(Non)compliance of governmental websites with privacy regulations

In some countries, up to 90% of government websites install third-party cookies without user consent. This happens even in countries with strict user privacy laws.

The researchers studied the behavior of government websites and their (non)compliance with privacy regulations such as GDPR during the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when information was provided to citizens through the official websites of international organizations and governments.

Research results from TU Berlin, IMDEA Software, TU Delft and the Cyprus University of Technology have shown that official government websites, websites of international organizations and other websites providing public health information related to COVID-19 do not follow privacy standards, which is a paradox considering that many of these governments are forcing GDPR implementation and other privacy rules. This probably illustrates how impractical many of those regulations are (who reads cookie consent banners?). Most of the analyzed websites of the G20 countries install at least one cookie without the user's consent.

Read the research results at Help Net Security.