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• The 7 GDPR Principles : A Guide to Compliance

  11 août 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips, GDPR

  We all knew it was coming. It’s all anyone could talk about — the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect on 25 May 2018. 

  You might think five years would have been plenty of time for organisations to achieve compliance, yet many have failed to do so. As of 2022, 81% of French businesses and 95% of American companies were still not compliant.

  If you’re one of these organisations still working on compliance, this blog will provide valuable information about the seven GDPR principles and guide you on your way to compliance. It will also explore how web analytics tools can help organisations improve transparency, ensure data security and achieve GDPR compliance.

  What is GDPR ?

  The European Union (EU) created the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to grant individuals greater control over their data and promote transparency in data processing. 

  Known by many other names across Europe (e.g., RGPD, DSGVO, etc.), the GDPR created a set of rules surrounding the handling of personal data of EU citizens and residents, to make sure organisations aren’t being irresponsible with user names, locations, IP addresses, information gleaned from cookies, and so on. 

  Organisations must assume several responsibilities to achieve GDPR compliance, regardless of their physical location. These obligations include :

  • Respecting user rights
  • Implementing documentation and document retention policies
  • Ensuring data security 

  Why is GDPR compliance important ?

  Data has become a valuable asset for businesses worldwide. The collection and use of data is a feature of almost every sector. However, with increased data usage comes a greater responsibility to protect individuals’ privacy and rights. 

  A YouGov study conducted in 17 key markets found that two in three adults worldwide believe tech corporations across all markets have too much control over their data.

  

  GDPR is the most extensive government framework aiming to tackle the increasing concern over data collection and handling. GDPR safeguards personal data from misuse, unauthorised access and data breaches. It ensures that businesses handle information responsibly and with respect for individual privacy. It also provided a foundation for similar laws to be created in other countries, including China, which is among the least concerned regions (56%), along with Sweden (54%) and Indonesia (56%).

  GDPR has been pivotal in safeguarding personal data and empowering individuals with more control over their information. Compliance with GDPR builds trust between businesses and their customers. Currently, 71% of the countries in the world are covered by data protection and privacy legislation.

  What are the risks of non-compliance ?

  We’ve established the siginficance of GDPR, but what about the implications — what does it mean for your business ? The consequences of non-compliance can be severe and are not worth being lax about. 

  According to Article 83 of the GDPR, you can be penalised up to 4% of your annual global revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher, for violations. For smaller businesses, such substantial fines could be devastating. Non-compliance could even result in legal action from individuals or data protection authorities, leading to further financial losses.

  Potential outcomes are not just legal and financial. GDPR violations can significantly damage your reputation as a company. Non-compliance could also cost you business opportunities if your policies and processes do not comply and, therefore, do not align with potential partners. Customers trust businesses that take data protection seriously over those that do not.

  

  Finally, and perhaps the most timid outcome on the surface, individuals have the right to complain to data protection authorities if they believe you violate their data rights. These complaints can trigger an investigation, and if your business is found to be breaking the rules, you could face all of the consequences mentioned above. 

  You may think it couldn’t happen to you, but GDPR fines have collectively reached over €4 billion and are growing at a notable rate. Fines grew 92% from H1 2021 compared with H1 2022. A record-breaking €1.2 billion fine to Meta in 2023 is the biggest we’ve seen, so far. But smaller businesses can be fined, too. A bank in Hungary was fined €1,560 for not erasing and correcting data when the subject requested it. (Individuals can also be fined in flagrant cases, like a police officer fined €1,400 for using police info for private purposes.)

  

  The 7 GDPR principles and how to comply

  You should now have a good understanding of GDPR, why it’s important and the consequences of not being compliant. 

  Your first step to compliance is to identify the personal data your organisation processes and determine the legal basis for processing each type. You then need to review your data processing activities to ensure they align with the GDPR’s purpose and principles.

  There are seven key principles in Article 5 of the GDPR that govern the lawful processing of personal data :

  Lawfulness, fairness and transparency

  This principle ensures you collect and use data in a legal and transparent way. It must be collected with consent, and you must tell your customers why you need their data. Data processing must be conducted fairly and transparently. 

  How to comply

  • Review your data practices and identify if and why you collect personal data from customers.
    • Learn what personally identifiable information (PII) is.
  • Update your website and forms to include a clear and easy-to-understand explanation of why you need their data and what you’ll use it for.
  • Obtain explicit consent from individuals when processing their sensitive data.
  • Add a cookie consent banner to your website, informing users about the cookies you use and why.
    • Website analytics tools like Google Analytics and Matomo offer the ability to create cookie consent banners and integrate with Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) to manage user consent and privacy settings.
    • Matomo also offers a setting without tracking cookies, in which case you would not need to add the cookie consent banner. 
  • Privacy notices must be accessible at all times. 
  • To ensure your cookies are GDPR compliant, you must :
    • Get consent before using any cookies (except strictly necessary cookies). 
    • Clearly explain what each cookie tracks and its purpose.
    • Document and store user consent.
    • Don’t refuse access to services if users do not consent to the use of certain cookies.
    • Make the consent withdrawal process simple. 

  Use tools like Matomo that can be configured to automatically anonymise data so you don’t process any personal data.

  Purpose limitation

  You can only use data for the specific, legitimate purposes you told your visitors, prospects or customers about at the time of collection. You can’t use it for anything else without asking again. 

  How to comply

  • Define the specific purposes for collecting personal data (e.g., processing orders, sending newsletters).
  • Ensure you don’t use the data for any other purposes without getting explicit consent from the individuals.

  Data minimisation

  Data minimisation means you should only collect the data you need, aligned with the stated purpose. You shouldn’t gather or store more data than necessary. Implementing data minimisation practices ensures compliance and protects against data breaches.

  How to comply

  • Identify the minimum data required for each purpose.
  • Conduct a data audit to identify and eliminate unnecessary data collection points.
  • Don’t ask for unnecessary information or store data that’s not essential for your business operations.
  • Implement data retention policies to delete data when it is no longer required.

  Accuracy

  You are responsible for keeping data accurate and up-to-date at all times. You should have processes to promptly erase or correct any data if you have incorrect information for your customers.

  How to comply

  • Implement a process to regularly review and update customer data.
  • Provide an easy way for customers to request corrections to their data if they find any errors.

  Storage limitation

  Data should not be kept longer than necessary. You should only hold onto it for as long as you have a valid reason, which should be the purpose stated and consented to. Securely dispose of data when it is no longer needed. There is no upper time limit on data storage. 

  How to comply

  • Set clear retention periods for the different types of data you collect.
  • Develop data retention policies and adhere to them consistently.
  • Delete data when it’s no longer needed for the purposes you specified.

  Integrity and confidentiality

  You must take measures to protect data from unauthorised or unlawful access, like keeping it locked away and secure.

  How to comply

  • Securely store personal data with encryption and access controls, and keep it either within the EU or somewhere with similar privacy protections. 
  • Train your staff on data protection and restrict access to data only to those who need it for their work.
  • Conduct regular security assessments and address vulnerabilities promptly.

  Accountability

  Accountability means that you are responsible for complying with the other principles. You must demonstrate that you are following the rules and taking data protection seriously.

  How to comply

  • Appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO) or someone responsible for data privacy in your company.
  • Maintain detailed records of data processing activities and any data breaches.
  • Data breaches must be reported within 72 hours.

  Compliance with GDPR is an ongoing process, and it’s vital to review and update your practices regularly. 

  What are GDPR rights ?

  Individuals are granted various rights under the GDPR. These rights give them more control over their personal data.

  

  The right to be informed : People can ask why their data is required.

  What to do : Explain why personal data is required and how it will be used.

  The right to access : People can request and access the personal data you hold about them.
  What to do : Provide a copy of the data upon request, free of charge and within one month.

  The right to rectification : If data errors or inaccuracies are found, your customers can ask you to correct them.
  What to do : Promptly update any incorrect information to ensure it is accurate and up-to-date.

  The right to object to processing : Your customers have the right to object to processing their data for certain purposes, like direct marketing.
  What to do : Respect this objection unless you have legitimate reasons for processing the data.

  Rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling : GDPR gives individuals the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, if it significantly impacts them.
  What to do : Offer individuals the right to human intervention and express their point of view in such cases.

  The right to be forgotten : Individuals can request the deletion of their data under certain circumstances, such as when the data is no longer necessary or when they withdraw consent.
  What to do : Comply with such requests unless you have a legal obligation to keep the data.

  The right to data portability : People can request their personal data in a commonly used and machine-readable format.
  What to do : Provide the data to the individual if they want to transfer it to another service provider.

  The right to restrict processing : Customers can ask you to temporarily stop processing their data, for example, while they verify its accuracy or when they object to its usage.
  What to do : Store the data during this period but do not process it further.

  Are all website analytics tools GDPR compliant ?

  Unfortunately, not all web analytics tools are built the same. No matter where you are located in the world, if you are processing the personal data of European citizens or residents, you need to fulfil GDPR obligations.

  While your web analytics tool helps you gain valuable insights from your user base and web traffic, they don’t all comply with GDPR. No matter how hard you work to adhere to the seven principles and GDPR rights, using a non-compliant tool means that you’ll never be fully GDPR compliant.

  When using website analytics tools and handling data, you should consider the following :

  Collection of data

  Aligned with the lawfulness, fairness and transparency principle, you must collect consent from visitors for tracking if you are using website analytics tools to collect visitor behavioural data — unless you anonymise data entirely with Matomo.

  

  To provide transparency, you should also clarify the types of data you collect, such as IP addresses, device information and browsing behaviour. Note that data collection aims to improve your website’s performance and understand your audience better.

  Storage of data

  Assure your visitors that you securely store their data and only keep it for as long as necessary, following GDPR’s storage limitation principle. Clearly state the retention periods for different data types and specify when you’ll delete or anonymise it.

  Usage of data

  Make it clear that to comply with the purpose limitation principle, the data you collect will not be used for other purposes beyond website analytics. You should also promise not to share data with third parties for marketing or unrelated activities without their explicit consent. 

  Anonymisation and pseudonymisation

  Features like IP anonymisation to protect users’ privacy are available with GA4 (Google Analytics) and Matomo. Describe how you use these tools and mention that you may use pseudonyms or unique identifiers instead of real names to safeguard personal data further.

  Cookies and consent

  Inform visitors that your website uses cookies and other tracking technologies for analytics purposes. Matomo offers customisable cookie banners and opt-out options that allow users to choose their preferences regarding cookies and tracking, along with cookieless options that don’t require consent banners. 

  Right to access and correct data

  Inform visitors of their rights and provide instructions on requesting information. Describe how to correct inaccuracies in their data and update their preferences.

  Security measures

  Assure visitors that you take data security seriously and have implemented measures to protect their data from unauthorised access or breaches. You can also use this opportunity to highlight any encryption or access controls you use to safeguard data.

  Contact information

  Provide contact details for your company’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) and encourage users to reach out if they have any questions or concerns about their data and privacy.

  When selecting web analytics tools, consider how well they align with GDPR principles. Look for features like anonymisation, consent management options, data retention controls, security measures and data storage within the EU or a similarly privacy-protecting jurisdiction. 

  Matomo offers an advanced GDPR Manager. This is to make sure websites are fully GDPR compliant by giving users the ability to access, withdraw consent, object or erase their data, in addition to the anonymizing features. 

  And finally, when you use Matomo, you have 100% data ownership — stored with us in the EU if you’re using Matomo Cloud or on your own servers with Matomo On-Premise — so you can be data-driven and still be compliant with worldwide privacy laws. We are also trusted across industries as we provide accurate data (no trying to fill in the gaps with AI), a robust API that lets you connect your data to your other tools and cookieless tracking options so you don’t need a cookie consent banner. What’s more, our open-source nature allows you to explore the inner workings, offering the assurance of security firsthand. 

  Ready to become GDPR compliant ?

  Whether you’re an established business or just starting out, if you work with data from EU citizens or residents, then achieving GDPR compliance is essential. It doesn’t need to cost you a fortune or five years to get to compliant status. With the right tools and processes, you can be on top of the privacy requirements in no time at all, avoiding any of those hefty penalties or the resulting damage to your reputation. 

  You don’t need to sacrifice powerful data insights to be GDPR compliant. While Google Analytics uses data for its ‘own purposes’, Matomo is an ethical alternative. Using our all-in-one web analytics platform means you own 100% of your data 100% of the time. 

  Start a 21-day free trial of Matomo — no credit card required.

  Disclaimer

  We are not lawyers and don’t claim to be. The information provided here is to help give an introduction to GDPR. We encourage every business and website to take data privacy seriously and discuss these issues with your lawyer if you have any concerns.

• Piwik 1.12, New Features, API Improvements, Stability — The Last Piwik 1.X Release

  30 mai 2013, par Piwik team — Development

  We are very excited to announce the immediate availability of Piwik v1.12 !

  • Download Link
  • How to update Piwik ?
  • List of all tickets closed : Changelog

  Piwik v1.12 is a major new release with four big new features, seven smaller new features, several API improvements and all together 82 tickets fixed. This is also the last major 1.X release, which means after this release we will be working on releasing Piwik 2.0. This also means that you should upgrade to PHP 5.3 or higher if you haven’t already, since Piwik 2.0 will only support PHP 5.3 and above.

  Finally, this release contains two breaking changes to the API. If you use the Piwik API click here or scroll down to see if you’re affected.

  Table of Contents :

  1. New Big Feature – Beta Release Channel
  2. New Big Feature – Segment Editor
  3. New Big Feature – Page Speed Reports
  4. New Big Feature – Device Detection Reports
  5. Other Improvements
  6. API Changes and Improvements
  7. What we’re working on
  8. Participate in Piwik
  9. Summary

  New Big Feature – Beta Release Channel

  

  For those of you who want to help test Piwik 2.0-beta releases as soon as they come up, we’ve made it easier to use our beta releases. Navigate to the Settings > General Settings page and click the The latest beta release radio button. You will then be able to upgrade to beta releases.

  This isn’t truly a major feature, but we think it’s just as important because it will allow us to create more beta releases and thus catch more bugs before we make a final release. This means more releases and more stability for you.

  New Big Feature – Segment Editor

  

  The Segment Editor is a long-awaited new feature that allows you to view, save and edit your segments.

  Piwik has supported segmentation (filtering visits and reports by arbitrary criteria, like browser family) for quite some time now, but it has never been possible to visually create and modify them. Nor could they be saved for later recall.

  Thanks to the eighty individuals and company who funded this feature, it is now possible to :

  • visually segment your visitors, instead of creating URLs.
  • save segments and easily switch between them, instead of remembering URLs.
  • get suggestions for segments that might be helpful to view.
  • learn more in the Segmentating Analytics reports user documentation..

  New Big Feature – Page Speed Reports

  You can now see how long it took your webserver to generate and send pages over HTTP through the new Avg. Generation Time metric.

  This metric can be viewed on both the Pages and Page Titles reports :

  

  And the average page generation time for all the pages in your website/webapp is displayed on the visitors overview :

  

  You can use this new information to benchmark your webapp and web server.

  New Big Feature – Device Detection Reports

  Piwik 1.12 also includes a new plugin that provides reports on the device types (tablet, desktop, smartphone, etc.), device brands (Apple, Google, Samsung, etc.) and device models (iPad, Nexus 7, etc.) your visitors use to access your website :

  

  The new plugin also enhances Operating system detections (detecting sub versions of Linux, Windows, and more).

  Note : This plugin is not enabled by default, but will be in Piwik 2.0. If you want to view these reports now, you can activate the plugin in the Installed Plugins admin page. Navigate to Visitors > Devices to see the new reports. You may also use the new (beta) ‘Device type’.

  The new plugin was developed with the support of Clearcode.cc our technology partner

  

  Other improvements

  Majestic SEO Metrics

  

  We’ve added two new SEO metrics to the SEO widget, both of which are calculated by MajesticSEO.com. These metrics will tell you the number of external backlinks (the number of links to your site from other sites) and the number of referrer domains (the number of domains that link to your site).

  We thank the team at Majestic for their support and hard work in bringing you these metrics to your Piwik dashboards !

  Real-time Visitor Count Dashboard Widget

  

  There is now a simple new widget you can use to see the number of visitors, visits and actions that occurred in the last couple minutes. We call it the Real Time Visitor Counter !

  New segment parameter : siteSearchKeyword.

  There is now a new segment parameter you can use to segment your visits : siteSearchKeyword. This parameter will let you select visits that had site searches with a specific keyword.

  Ignore URL letter case when importing log files.

  We’ve added a new option to the log import script, –force-lowercase-path. When used, the importer will change URL paths to lowercase before tracking them. This way http://domain.com/MY/BLOG will be treated the same as http://domain.com/my/blog.

  Updated ISP Names

  

  We’ve also modified the Providers report so prettier and more up-to-date names of ISPs are displayed.

  Customize the background/text/axis color of graphs.

  

  It is now possible to change the background color, text color and/or axis color of the graph images generated by the ImageGraph plugin. To access this functionality, use the following URL query parameters when generating an image :

  • backgroundColor
  • textColor
  • axisColor

  For example :

  http://demo.piwik.org/index.php?module=API&method=ImageGraph.get&idSite=7&apiModule=UserSettings&apiAction=getBrowser&token_auth=anonymous&period=day&date=2013-03-21,2013-04-19&language=en&width=779&height=150&fontSize=9&showMetricTitle=0&aliasedGraph=1&legendAppendMetric=0&backgroundColor=efefef&gridColor=dcdcdc&colors=cb2026

  Send your users to a custom URL after they logout.

  If you manage a Piwik installation with many users and you want to send them to a custom page or website after they log out of Piwik, you can now specify the URL to redirect users after they log out.

  API Changes and Improvements

  BREAKING CHANGE – renamed segment parameters.

  The following segment parameters have been renamed :

  • continent renamed to : continentCode
  • browserName renamed to : browserCode
  • operatingSystem renamed to : operatingSystemCode
  • lat renamed to : latitude
  • long renamed to : longitude
  • region renamed to : regionCode
  • country renamed to : countryCode
  • continent renamed to : continentCode

  If you use one of the old segment parameter names, Piwik will throw an exception, so you should notice when you’re using an old name.

  BREAKING CHANGE – changes to the input & output of the Live.getLastVisitsDetails method.

  The following changes were made to the Live.getLastVisitsDetails API method :

  • The method no longer uses the maxIdVisit query parameter. It has been replaced by the filter_offset parameter.
  • Site search keywords are now displayed in a <siteSearchKeyword> element. They were formerly in <pageTitle> elements.
  • Custom variables with page scope now have ‘Page’ in their element names when displayed. For example, <customVariablePageName1>, <customVariablePageName2>, etc.

  Filter results of MultiSites.getAll by website name.

  It is now possible to filter the results of MultiSites.getAll by website name. To do this, set the pattern query parameter to the desired regex pattern.

  Get suggested values to use for a segment parameter.

  The new API method API.getSuggestedValuesForSegment can now be used to get suggested values for a segment parameter. This method will return a list of the most seen values (in the last 60 days) for a certain segment parameter. So for browserCode, this would return the codes for the browsers most visitors used in the last 60 days.

  Use extra tracking query parameters with the JS tracker (such as ‘lat’ & ‘long’).

  We’ve added a new method to the JavaScript tracker named appendToTrackingUrl. You can use this method to add extra query parameters to a tracking request, like so :

  _paq.push(['appendToTrackingUrl', 'lat=X&long=Y']);

  What we’re working on

  As we said above, Piwik v1.12 is the last in the 1.X series of releases. This means we are now officially working on Piwik 2.0.

  Piwik 2.0 will be a big release, to be sure, but it’s going to bring you more than just a couple new features and a bag of bug fixes. For Piwik 2.0 we will be revisiting the user needs and the ideals that originally prompted us to create Piwik in order to build our vision of the future of web analytics.

  Piwik 2.0 won’t just be a bigger, better web app, but a new platform for observing and analyzing the things that matter to you.

  Participate in Piwik

  Are you a talented developer or an experienced User Interface designer ? Or maybe you like to write documentation or are a marketing guru ?

  If you have some free time and if you want to contribute to one of the most awesome open source projects around, please get in touch with the Piwik team, or read this page to learn more…

  Summary

  For the full list of changes in Piwik 1.12 check out the Changelog.

  Thank you to the core developers, all the beta testers and users, our official supporters, the translators & everyone who reported bugs or feature requests. Also thank you to softwares we use, and the libraries we use.

  If you are a company and would like to help an important project like Piwik grow, please get in touch, it means a lot to us. You can also participate in the project —

  –> if you like what you read, please tell your friends and colleagues or write on your website, blog, forums, stackoverflow, etc. <–
  

  Peace. Enjoy !

• IJG swings again, and misses

  1er février 2010, par Mans — Multimedia

  Earlier this month the IJG unleashed version 8 of its ubiquitous libjpeg library on the world. Eager to try out the “major breakthrough in image coding technology” promised in the README file accompanying v7, I downloaded the release. A glance at the README file suggests something major indeed is afoot :

  Version 8.0 is the first release of a new generation JPEG standard to overcome the limitations of the original JPEG specification.

  The text also hints at the existence of a document detailing these marvellous new features, and a Google search later a copy has found its way onto my monitor. As I read, however, my state of mind shifts from an initial excited curiosity, through bewilderment and disbelief, finally arriving at pure merriment.

  Already on the first page it becomes clear no new JPEG standard in fact exists. All we have is an unsolicited proposal sent to the ITU-T by members of the IJG. Realising that even the most brilliant of inventions must start off as mere proposals, I carry on reading. The summary informs me that I am about to witness the introduction of three extensions to the T.81 JPEG format :

  1. An alternative coefficient scan sequence for DCT coefficient serialization
  2. A SmartScale extension in the Start-Of-Scan (SOS) marker segment
  3. A Frame Offset definition in or in addition to the Start-Of-Frame (SOF) marker segment

  Together these three extensions will, it is promised, “bring DCT based JPEG back to the forefront of state-of-the-art image coding technologies.”

  Alternative scan

  The first of the proposed extensions introduces an alternative DCT coefficient scan sequence to be used in place of the zigzag scan employed in most block transform based codecs.

  

  Alternative scan sequence

  The advantage of this scan would be that combined with the existing progressive mode, it simplifies decoding of an initial low-resolution image which is enhanced through subsequent passes. The author of the document calls this scheme “image-pyramid/hierarchical multi-resolution coding.” It is not immediately obvious to me how this constitutes even a small advance in image coding technology.

  At this point I am beginning to suspect that our friend from the IJG has been trapped in a half-world between interlaced GIF images transmitted down noisy phone lines and today’s inferno of SVC, MVC, and other buzzwords.

  (Not so) SmartScale

  Disguised behind this camel-cased moniker we encounter a method which, we are told, will provide better image quality at high compression ratios. The author has combined two well-known (to us) properties in a (to him) clever way.

  The first property concerns the perceived impact of different types of distortion in an image. When encoding with JPEG, as the quantiser is increased, the decoded image becomes ever more blocky. At a certain point, a better subjective visual quality can be achieved by down-sampling the image before encoding it, thus allowing a lower quantiser to be used. If the decoded image is scaled back up to the original size, the unpleasant, blocky appearance is replaced with a smooth blur.

  The second property belongs to the DCT where, as we all know, the top-left (DC) coefficient is the average of the entire block, its neighbours represent the lowest frequency components etc. A top-left-aligned subset of the coefficient block thus represents a low-resolution version of the full block in the spatial domain.

  In his flash of genius, our hero came up with the idea of using the DCT for down-scaling the image. Unfortunately, he appears to possess precious little knowledge of sampling theory and human visual perception. Any block-based resampling will inevitably produce sharp artefacts along the block edges. The human visual system is particularly sensitive to sharp edges, so this is one of the most unwanted types of distortion in an encoded image.

  Despite the obvious flaws in this approach, I decided to give it a try. After all, the software is already written, allowing downscaling by factors of 8/8..16.

  Using a 1280×720 test image, I encoded it with each of the nine scaling options, from unity to half size, each time adjusting the quality parameter for a final encoded file size of no more than 200000 bytes. The following table presents the encoded file size, the libjpeg quality parameter used, and the SSIM metric for each of the images.

  Scale	Size	Quality	SSIM
  8/8	198462	59	0.940
  8/9	196337	70	0.936
  8/10	196133	79	0.934
  8/11	197179	84	0.927
  8/12	193872	89	0.915
  8/13	197153	92	0.914
  8/14	188334	94	0.899
  8/15	198911	96	0.886
  8/16	197190	97	0.869

  Although the smaller images allowed a higher quality setting to be used, the SSIM value drops significantly. Numbers may of course be misleading, but the images below speak for themselves. These are cut-outs from the full image, the original on the left, unscaled JPEG-compressed in the middle, and JPEG with 8/16 scaling to the right.

  

  

  Looking at these images, I do not need to hesitate before picking the JPEG variant I prefer.

  Frame offset

  The third and final extension proposed is quite simple and also quite pointless : a top-left cropping to be applied to the decoded image. The alleged utility of this feature would be to enable lossless cropping of a JPEG image. In a typical image workflow, however, JPEG is only used for the final published version, so the need for this feature appears quite far-fetched.

  The grand finale

  Throughout the text, the author makes references to “the fundamental DCT property for image representation.” In his own words :

  This property was found by the author during implementation of the new DCT scaling features and is after his belief one of the most important discoveries in digital image coding after releasing the JPEG standard in 1992.

  The secret is to be revealed in an annex to the main text. This annex quotes in full a post by the author to the comp.dsp Usenet group in a thread with the subject why DCT. Reading the entire thread proves quite amusing. A few excerpts follow.

  The actual reason is much simpler, and therefore apparently very difficult to recognize by complicated-thinking people.

  Here is the explanation :

  What are people doing when they have a bunch of images and want a quick preview ? They use thumbnails ! What are thumbnails ? Thumbnails are small downscaled versions of the original image ! If you want more details of the image, you can zoom in stepwise by enlarging (upscaling) the image.

  So with proper understanding of the fundamental DCT property, the MPEG folks could make their videos more scalable, but, as in the case of JPEG, they are unable to recognize this simple but basic property, unfortunately, and pursue rather inferior approaches in actual developments.

  These are just phrases, and they don’t explain anything. But this is typical for the current state in this field : The relevant people ignore and deny the true reasons, and thus they turn in a circle and no progress is being made.

  However, there are dark forces in action today which ignore and deny any fruitful advances in this field. That is the reason that we didn’t see any progress in JPEG for more than a decade, and as long as those forces dominate, we will see more confusion and less enlightenment. The truth is always simple, and the DCT *is* simple, but this fact is suppressed by established people who don’t want to lose their dubious position.

  I believe a trip to the Total Perspective Vortex may be in order. Perhaps his tin-foil hat will save him.