The National Design Studio, staffed by DOGE veterans, installed visitor-tracking software on vital federal websites
An opaque White House office staffed largely by veterans of Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (DOGE) has quietly rebuilt some of the federal government’s most sensitive websites – for passport applications, voter registration, prescription-drug pricing and children’s savings – in ways critics say appear to violate federal law.
A Guardian investigation has found the office has apparently been developing or redeveloping sensitive federal websites, including those connecting Americans with prescription drugs, children’s savings accounts, passports and voter registration. The investigation corroborates and advances earlier reporting by the Drey Dossier, a YouTube investigative outlet.
The NDS built and now operates four public federal websites: ndstudio.gov, trumprx.gov, realfood.gov and trumpaccounts.gov. All four ran commercial visitor-tracking software, configured to evade the privacy tools many web users install, and none carry the public filings federal privacy law requires under laws including the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002.
I haven’t watched the source video yet, but software like Google Analytics and PostHog is very commonly used for analytics purposes. I’d argue that PostHog (which is what the government used) is better than Google Analytics because it’s open-source (except for enterprise features) and you can self-host it.
The article makes this sound malicious, but this is just standard behaviour when you self-host something. It’s running on your server, so it’s at your own domain name.
ur missing the point on how all those gov websites are now no longer under their respective committee or whatever, but under the prrsident without oversight and regulation.