Cookies Policy | National Citizen Service

Cookies Policy

What are cookies?

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve the performance of our site.

Cookies are small text files containing a string of characters that can be placed on your computer or mobile device that uniquely identify your browser or device.

What are cookies used for?

Cookies allow a site or services to know if your computer or device has visited that site or service before. Cookies can then be used to help understand how the site or service is being used, help you navigate between pages efficiently, help remember your preferences, and generally improve your browsing experience. Cookies can also help ensure marketing you see online is more relevant to you and your interests.

What categories of cookies does NCS use?

We use the following cookies:

Necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our websites. They include, for example, cookies that enable you, where provided, to log onto the secure area of our websites.
Analytical cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of users and to see how the users move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our websites work, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
Marketing cookies. These allow us to serve up relevant content to users who interact with us across different online platforms including our websites, social media platforms and other digital services we provide.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

Necessary

Cookie Name: liveagent_ptid Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 10 years Purpose: This cookie is used for functionality Salesforce LiveAgent
Cookie Name: liveagent_vc Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 10 years Purpose: This cookie is used for functionality Salesforce LiveAgent
Cookie Name: liveagent_sid Cookie type: Session Expires: n/a Purpose: This cookie is used for functionality Salesforce LiveAgent
Cookie Name: liveagent_oref Cookie type: Persistent 10 years Purpose: This cookie is used for functionality Salesforce LiveAgent
Cookie Name: JSESSIONID Cookie type: Session Expires: n/a Purpose: General purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written in JSP. Usually used to maintain an anonymous user session by the server.
Cookie Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 6 months Purpose: This cookie is set by Youtube to keep track of user preferences for Youtube videos embedded in sites;it can also determine whether the website visitor is using the new or old version of the Youtube interface.
Cookie Name: YSC Cookie type: Session Expires: n/a Purpose: This cookie is set by YouTube to track views of embedded videos.
Cookie Name: Drual.visitor.sf_app_id Cookie type: Session Expires:1 year Purpose: Tracks the user's Salesforce application ID number throughout the different steps of the programme sign up form.
Cookie Name: bioep_shown Cookie type: Session Expires: Today Purpose: Tracks if a user has seen the "Connect" exit pop up survey.
Cookie Name: bioep_shown_session Cookie type: Session Expires: Today Purpose: Tracks if a user has seen the "Connect" exit pop up survey.
Cookie Name: SSESS0f1973b272556aa99f194dba905843d0 Cookie type: Session Expires: 3 months Purpose: This cookie tracks a user's session in Drupal.

Analytics

Cookie Name: _ga Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 2 years Purpose: 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. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners.
Cookie Name: _hjIncludedInSessionSample Cookie type: Persistent Expires: Today Purpose: This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit.
Cookie Name: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample Cookie type: Persistent Expires: Today Purpose: This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit.
Cookie Name: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress Cookie type: Persistent Expires: Today Purpose: This cookie is used by HotJar to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.
Cookie Name: _hjFirstSeen Cookie type: Persistent Expires: Today Purpose: Identifies a new user's first session on a website, indicating whether or not Hotjar's seeing this user for the first time.
Cookie Name: _hjid Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 1 year Hotjar cookie. Purpose: This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
Cookie Name:_gid Cookie type: Persistent Expires: Today This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics. Purpose: This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited.
Cookie Name: _hjSessionUser Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 1 year Hotjar cookie. Purpose: This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
Cookie Name: _hjFirstSeen Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 24 hours Hotjar cookie. Purpose: This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
Cookie Name:_gat_UA-36914547-2 Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 24 hours Purpose: 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. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners.
Cookie Name: _hjSession Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 24 hours Purpose: Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.

Marketing

Cookie Name: fr Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 3 months Purpose: Deliver, measure and improve the relevancy of ads, with a lifespan of 90 days.
Cookie Name: _scid Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 1 year Purpose: Cookie associated with Snapchat. Sets a unique ID for the visitor, that allows third party advertisers to target the visitor with relevant advertisement. This pairing service is provided by third party advertisement hubs, which facilitates realtime bidding for advertisers.
Cookie Name: _gcl_au Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 3 months Purpose: Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services
Cookie Name: IDE Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 1 year Purpose: This domain is owned by Doubleclick (Google). The main business activity is: Doubleclick is Googles real time bidding advertising exchange
Cookie Name: _fbp Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 3 months Purpose: Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers
Cookie Name: _kuid_ Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 6 months Purpose: This cookie carries out information about how the end user uses the website and any advertising that the end user may have seen before visiting the said website.
Cookie Name: CONSENT Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 2 years Purpose: Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services
Cookie Name: 1P_JAR Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 1 year Purpose: Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services
Cookie Name: SNID Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 6 months Purpose: Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services
Cookie Name: NID Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 6 months Purpose: Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services
Cookie Name: SEUNCY Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 1 year Purpose: The purpose of these cookies are to attribute conversion, to create and segment audiences and for remarketing purposes.
Cookie Name: sc_at Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 1 year Purpose: Cookie associated with embedding content from Snapchat.
Cookie Name: X-AB Cookie type: Persistent Expires: 24 hours Purpose: Cookie associated with embedding content from Snapchat.
Cookie Name: personalization_id Persistent Expires: 2 years Purpose: Cookie associated with embedding content from Twitter.

How long will cookies stay on my device?

The length of time a cookie will stay on your computer or mobile device depends on whether it is a “persistent” or “session” cookie. Session cookies will only stay on your device until you stop browsing. Persistent cookies stay on your computer or mobile device until they expire or are deleted. The expiration for each cookie differs depending on purpose and can be seen in the details above.

First and third party cookies

First-party cookies are cookies that belong to NCS, third-party cookies are cookies that another party places on your device through our Service. Third-party cookies may be placed on your device by someone providing a service to NCS, for example to help us understand how our services are being used. Third-party cookies may also be placed on your device by our business partners so that they can use them to advertise our products and services on the Internet.

How to control and delete cookies

If you wish to disable your browser from receiving cookies follow these instructions. Note that if you set your browser to disable cookies, you may not be able to access certain parts of our Service and other parts of our Service may not work properly. You can find out more information about cookie settings from the following website www.allaboutcookies.org.