As location data can be considered as personal information under GDPR, users might want to detect the location data based on an anonymized IP (we recommend to anonymize 2 bytes).

From experience, we know that getting the location from an anonymized IP may result in a different city, region, and even country. As a result, the reports cannot be as much trusted anymore. Maybe we should at least show in the footer a message when the location was detected from an anonymized IP and explain it may not be 100% accurate?

It would be good if we instead had an option to for example only record country and region from the full IP. This should not be considered as personal data and brings some more accuracy. The problem is, that the real-time map and / or visitor map partially requires longitude and latitude in order to work properly AFAIK. It might not be a big problem though -> would need to be tested.

Another option be, when using the anonymized IP for location data, is to detect the location data based on the full IP AND the anonymized IP:

• The country and region could be used from the full IP to still get accurate results for these reports;
• The city and exact position could be used from the anonymized IP

Problem: This could cause some confusion because the anonymized IP might result in a city that doesn't match the detected region or country and when analyzing reports some numbers might not make sense / match (also when viewing visitor log).

refs #12600