Cookie policy

What is a cookie?

  • A cookie is a small text file that a website transfers to the browser on your computer’s hard disk so that the site can remember who you are.
  • A cookie will typically contain the name of the website from which the cookie has come, the “lifetime” of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number.
  • We cannot identify you personally by using a cookie. Cookies store no personal data and are not used to gather personal information.

How does Oxfordshire County Council use cookies?

  • To collect statistics about your use of our website, such as when you last visited the site. This information is used to improve the user experience on our website.
  • To help us embed useful maps and videos from Google Maps, YouTube and Vimeo.
  • In order to deliver the best possible experience, the site needs to know if you have JavaScript enabled. Instead of querying your browser each time a page loads, a cookie is set instead.

Enabling or disabling cookies

  • We recommend that you allow all cookies set by this site as they help us provide you with a better service.
  • If you decide to delete or disable our cookies then you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our website.
  • Information about how to enable or disable cookies is available on the about cookies website.
  • Cookies used by Oxfordshire County Council, do not infringe on your privacy or threaten your computer’s security.

Cookie pop-up

You may see a cookie pop-up welcome message when you visit. We’ll store a cookie so that your computer knows you’ve seen it and knows not to show it again.

Name: cookie_agreed

Purpose: This cookie sets whether the user has agreed to the Cookie Policy that appears in a popup when a visitor first comes to the site. The cookie has a duration of 100 days and does not store any personal data.

Expires: 100 days

There is no way to disable this cookie, but you can disable cookies from your browser.

Youtube

When you watch a Youtube video embedded on our website, Youtube may add some cookies for storing user preferences and serve up related content or adverts within the video iframe.

Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE, YSC, PREF, IDE, GPS

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors use our site. This information is used for reporting purposes and to help us improve the customer experience on our site.

Analytics uses its own cookie to track visitor interactions. The cookie is used to store information, such as what time the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before, and what site referred the visitor to the web page.

GA4 uses first-party cookies to identify unique users and individual sessions.

GA4 sets the following primary JavaScript first-party cookies:

  • GA4 Cookie (gtag.js). The _gtag.js cookie is used to identify unique users and sessions. It contains a randomly generated identifier that is used to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data.
  • Analytics Cookie (analytics.js). The _analytics.js cookies are used for tracking user interactions on the website.
  • The _ga cookie is used to identify unique users and expires after two years.
  • The _utma cookie stores the number of visits made from the users’ device, the time of the first visit, the previous visit, and the current visit.
  • The _utmb cookie stores information on how long the user stays on a website which uses Google analytics: when a visit started and when ended. This cookie does not contain any personal information other than the IP address of your device.
  • The _gat cookie is used to limit the number of requests and expires after ten minutes.
  • The _gid cookie is used to track sessions, evaluate engagement and to view insights and overall traffic trends. It measures engagement time and engaged sessions. The _gid cookie expires after 24 hours.

You can opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

 

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