable [you] to identify the data subject with additional data" then the ruling doesn't mean what you claim it says.
You're being intellectually dishonest by trying to tie irrelevant sources of information. That the high german court took a broader look than the European court is irrelevant.
> their DPA tool treats them as such
It says, as I've agreed, that an IP Address could be personal information. You've also agreed this position. The ICO does not consider IP addresses [by themselves] personal information.
What exactly are you still responding to?
Direct identifiers are pieces of data that allow to target a person, or a very small group of persons from a single data point. Indirect identifiers are anything that you could use to build a marketing cohort.
Combining a few indirect identifiers allows to target very specific groups of people. Or, using the very examples you quoted:
- The tuple (bank account number, country) is enough to target an individual.
- The tuple (full name, zip code) is enough to target a very small group of individuals. By adding just one more element you can identify individuals.[ß]
Each one of the four data points counts as user information under GDPR. Doesn't matter whether they are direct or indirect.
Disclosure: I wear the DPO hat at Smarkets. As a gambling company we are legally required to know quite a lot about our customers.
ß: For the nitpicking armchair lawyers: unless you happen to have a gated community for John Smiths.
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1591/pe...
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/data-protection-r... (20th Oct 2017):
> Like the DPA, the GDPR applies to ‘personal data’. However, the GDPR’s definition is more detailed and makes it clear that information such as an online identifier – eg an IP address – can be personal data
The ICO. I've called them up, and they've confirmed their 2011 interpretation of personal data:
https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1591/pe...
An IP address is "personal data" in the same way that "lifestyle information" or a "location" is. That someone can combine an IP address with other information to personally identify someone is important, but it doesn't prevent me from logging personal data.
The clause in the regulation is quite clearly worded:
"Natural persons may be associated with online identifiers provided by their devices, applications, tools and protocols, such as internet protocol addresses, cookie identifiers or other identifiers such as radio frequency identification tags. This may leave traces which, in particular when combined with unique identifiers and other information received by the servers, may be used to create profiles of the natural persons and identify them."
The sensitivity of data can change based on context. My name isn't sensitive until it's attached to something like browser history or medical files.
Recital 26:
To determine whether a natural person is identifiable, account should be taken of all the means reasonably likely to be used, such as singling out, either by the controller or by another person to identify the natural person directly or indirectly. To ascertain whether means are reasonably likely to be used to identify the natural person, account should be taken of all objective factors, such as the costs of and the amount of time required for identification, taking into consideration the available technology at the time of the processing and technological developments.
Since the concepts mentioned in the comment, IP and browser information, are already being used to single people out for tracking, those particular types of information can definitely be viewed as the equivalent concept under GDPR, as defined in Recital 26.
Megacorps comply because of mega fines.
Small business comply because their owners or future buyers are a larger Corp who fears that their sub-subsidiary might be in violation, causing a future mega fine.
So small businesses who care about the value of their company follow these rules. It’s almost exactly the same reason small business buy software licenses. It’s not of fear of fines but because otherwise they don’t look like a serious company.
I question I have been wondering is how many companies will leave some violations such as data in backups - simply because removing it is too expensive so it’s a risk worth taking. I honestly haven’t understood how backup of data fits into the requirement to delete data of a certain age?
I'll pick an example from my work. Data can be deleted from the active set, at which point it takes extra effort to retrieve it. (If you can't SELECT it anymore from the warm slaves, it's gone.) But as long as you can make a point-in-time-recovery from your backups, the data is still present in the inactive set. Using the inactive set requires, by definition, extra effort.
So you need to state that fact in the data protection/retention policy, AND put reasonable technical enforcement mechanisms ("controls") in place to ensure that backups are expired and fully deleted after a given retention period. The older your unexpired backups get, the less valuable they should become.
The maximum fine is defined as €20,000,000 or 4% of your global anual turnover, whichever is largest.
> Up to €20 million, or 4% of the worldwide annual revenue of the prior financial year, whichever is higher
Plenty of ordinary people will be actively looking for opportunities to file GDPR complaints. I know I will. This is a crusade. Taking the Internet back from adtech.
I think is fine if you just count the browser,OS, and country the user is from but I don't think is OK to keep more details then that
Now that I think about t I’ve never used analytics for anything ad related.
Everyone's been sucking up all the data they can just in case they need it, and actual people are being harmed by it through data breaches. I get why people are upset about these changes happening to their businesses, but what did everyone expect when the industry has failed to self regulate against their worst excesses? The rest of society isn't just going to let you hurt them so you can make more money
Using that data as well to improve learning so we do a better job of detecting fraud and not flagging legitimate customers appropriately.
Also, using analytics to determine if a user is having issues on the site. For example, are users having a difficult time filling out forms, or becoming confused, and being able to provide help in an appropriate manner.
These are just two things I immediately thought of. Security, and customer support. I'm sure there are many other users of analytics aside from ads and ad-tech.
So, everyone whose IP address ends in 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 gets the new version, everyone else gets the old version.
You don't need to store the IP address for that, you just need a rule that decides which version to serve as the user requests it.
Then, store only the flow data, discard everything else. Or if you need to keep some data around for the test duration, delete all of it once your A/B test has concluded.
I use Piwik (https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo) and track visitors without their knowledge or consent, because I need analytics. Piwik is also configured to respect the "Do not track" header, so opting out is as easy as indicating that you don't wish to be tracked.
Is that wrong?
And I use Piwik precisely because it's self-hosted. I know for a fact your data doesn't get sold, because the data never hits any server except mine.
If this seems acceptable, it's also why legislation seems worrisome. There are a lot of corner cases that law tends to overlook. But hopefully the requirements won't be too onerous.