Cookie Notice
The SSSC website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best possible user experience.
Cookies perform functions like recognising you each time you visit the site or helping our team to understand which parts of the site you find most interesting and useful.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer, smartphone or tablet by websites that you visit. They are widely used to make websites work and to function more effectively. For example, they may be required to keep you logged in to a service, or to remember your user preferences or shopping cart contents. A cookie will typically contain a record of the web site which issued it, its own name, and a value which is often a randomly generated unique number. Cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information.
A cookie will have a ‘lifetime’, which tells your browser when to delete it. Cookies can be set by the website domain itself, or by another domain, for example by Google Maps.
You can change your cookie preferences at any time.
Change Cookie Preferences
Cookie types
There are several different types of cookie. These are the most common ones:
| Session cookie | A session cookie only lasts for the duration of the user’s website visit.A web browser normally deletes session cookies when it quits. |
| Persistent cookie | A persistent cookie will outlast user sessions. If a persistent cookie has its maximum age set to 1 year, then, within the year, the initial value set in that cookie would be sent back to the server every time the user visited the server. This could be used to record a piece of information such as how the user initially came to this website. For this reason persistent cookies are also called tracking cookies. |
| Secure cookie | A secure cookie is only used when a browser is visiting a server via HTTPS, ensuring that the cookie is always encrypted when transmitting from client to server. |
| First-party cookie | First-party cookies are cookies set with the same domain (or its subdomain) in the browser’s address bar. |
| Third-party cookie | Third-party cookies are cookies set with different domains from the one shown on the address bar (i.e. the web pages on that domain may feature content from a third-party domain – e.g. Google Maps or YouTube). Privacy setting options in most modern browsers allow you to block third-party tracking cookies. |
Cookie uses
Cookies perform many different functions. These are the most common:
| Essential cookies | Some cookies are essential for the operation of our websites. For example, some cookies allow us to identify logged in users and ensure they can access the relevant pages. |
| Performance Cookies | We utilise other cookies to analyse how our visitors use our websites and to monitor website performance. This allows us to provide a high quality experience by customising our offering and quickly identifying and fixing any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective, and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages. |
| Functionality Cookies | We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences, for example which language you want to see the website in. We also use functionality cookies to provide you with enhanced services such as allowing you to watch a video online. |
| Behaviourally Targeted Advertising Cookies | We do not use this type of cookie. |
The law
The principal law which governs how websites use cookies and similar technologies when storing information on a user’s equipment, such as their computer or mobile device, is the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations. The regulations were amended on 9 January 2019.
Regulation 6 covers the use of electronic communications networks to store information (e.g. cookies) or to gain access to information stored in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user. The change in the law was prompted by concerns about online tracking of individuals and is intended to protect the privacy of users by requiring their knowledge and agreement to the use of cookies, even where the information collected is not directly personally identifiable.
Can I turn off cookies?
You can manually disable cookies on your device, or delete existing cookies. You may also be able to view the cookies already in your system. This will depend on your browser. See the links below which tell you how to delete or disable cookies in each of the major browsers.
Please note that the essential cookies are necessary for the effective functioning of some of the services we offer online. If you disable these cookies, a number of important functions and services will be unavailable to you and our websites may not operate correctly in your browser
Cookies and personal information
The SSSC does not use cookies to store personal information about you, and will make no attempt to identify you through use of cookies.
The tables below provide an overview of all the cookies used on the SSSC website, including details of the provider, its source, type, duration, and the reason for its use.
| Cookie | Source | Type | Duration | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IDE | DoubleClick | Tracking Pixel | 2 months | This cookie is used for re-targeting, optimisation, reporting and attribution of online adverts. |
| ASP.NET_SessionId | Episerver CMS | CMS Cookie | Session | Session cookie sent to the web browser. Used when you open the browser and then go to a website that implements ASP.NET session state. |
| EPi:NumberOfVisits | Episerver CMS | CMS Cookie | Indefinite | Used if you are using the Number of Visits personalization criterion. This cookie will not be set if you remove it from all of your visitor groups. |
| EPiServerLogin | Episerver CMS | CMS Cookie | Session | Only used if you log in to a website. This is not a major problem as long as you clearly state on the login page that cookies will be used if you log in. |
| EPiDPCKEY | Episerver CMS | CMS Cookie | Session | Only used if you log in to a website. This is not a major problem as long as you clearly state on the login page that cookies will be used if you log in. |
| ASPXRoles | Episerver CMS | CMS Cookie | Session | Only used if you log in to a website. This is not a major problem as long as you clearly state on the login page that cookies will be used if you log in. |
| cvubl | Site Cookie | Website Cookie | Session | |
| UserLocation | Site Cookie | Website Cookie | Session | User location cookie |
| CompareItems | Site Cookie | Website Cookie | Session | Course comparison cookie |
| __utmli | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | 30 sec | contains the id (if any) of the clicked link (or its parent) to be read on the next page, so in-page analyses can tell where on the page the clicked link was located. |
| __utma | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | 2 years | Tracks the number of times a visitor has been to the site pertaining to the cookie |
| __utmb | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | 30 min | Takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site |
| __utmc | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | Session | Takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site |
| __utmt | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | 10 min | This cookie is set by Google Analytics. According to their documentation it is used to limit the number of requests per user to help the website perform better and limiting the collection of data on high traffic site. |
| __utmz | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | 6 months | __utmz keeps track of where a website visitor came from, what search engine you used, what link you clicked on, what keyword you used, and where you are in the world when you accessed the website. |
| FSGUID | Site Cookie | Website Cookie | Session | Essential cookie used by the website platform to identify a unique browser. |
| _ga | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | 2 years | Google Analytics cookies that are commonly used on website platforms. These third-party cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use the website. |
| _gid | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | 2 years | Google Analytics cookies that are commonly used on website platforms. These third-party cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use the website. |
| _gat | Google Analytics | Google Analytics Cookie | Session | Google Analytics cookies that are commonly used on website platforms. These third-party cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use the website. |
| JSESSIONID | New Relic | Web Site Performance Cookie | Session | The JSESSIONID cookie is used to store a session identifier so that website platforms can monitor session counts for an application. The cookie value is generated by Jetty. |
| anj | AppNexus | Tracking Pixel | 3 months | The anj cookie contains data denoting whether a cookie ID is synced with our partners. ID syncing enables our partners to use their data from outside the Website Platform on the Platform. |
| sess | AppNexus | Tracking Pixel | 1 day | The sess cookie contains a single non-unique value: It is used by the website Platform to test whether a browser is configured to accept cookies from AppNexus. |
| uuid2 | AppNexus | Tracking Pixel | 3 months | This cookie contains a unique randomly-generated value that enables the website Platform to distinguish browsers and devices. |
