GOV.UK GA4 improvements roadmap
This page details upcoming and recent changes to the GOV.UK GA4 data collection and processing.
See the changelog for previous releases.
What we’re working on now
Creating useful tables joining GOV.UK GA4 and Knowledge Graph data
Creating summarised tables or views combining GOV.UK GA4 and Knowledge Graph data.
Backfilling the GOV.UK GA4 ‘page_summaries’ table
Backfilling the GOV.UK GA4 page_summaries table, part of the GOV.UK GA4 flattened dataset, so that all processing improvements made over previous months to the flattened table are applied to the page_summaries table.
Improving our redaction on search terms to stop the collection of phone numbers
Improving our redaction, designed to stop the collection of personally identifiable information, on search terms and related fields to ensure we do not collect any phone numbers that users search for.
Recently released
Redaction added to target National Insurance numbers
Some users were spotted searching for their National Insurance numbers. We have added in additional redaction to ensure this data does not get collected in any search analytics data collection, and are deleting any collected National Insurance numbers that may have previously slipped through.
Backfilled the GOV.UK GA4 flattened dataset
We have refreshed the entirety of the GOV.UK GA4 flattened dataset so that all processing improvements made over previous months are applied to the whole dataset.
Decided to not implement the GOV.UK GA4 GTM spam filter
We are not implementing the spam filter we developed (which would ensure that we are only collecting GOV.UK GA4 data via our Google Tag Manager code) as this did not seem to exclude enough data to be worth the risk of accidentally excluding legitimate data. We have left the test filter running so it can be applied if data users would like to use it, and will develop alerts to monitor spam instead.
Determined that the User Deletion API does not meet our deletion needs
From our testing, we have identified that the User Deletion API does not fully delete users’ GOV.UK GA4 data and so cannot be used for the removal of personally identifiable information. Our GA4 data deletion process remains unchanged.
Set up alerts to monitor levels of spam received
Following work looking into a spam filter, we have developed more alerts to monitor the levels of spam collected.
Updates
As we’re still at an early stage, our plans may shift. We’ll update this page when this happens and add more detail when we can.