By default, report data and all information in your Matomo (Piwik) server are protected and nobody can access it. To view and access any analytics data, Matomo always asks you to sign in with a valid user account.

Some Matomo users may want to make their analytics data open and viewable by anyone. For example if you run a NGO, an open governmental service, an open source project, etc. the analytics data may be of use and interest to many people in your community. By making your Matomo data and communicating that your analytics data is public, members of your community may help you analyse the data and find interesting insights to drive you to overall do better work.

Before you decide to make your analytics data public, please consult with your colleagues and team members and make sure that everyone agrees with this decision.

If you wish to make all analytics data publicly viewable for a particular website, follow these steps:

  • Login to Matomo as an Administrator or a Super User
  • Go to Administration > Users
  • Under “Manage access”, locate the “anonymous” user
  • Choose “View” from the dropdown which is on the right to the “Username”, a pop up will appear
  • Click on “yes” to set the right to view the report for the chosen website

If you later want to remove public access access to your data, follow these steps:

  • Under “Manage access”, locate the “anonymous” user
  • Choose “No access” from the dropdown, a pop up will appear
  • Click “yes” to confirm you remove the permission for the anonymous user

Note that when an anonymous user (not signed in) visits your Matomo dashboard, we do our best to protect privacy and hide from display any Personally Identifiable Information (PII):

  • Visitor Profile feature is disabled for the anonymous user
  • the Visitor IP address and the Visitor ID are not displayed in the UI or API responses for the anonymous user