This notice lays out how and why we use cookies on the Centre for Digital Public Services (CDPS) website and offers resources that will allow you to make an informed decision regarding the acceptance, rejection or deletion of any cookies that we use.
By using our website, you consent to our use of cookies, so we recommend that you read through the information below. This cookies policy may change at any time, so please check it regularly.
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers which often includes an anonymised, unique identifier. This means that it can be used to identify you without revealing your personal information. When you visit a website, it asks permission to store a cookie in the cookies section of your hard drive. Cookies are widely used on the internet to make websites work, to make them work more efficiently, or to provide information about your usage of the site to the site owner or other third parties. For example, if you add items to a shopping basket, a cookie allows the website to remember what items you’re buying, or if you log in to a website, a cookie may recognise you later so that you do not have to put in your password again.
How do we use cookies?
We use third-party cookies set by Google Analytics, HubSpot, and HotJar to track the use of the website to identify where improvements can be made, and to improve the way our website works.
We don’t sell the information collected by cookies, nor do we disclose the information to third parties, except where required by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies). Some websites will also use cookies to enable them to target their advertising or marketing messages based, for example, on your location and/or browsing habits. CDPS does not do this.
What cookies are used on this website?
Third-party cookies
A third-party cookie is one that is associated with a different domain or website than the one that you visit. For example, on this site, we use third-party cookies built by Google to enable website analytics, but as our site is not on the Google domain, this makes their cookies “third-party” cookies. The Google Analytics cookie will recognise and count the number of people who visit our site, as well as providing other information such as how long visitors stay, where they move to on our site, and what pages receive the most visits. We cannot directly control how third party cookies behave. The third party cookies used on this site include HubSpot, HotJar and Google Analytics cookies. Information on these cookies can be found below.
HotJar cookies
We use HotJar cookies on our website to enhance your browsing experience and gather valuable insights into how you interact with our content. These cookies allow us to track and record your movements on the site, such as mouse clicks, scrolling behaviour, and keystrokes (anonymously). The information collected through HotJar cookies is used to analyse user behaviour, identify areas for improvement, and optimise the overall user experience. We take your privacy seriously, and all data collected is anonymised and aggregated, ensuring that no personally identifiable information is stored.
Google Analytics cookies
Our website utilises Google Analytics cookies to gather essential data about how visitors interact with our site. These cookies track anonymous information, including the pages you visit, the time you spend on each page, your geographic location, and the website you were referred from. This data helps us understand our audience better and make informed decisions to improve our website's content, layout, and functionality. Google Analytics cookies are stored on your device and do not collect any personally identifiable information.
HubSpot cookies
Our website utilises cookies provided by HubSpot to help us track your engagement with our content, remember your preferences, and analyse user behaviour to improve our website's performance. We use this data to understand how visitors interact with our website and optimise the user experience, as well as ensuring the accuracy of the data stored in the HubSpot platform.
The cookies we use on our site are:
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expires |
| HotJar | _hjFirstSeen | The cookie is set so Hotjar can track the beginning of the user's journey for a total session count. It does not contain any identifiable information. | 30 minutes |
| HotJar | _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | The cookie is set so Hotjar can track the beginning of the user's journey for a total session count. It does not contain any identifiable information. | 30 minutes |
| HotJar | _hjSessionUser_* | Set when a user first lands on a page. Persists the Hotjar User ID which is unique to that site. Hotjar does not track users across different sites. Ensures data from subsequent visits to the same site are attributed to the same user ID. | 1 year |
| HotJar | _hjIncludedInSessionSample_* | Set to determine if a user is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit. 2 minutes duration, extended every 30 seconds. | 2 minutes |
| HotJar | _hjSession_* | Holds current session data. Ensures subsequent requests in the session window are attributed to the same session. 30 minutes duration, extended on user activity. | 30 minutes |
| GoogleAnalytics | _ga_* | This cookie is used by Google Analytics to persist session state. | 1 year 1 month |
| GoogleAnalytics | _ga | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. | 1 year 1 month |
| HubSpot | __hssrc | Whenever HubSpot changes the session cookie, this cookie is also set to determine if the visitor has restarted their browser. | At the end of the session |
| HubSpot | __hssc | This cookie keeps track of sessions. | 30 minutes |
| HubSpot | __hstc | The main cookie for tracking visitors. It contains the domain, hubspotutk, initial timestamp (first visit), last timestamp (last visit), current timestamp (this visit), and session number (increments for each subsequent session). | 6 months |
| HubSpot | hubspotutk | This cookie keeps track of a visitor's identity. It is passed to HubSpot on form submission and used when deduplicating contacts. | 6 months |