So I have read this report, but it would be good if there were some example URLs of where this is happening. Take for instance Lambeth's website (https://www.lambeth.gov.uk). I've browsed through a few public facing pages and the council tax payment pages.

The report says Lambeth shows 1 real time bidding, 1 social and 5 Google "trackers".

From my network requests I see:

-> Google Translate and its resources (CSS etc.)

-> Google Font

-> jQuery and a bunch of various modules

-> leafletjs (OSS Map library)

-> Google tag manager

-> The social links at the bottom are just links, no requests or trackers.

Note: None are blocked by PB, only cookies are denied)

Nothing out of the ordinary here (although you could argue against GTM on a council website). I'm not seeing what's at risk here? And according to the report, the above requests should be ignored in the results?

Caveat 1:

> This is not a complete study. Third party tools commonly used by websites for chat bots, designing the page, soliciting email subscription, profiling visitors for the Council’s own user data base, text to speech, CDN, fonts, non-Google analytics, etc. are not counted in this study. (See “table notes” on page 20 for a list of what is counted).

> While these do expose a user’s behaviour to the companies concerned, we exclude them here in order for simplicity.This study highlights what we view as the most dangerous third party data collection and profiling.

To compare, the landing page that this report is hosted on has the following "trackers"/requests:

-> Brave.com Analytics request that is blocked

-> Google Fonts

-> Google Tag Manager

-> Google Analytics (blocked by PB)

-> Mapbox

-> Scorecard research (blocked by PB)

-> Newrelic

-> Slideshare (blocked by PB)

-> Leaderapps

-> Tableau

-> Vimeo (cookies blocked by PB)

Edit: Sorry - PB is Privacy Badger.

As for my personal feelings, "widespread surveillance" makes it appear as though there is some sort of malicious intent here. I have a few friends (and mother) who have previously or currently work for local councils, there is no money for this sort of thing. At worst I believe any actual issues are due to ignorance (which isn't an excuse) but could be easily remedied. This is way too dramatic for what should be a "Hey ICO, these councils are potentially not doing things properly, could you have a look?". Instead you'd think Brave have uncovered a PRISM level conspiracy on the local government level.

Poor taste IMO.