(National Pulse) The vast majority of governmental and COVID-19 tracking websites employ third-party trackers on users without consent, according to a new study.
The revelation comes from a recent paper – “Measuring Web Cookies in Governmental Websites” – published by a cohort of European researchers funded by groups including the European Research Council (ERC), the European Union, and the Spanish government.
“A potential risk from e-governance is that since it represents a unique point of interaction for mandatory and indispensable services for all citizens, it can, unintentionally or not, become a single point of monitoring and tracking for the entire population of a country. A readily available way to achieve that is with the use of Web cookies,” cautions the paper.
The study analyzed three types of websites: official governmental websites of “G20” countries around the world; websites of international organizations such as the United Nations and popular websites used for COVID-19 tracking and information. It measured these sites’ use of “cookies” – personal data related to your browsing history that websites can retrieve at a later time.
“Web cookies have been exploited to collect information about users’ online activities and interests,” notes the paper.
“Our results show that, unfortunately, tracking is a serious concern, as in some countries up to 90% of these websites create cookies of third-party trackers without any consent from users,” explains a summary of the findings.
“Non-session cookies, that are created by trackers and can last for days or months, are widely present even in countries with strict user privacy laws. We also show that the above is a problem for official websites of international organizations and popular websites that inform the public about the COVID-19 pandemic,” it continues.
Researchers found that up to 90 percent of governmental websites for “G20” countries, which include 19 countries and the European Union comprising the world’s largest economies, added tracking cookies without user consent.
