HeadingsQuestions
What's changed?
Why has it changed?
What does this mean to the data?
What can we do to make sense of what data we have?
Notes
cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website
GOV.UK use Google Analytics to measure how you use the website (Google do not use or share this data)
More robust interpretation of Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)
PECR "get a person consent to store cookies on there device"
20th December 2019 policy on GOV.UK changed
GOV.UK set 4 types of cookie
- Essential - these remember your progress though a form (always need to be on)
- website usage - Google Analytics
- communications and marketing
- settings
GOV.UK uses cookies to track user journeys
From Government Digital service (GDS)
"As you'll be aware, GDS has moved to the cookie consent model on GOV.UK; we have adopted an explicit informed consent (or ‘opt-in’) mechanism. This will apply to the central GOV.UK platform and GDS-owned services, where possible. "
"The changes have been made to address how we comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)."
What does this mean?
As a result, there will be an impact on central GOV.UK platform analytics. From others’ experience, we expect to lose up to 80% of current data volumes at least initially. If you use Google Analytics, or any dashboards to view user interactions, you may see that pageview and user numbers drop significantly.
we can now only capture activity from users that have opted-in to the use of analytics cookies.
How big that drop will be and how representative the new activity will be compared to all users are questions we're currently thinking about, but it will take some time to gather sufficient data to make robust comparisons.
Communicate uncertainty