GA4 Unveils New Way To Redact Personally Identifying Information

Google has revealed new documentation for the GA4 Knowledge Redaction characteristic that stops by chance sending personally identifiable info (PII) to Google. This makes it simpler to adapt to privateness legal guidelines and Google’s personal insurance policies.

Notable concerning the characteristic is that it will likely be turned on by default for brand spanking new properties which can be added to GA4 however present properties should manually allow it.

Google’s GA 4 insurance policies require that no PII knowledge be despatched by GA4 that Google might use to determine people.

Examples of PII contains (however isn’t restricted to):

• Electronic mail addresses
• Private cellular numbers
• Social safety numbers

Eradicating PII From URLs

One of many ways in which PII might inadvertently be despatched to Google is thru URL paths and parameters that comprise PII in them.

The Knowledge Redaction characteristic in GA4 is a setting that’s turned on by default for brand spanking new properties added to GA4.

Present properties might want to configure the information redaction characteristic within the web data stream settings.

GA4’s knowledge redaction characteristic analyzes occasions previous to sending them to Google and strips out any PII that could be contained within the knowledge.

New Function Obtainable On GA4

Beneath is a screenshot of the brand new characteristic that’s now accessible on GA4:

It is a screenshot of the following window that opens up that enables customers to redact knowledge:

Clicking the 2 buttons permits customers to redact personally figuring out info in order that it’s not despatched to Google.

It’s turned on by default for brand spanking new properties however must be manually switched for present properties.

In response to the brand new documentation:

“The information-redaction characteristic helps to stop the inadvertent assortment of PII within the type of e-mail addresses and URL question parameters.

Knowledge redaction makes use of textual content patterns to determine seemingly e-mail addresses throughout all occasion parameters and the URL question parameters which can be included as a part of the occasion parameters page_location, page_referrer, page_path, link_url, video_url, and form_destination.”

It must be famous that Google’s documentation advises that customers shouldn’t take into account their duty to take away PII to be accomplished with this resolution.

The answer can’t be thought of full as a result of GA4 customers are nonetheless obligated to ensure that there are not any PII despatched to Google in another method that the information redaction characteristic could not be capable of determine and take away.

The brand new documentation states:

“It’s essential to do not forget that whereas knowledge redaction offers a strong device in opposition to inadvertently amassing PII, the final word duty for assembly regulatory necessities nonetheless lies with the entity amassing knowledge.

To additional show you how to meet that duty, this characteristic enables you to take a look at your configuration to know whether or not the textual content patterns you determine are redacted as anticipated (learn more).”

You can too use Debug View to observe in actual time how Analytics collects occasions out of your web site.”

Now it’s only a setting inside GA4.

Learn Google’s newly revealed documentation for the information redaction characteristic:

[GA4] Data redaction