A search term, form field or URL path that reveals intent is passed to an analytics or advertising party, usually as a parameter or as part of a page title.
Why it is a separate entry
The content of a query says far more than the fact of a visit. A search on a health site, a benefits portal or a legal service is close to a statement about the person, and it leaves in plain text.
How it arises
query string included in the page URL that analytics reports verbatim
form values passed into event parameters
page titles constructed from user input
Not to be confused with
An identifier alone is not this entry; that is ordinary tracking. What matters here is that the content itself travels.
How to establish it
A value entered or searched by the visitor appears verbatim, or trivially encoded, in a request to a host under a different registrable domain.
method network-observedQoD 90
Requirements on the measurement
use a distinctive search term so it can be found unambiguously in the capture
check both query parameters and POST bodies
What would refute it
by handThe value is hashed or truncated beyond recovery before leaving.weakens
not from the captureThe receiving host is a processor under a documented agreement, self-hosted.reclassify
Where this plugs into existing processes
The one question that surfaces itType a nonsense word into the search box and show me every request containing it.
In a DPIA, verify this
Verify that user-entered values do not travel to third parties, rather than that 'only page URLs' are shared.
As a procurement clause
No value entered or searched by a user appears in a request to a party outside the processing chain.
With a complaint, hand over
A capture using a distinctive search term, showing where that term reappears.
Reproduction
METHOD.md · by hand · no dedicated reproduction exists yet; follow the general method and the indicator above
Third parties that can confirm it: urlscan.io
Legal framing
eu-gdpr-6-1-a
Objections, and the answer
“We do not send personal data, only the page URL.”
If the URL contains what the visitor typed, then the URL is the personal data. The container does not change the content.
What this does not establish
harm; the catalogue standardises a finding so it can be referred to, it does not weigh it
severity; there is no score here, by design. Weighing belongs to whoever applies the entry to a concrete case
unlawfulness; that is for a supervisory authority or a court
intent; a fault is usually a build decision, not a plan
absence: not finding it in one capture is not evidence that it is not there
DPE Catalogue. DPE-2026-0006: User input to third parties. Schema 2.0, entry status active. Retrieved from https://totaledigitalewaarborging.nl/register/DPE-2026-0006
Measurement
When you publish a finding, cite the method version alongside the entry: “DPE-2026-0006, established under DPE Measurement Method 1.0”
Identifiers are permanent and are never
reused. An entry that is deprecated keeps its number and its address, with the reason attached, because
references to it exist elsewhere.