Czech online state services without Google Analytics: thanks to IuRe

The Czech organisation Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe) sent an open letter to the Ministry of Health in June 2021. It was mainly about the vaccination system, but its impact is much bigger: many state websites are getting rid of Google Analytics and thus taking more account of user privacy.

The letter was followed by a meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders in October 2021. Following the meeting, Google and Microsoft’s analytics tools disappeared from vaccination forms. These were also dealt with by the Czech Data Protection Authority in 2021.

Subsequently, it was announced by the NAKIT (National Agency for Communication and Information Technologies) that the Google Analytics tool would disappear from the Ministry of Health´s website to be replaced by its own instance of the free analytics tool Matomo.

The latter has a greater regard for user privacy and metadata should not be leaked outside the government environment. In September 2022, the Matomo tool was deployed on other government websites. In addition, similar solutions will be recommended for future projects.

NAKIT also counts on IuRe as a civil society representative in the development of other projects aimed at greater privacy protection.

Thus, the Czech Republic is among other countries that are defining themselves against Google´s tools. In the Czech Republic, too, the use of Google in schools is a hot topic: it was recently mapped for iRozhlas.cz by Czech journalist Jan Cibulka.

Contribution by: EDRi member, Iuridicum Remedium