Your privacy: how cookies are used on the Parliament website

What are cookies?

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:

• enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task
• recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested
• measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there's enough capacity to ensure they are fast
• analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with govt services so we can make them better

You can manage these small files and learn more about them from the article, Internet Browser cookies- what they are and how to manage them from Directgov: How government websites use cookies. If you'd like to learn how to remove cookies set on your device, visit: About cookies: How to control cookies.

Our use of cookies

Cookies for measuring performance of the website

By understanding how people use the Parliament website, we can make improvements to the navigation and content to make the site better and easier to access.

There may be a delay in updating this list. If you do notice any discrepancies, please contact us and let us know.

We use Google Analytics to gather data on the number of people accessing our site, where they are accessing from, what pages they visit, and what technology they are using. Google Analytics cannot identify your personally, but does allow us to understand our users as a group, for example by recording what browsers are being used.

If you have enabled personalisation on your Google account, Google will be able to prepare data models and reports on website habits, which show for instance on which device you have clicked on an advertisement and on which device any eventual purchase took place.

We intend to use Google Signals to better understand how users engage with our sites, across different devices. It will allow us to see more accurate data on users that have ads personalisation turned on, both on how many users are on our site, and more information including cross-device behaviour, demographics and interests. When it is activated, Google Signals enables remarketing (also known as retargeting) campaigns to work across a person's multiple devices. Users can opt-out of Google Analytics Advertising Features through their Google Ads Settings, Google Analtyics Opt-Out Browser Add-on, and the NAI’s consumer opt-out. For more information, see Google Privacy Controls.

Name: _ga
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years

Name: _gid
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Name: _gat_UA-15845045-1
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Name: _gat_UA-15845045-20
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Name: _gat_UA-15845045-32
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Name: _gat_UA-15845045-35
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Name: _utma
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years

Name: _utmb
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 30 minutes

Name: _utmc
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Name: _utmt
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Name: _utmz
Typical content: randomly generated number and information about how the page was reached (eg directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)
Expires: 6 months

Name: __utmmobile
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years  

In addition, we use cookies to support our Content Delivery Network, Cloudflare. The cookie is used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. For example, if the visitor is in a coffee shop where there are infected machines, but the specific visitor's machine is trusted (e.g. because they've completed a challenge within your Challenge Passage period), the cookie allows us to identify that client and not challenge them again. It does not correspond to any user ID in your web application, and does not store any personally identifiable information.

Name: _cfduid
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 1 year

We also run Hotjar to gather data on where users are clicking on pages, how they are viewing single and multiple pages, and to ask simple polls. These cookies record if a user has answered the question or hidden the notifier, so that it stays hidden on all pages.

Name: _hjDonePolls
Purpose: Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor completes a poll using the Feedback Poll widget. It is used to ensure that the same poll does not re-appear if it has already been filled in.
Expires: 365 days

Name: _hjMinimizedPolls

Purpose: Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor minimizes a Feedback Poll widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimizes when the visitor navigates through your site.

Expires: 365 days

Name: _hjDoneTestersWidgets
Purpose: Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor submits their information in the Recruit User Testers widget. It is used to ensure that the same form does not re-appear if it has already been filled in.
Expires: 365 days

Name: _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets

Purpose: Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor minimizes a Recruit User Testers widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimizes when the visitor navigates through your site.

Expires: 365 days

Name: _hjIncludedInSample
Purpose: Hotjar cookie. This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels.
Expires: 365 days

We also use Application Insights to collect information about how you use our services. This helps us meet your needs and improve our website. All the information we collect is anonymous.

Name: ai_user
Purpose: This is used to distinguish users.
Expires: After 1 year.

Name: ai_session
Purpose: This is used to group different actions into a single visit.
Expires: After 30 minutes.

Cookies for managing your current visit

To remember the selections or preferences you’ve already made when looking at information or using a service.

Name: ASP.NET_SessionId
Purpose: to store the user's session ID to allow the site to recognise your movement around the site as being from one computer
Expires: when user exits browser

Cookies to support specific elements of the site

Some elements of the site use cookies to make them easier to use. These are:

Groovy Gecko (vodapi.parliamentlive.tv:
Name: systemid
Typical Content: To identify unique users for UKP’s analytics
Expiry: 12 months

Kaltura (vodplayer.parliamentlive.tv:
Name: volumeControl1_volumeValue
Typical Content: This records the user’s volume preference
Expiry: this will expire when the browser is closed.

Vualto
Name: Cookies_80709178-f878-4b24-9345-d928521c5c30
Typical Content: True or False value to indicate of the tracking cookies are enabled for the website.
Expiry: 6 months

Race Against Chime  – a game in the Education section of the site – uses cookies only if you have asked to connect the game to your Facebook account. This cookie stores your nickname, Facebook ID and your score.

Name: fbsetting_8a99ce37a8803de5e450ee9e0dbb9d20
Typical content: Information is only stored when a user connects with Facebook. This cookie stores your nickname, FacebookID and total score.
Expires: 1 day
This information is only stored when a user connects with Facebook, and is stored in a database on the server. If you are playing the game without connecting to Facebook, no cookies are stored.

The Speaker’s School Council site uses cookies as part of the login process.

Name: SESS9ab115a12f3da60212f97f23466e5ec4
Typical content: User name and password are stored. It allows users to log in again during the same session without re-entering their details.
Expires: When user exits browser

Tracking tags used on our website

In addition to cookies, we also use a number of tracking tags to collect information about your browsing habits on our site and measure performance, in order to make advertising, both on this site and other websites you subsequently visit, relevant to you and your interests, to limit the number of times those adverts are served to you, and to help measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
The tags on the following list are either currently in use or will be implemented shortly. Please be aware that there may be a delay in updating this list. If you do notice any discrepancies, please contact us and let us know.
AdWords - Conversion tracker

• This tag fires when an online order is completed.

FB Pixel Base Code

• This tag fires on all pages viewed.

FB Ticket purchase

• This tag fires when an online order is completed.

Cookies set by other websites through this site

We want to provide interesting and engaging content on our website. On a number of pages we embed media such as YouTube videos. The suppliers of these services may also set cookies on your device when you visit the pages where we have used this type of content. These are known as 'third-party' cookies. Parliament does not control how a third party uses their cookies. You should check these third party websites' privacy policies for more information about their cookies if you are concerned about this.

How to control and delete cookies

We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.

However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.

If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie. For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.

To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.