Cookies Policy
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we may store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer or device. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
You can change your choice at any time with Cookie settings in the footer.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of SCVO services. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse the SCVO services and also allows us to improve SCVO services.
Cookies 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; and
- 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
Types of cookies used
SCVO uses the following types of cookies:
- Site cookies – this allows us to link the actions of a user during a browser session so that we are able to store certain information whilst the user is browsing SCVO services.
- Google Analytics cookies – Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to SCVO services and volumes of usage.
- LinkedIn and Meta (Facebook) cookies: these help us measure how well our adverts on LinkedIn and Facebook work, for example how many people who saw an advert went on to join SCVO.
- Hotjar cookies – Hotjar sets cookies to track visitor behaviour on the SCVO website, including click and scroll locations.
- ActiveCampaign cookies - ActiveCampaign is email campaign software we use to manage bulletin newsletters, the cookies allow usage to be tracked from email links.
- Mapbox cookies - Mapbox is a system we use for embedding maps on certain pages where we need to show an address location, the cookie is used to track usage information.
You can find more detailed information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the tables below:
Required cookies
Site cookies
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| scvo_account | To provide My SCVO account services | 1 month |
| cookie_consent | Remembers whether you accepted or declined optional cookies, so we don’t ask again | 1 year |
Your choice covers scvo.scot, My SCVO and the SCVO sign-in pages.
Sign-up forms
Our sign-up forms are run by ActiveCampaign and protected by Google reCAPTCHA. They load only when you open a form, and then set cookies that are needed to stop spam.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| __cf_bm | Set by Cloudflare for ActiveCampaign, which runs our sign-up forms, to tell people from bots | 30 minutes |
| Google reCAPTCHA cookies | Set by Google on its own website to check the person filling in a form isn’t a bot | Up to 6 months |
Optional cookies
Google Analytics cookies
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how you use SCVO services.
We store information about:
- the pages you visit and how long you spend on each page
- how you got to our services
- what you click on while you're visiting our sites
We do not:
- collect information that can be used to identify you; for example, we never receive your name or address
- make any attempt to find out the identities of people visiting the site
- allow the tools that we use to find out the identities of people visiting the site
- sell, trade or give your details to third parties, unless we are required to do it by law
All information we get through cookies and analytics will be treated in confidence.
Find out more about security and privacy in Google Analytics.
You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | This is used to understand and differentiate between different users. | 2 years |
| _ga_<container-id> | Used to persist session state. Container ID is the identifier for the Google Analytics account being used. | 2 years |
LinkedIn cookies
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| Conversion | Help advertisers determine how many times people who click on their ads end up purchasing their products or performing a particular action (e.g. submitting a form, watching a video, downloading a PDF, etc). These cookies allow LinkedIn and the advertiser to determine that you clicked the ad and later visited the advertiser's site. Conversion cookies are not used by LinkedIn for personalised ad targeting and persist for a limited time only. | No expiry |
| JSESSIONID | General purpose platform session cookie. It is used to maintain an anonymous user session by the server. | Until end of session |
| lang | This cookie is used to set default locale/language. | Until end of session |
| lidc | This cookie is used for routing from Share buttons and ad tags | 1 day |
| bcookie | This cookie is used by LinkedIn for identifying the Browser ID. It is set from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags. | 1 year |
| bscookie | This cookie is used by LinkedIn to recognise a secure Browser ID. | 1 year |
| UserMatchHistory | This cookie is used by LinkedIn Ads to help measure advertising performance. More information can be found in their cookie policy. | No expiry |
| visit | This cookie is used by LinkedIn as part of their embedded services on the Websites. More information can be found in their cookie policy. | No expiry |
Meta (Facebook) cookies
Facebook pixel allows the website visitors’ behaviour to be tracked once they have been redirected to the provider’s website by clicking on a Facebook ad. This allows the efficacy of Facebook ads to be evaluated for statistical and market research purposes and future advertising measures to be optimised.
A randomly generated user ID and the time of the first visit are also recorded. This ID allows Facebook to recognise returning users on this website and compile data from previous visits.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| _fbp | Lets Meta tell whether a visit came from one of our Facebook adverts | 3 months |
| c_user; xs | We use these cookies to authenticate you and keep you logged in as you navigate between Facebook Pages. | 365 days |
| sb; dbln | These cookies help us to identify your browser securely. | 2 years |
| datr | This is a unique identifier for your browser that, amongst other things, helps us protect you from fraud. This cookie also helps us to identify browsers used by malicious actors and to prevent cyber security attacks. | 2 years |
| csrf | This cookie helps us to keep your account secure. | Session |
| fr | Depending on your choices, this cookie is used to deliver, measure and improve the relevancy of ads. | 90 days |
| _fbc | These cookies identify browsers for businesses using our Meta Products for the purposes of providing advertising and site analytics services. | Session |
| oo | This cookie helps store your advertising preferences. | 5 years |
| presence | This cookie supports your use of Messenger chat windows. | 30 days |
| dpr; wd | These cookies help deliver an optimal experience for your device's screen. | 7 days |
Hotjar cookies
We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimise this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behaviour and their devices. This includes a device's IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymised user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf.
For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of Hotjar’s support site.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| _hjSessionUser_<site-id> | Set when you first land on a page. Holds your Hotjar user ID, which is unique to our site, so that later visits are linked to the same ID. Hotjar does not track you across other sites. | 365 days |
| _hjSession_<site-id> | Holds data about your current visit, so that each page you view counts as part of the same session. | 30 minutes, extended while you are active |
| _hjHasCachedUserAttributes | Lets Hotjar check whether the visitor details it holds in your browser are up to date. | Session |
| _hjUserAttributesHash | Lets Hotjar tell when any of those visitor details have changed and need updating. | 2 minutes, extended every 30 seconds |
| _hjCookieTest | Checks whether the Hotjar tracking code can use cookies. It is deleted almost straight away. | Under 100 milliseconds |
| _hjLocalStorageTest | Checks whether the Hotjar tracking code can use local storage. It is deleted almost straight away. | Under 100 milliseconds |
| _hjSessionStorageTest | Checks whether the Hotjar tracking code can use session storage. It is deleted almost straight away. | Under 100 milliseconds |
| _hjTLDTest | Works out the most general web address Hotjar can set its cookies on, so they can be shared across our subdomains. It is removed once the check is done. | Session |
| _hjClosedSurveyInvites | Set when you respond to a survey invitation, so that the same invitation does not appear again. | 365 days |
| _hjDonePolls | Set when you complete a survey on our site, so that the same survey does not appear again. | 365 days |
| _hjMinimizedPolls | Set when you minimise a survey on our site, so that it stays minimised as you move around the site. | 365 days |
ActiveCampaign
We use ActiveCampaign for email campaign and bulletin usage tracking.
For further details, please see find out more about ActiveCampaign cookies.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| ac_enable_tracking | This cookie is associated with Active Campaign and is set to confirm that tracking has been enabled for the website. Tracking is used to create reports of our web traffic and improve the user experience of the website | 365 days |
Mapbox
We use Mapbox to embed customised maps on our pages where we need to show a physical location for an event. This service sets a cookie to record general usage.
For further details, please see this page about Mapbox cookies.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| session | This is used to record service usage. | 13 Months |
Campaign links
If you accept optional cookies and follow one of our campaign links, we remember which link brought you here for 28 days, so we can tell which campaigns work.
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
|---|---|---|
| utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content | Remember which campaign link brought you here | 28 days |
Changing your mind
Select Cookie settings in the footer of any page to see your current choice and change it. If you decline, we delete the optional cookies we set straight away. Cookies that other companies set on their own websites stay until they expire, but we stop loading their tools.