Software used to harvest potentially sensitive information about users is widespread across the websites of government departments and local authorities, The Irish Times can reveal. The results have raised fears about the impact on users of government websites among privacy and data governance experts. Dozens of trackers were also detected on the websites of Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and the Department of Education. The websites of Donegal, Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown, Roscommon, Longford, Leitrim, Offaly, Cavan and Louth county councils all contained more than 50 trackers. There are also concerns that data gathered from the users of government websites could be used by other third parties, for example banks.

Source: The Irish Times April 01, 2019 00:00 UTC