I hope you already know that you cannot send PII data to Google Analytics. Pii data includes information such as e-mail address, name of the person, phone number, et cetera. If you do end up sending PII data to Google Analytics, then your account can likely be removed. However, sometimes that information is required for your website to work. By default, when a user goes to that page, that information will be sent to Google Analytics 4. Make sure to remove any PII information from the URLs before you send the data over to GA4.
In this post, I will show you how to do that within the GA4 interface.
How to Configure Data Redaction in GA4
- Login to GA4 Account
- Go to the Admin Panel
- In the Property column, click Data Streams
- Select the Web data stream that you want to configure for data redaction.
- In the Events section, click Redact data.
- There are two options here, 1. Email and 2nd data redaction from URL query parameters.
- Turn on the toggle switch next to the email to redact the email address. It is highly recommended to turn this on.
- Next, if you also have some query parameters that contain PII or other data that you want to redact then toggle the option and enter all the query parameters that you want to readact the data for, separating them by a comma. Your screen will look like the following
- Once done you can use the test option to see how the redacted data will appear in your reports and explorations.
- Once you're satisfied, scroll up and click on Save. Now your data reduction is in place and that's all you need.
A Few Key Things to Keep in Mind
- Data redaction is currently available only for web data streams.
- Data redaction evaluates event data for email addresses by searching for @ or %40 (the URL-encoded version of @ symbol). If you do have @for some other purposes in your URLs then that data will likely be removed too, so always verify the setup.
- Data redaction occurs before data is sent to GA4 Analytics.
- Currently, Data redaction does not prevent the collection of PII via Measurement Protocol or Data Import.
- When you create a new GA4 property, email data redaction is on by default. However, for older properties, you will have to manually turn it on.
Watch the Video of the GA4 Data Redaction feature
Need Help With GA4 Setup and Audit?
We have been working on GA4 since the day it came on the market. GA4 setup is complex and can easily be messed up by inexperienced implementation analysts. Reach out to us so that we can ensure that it has been properly configured. Email us at support@optizent.com or fill out the Contact Us form and we will get back to you.
Want to Learn GA4 on your own?
We have an extensive GA4 course that teaches you GA4 step by step. You can enroll in the course at GA4 Zero To Hero - Complete Google Analytics 4 course