What you're asking can't be done without tracking an individual in some way.
Imagine you have a physical store, and want to track which clients come back, what products they look at, and in which aisles they stop.
You could take their photo to recognise them when they come back, that's obviously not privacy-respecting at all.
What Google Analytics does is given them a badge with a unique id the first time they walk in, and expect that person to show that unique id on each subsequent visit. And also expect them to show that same badge on every other store (website) they visit. Even in places where they're registered (e.g.: GMail). It's inevitable that by tracking users like that you can eventually tie it to their real life identity, and also produce a really detailed record of all their activities.
This idea has become pretty common somehow: "I just want to see a single user's journey and don't care about who they are". But imagine how you'd do that on a physical store (including with clients that walk out and in again), and if there's ANY way that it wouldn't be super creepy to customers.
Imagine you have a physical store, and want to track which clients come back, what products they look at, and in which aisles they stop.
You could take their photo to recognise them when they come back, that's obviously not privacy-respecting at all.
What Google Analytics does is given them a badge with a unique id the first time they walk in, and expect that person to show that unique id on each subsequent visit. And also expect them to show that same badge on every other store (website) they visit. Even in places where they're registered (e.g.: GMail). It's inevitable that by tracking users like that you can eventually tie it to their real life identity, and also produce a really detailed record of all their activities.
This idea has become pretty common somehow: "I just want to see a single user's journey and don't care about who they are". But imagine how you'd do that on a physical store (including with clients that walk out and in again), and if there's ANY way that it wouldn't be super creepy to customers.