Masking IP addresses

IP address masking is a tag setting that allows you to specify how Yandex Metrica should process and store the IP addresses of your site users.

You might need this setting in order to meet requirements for personal data security, including confidentiality policies on third-party resources and federal laws.

By default, Yandex Metrica stores the entire depersonalized IP address of the user. The IP address is used to determine a site user's location more precisely, but it isn't shown in any of the service's reports.

If you enable IP address masking, Yandex Metrica disguises the address as soon as this is technically possible at the earliest stages of data collection. When Yandex Metrica receives the data, the last octet of an IPv4 address or the last 64 bits of an IPv6 address are replaced with zeros, so an incomplete address is registered in the system. For example, 192.0.2.2 changes to 192.0.2.0.

Note. Masking IP addresses can reduce the accuracy of location data in Yandex Metrica reports.

How to enable masking IP addresses

  1. Go to the Settings page.
  2. On the Tag tab, go to Additional data processing conditions and turn on the Do not store full IP addresses of site visitors option.

You can also enable IP address masking when creating a tag, in the Additional data processing conditions section.