Drupal Association Pilots Privacy‑First Telemetry with Piwik PRO

In a December 4 blog post, Tim Hestenes Lehnen described the long-standing goal of integrating telemetry into Drupal—first proposed in 2018—as a means to gain statistically significant insights into how people use the software. Until now, most user experience improvements have relied on community feedback, surveys, and expert input.

The new pilot introduces telemetry in a controlled, privacy-compliant environment. The Association has partnered with Piwik PRO, a European firm known for its regulatory expertise, including in GDPR and HIPAA contexts. The platform supports data warehousing in trusted jurisdictions and offers 'bring-your-own-keys' encryption options.

The initial rollout will instrument only the Drupal CMS trial environment and collect a minimal set of non-personal, anonymised usage metrics. This includes data such as which core features are most interacted with, but excludes session recordings or heatmaps. Site owners will retain the ability to opt out, and participation is entirely voluntary.

If the experiment proves effective, it could open the door to broader adoption of data-informed UX testing and performance tuning across the Drupal ecosystem. The telemetry data may help Drupal initiative leads and maintainers identify friction points in user workflows and prioritize enhancements based on real usage rather than anecdotal feedback.

The Drupal Association emphasized that this approach must reflect the project’s values. “Any telemetry platform we choose must be built with privacy-first principles,” Lehnen wrote, “ensuring compliance with GDPR and other regulations, and allowing us to house the data in jurisdictions we can trust.”