Is GA4 GDPR-compliant?

The compliance of Google Analytics with GDPR has been the subject of landmark decisions in Europe. In 2022, several data protection authorities (CNIL, Austrian Datenschutzbehoerde, Italian Garante) ruled that the use of Universal Analytics violated GDPR due to personal data transfers to the United States without sufficient safeguards.

Since the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF) came into effect in July 2023 and the rollout of GA4, Google has made substantial changes: default IP address anonymization, removal of US server data storage for initial processing, and reduced data retention periods. These measures mitigate risks but do not exempt the data controller from their own obligations.

Concrete measures to implement

To use GA4 in a compliant manner, you must collect informed user consent before any analytics cookie placement. Implementing Consent Mode v2 has become essential: it allows GA4 to respect visitor choices while providing modeled data to fill the gaps.

Configure data retention to the minimum necessary (2 or 14 months), disable Google signals collection if you have no use for it, and document your legal basis in your processing register.

Alternatives to consider

If strict compliance is an absolute priority, solutions like Matomo with the CNIL exemption or Piano Analytics offer native European hosting. The choice depends on your feature requirements, advertising ecosystem, and tolerance for legal risk. A properly configured CMP remains in all cases a non-negotiable prerequisite.

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