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.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of the Site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse the Site and also allows us to improve the Site.
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
The Site uses the following categories of cookies:
- General cookies - this allows the Site to link the actions of a user during a browser session so that the Site is able to store certain information whilst the user is browsing the Site.
- Google Analytics cookies - Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the Site and volumes of usage.
- Hotjar cookies - Hotjar sets cookies to track visitor behaviour on the Site, including click and scroll locations.
You can find more detailed information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the tables below:
General cookies
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
| scvo_account | To provide My SCVO account services | 1 month |
| cookie_consent | A value used to remember if the user has dismissed the privacy information banner | 1 year |
| scvo_account | Used to allow a users to sign in and maintain a session with the site | 1 month |
| dismissible_* | Used to remember which information boxes a user has dismissed | 1 year |
Google Analytics cookies
The information from the following cookies will be used by Google in accordance with Google's privacy policy. For more information on the cookies set by Google Analytics please refer to the Google Analytics website:
| Name | Purpose | Expiry |
| _ga | This is used to understand and differentiate between different users. | 13 Months |
| _ga_<container-id> | Used to persist session state. Container ID is the identifier for the Google Analytics account being used. | 13 Months |
| _gid | _gid has a different ID for each page set on, and a timestamp. This assists with plotting user journeys. | 24 Hours |
Hotjar cookies
We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users' needs and to optimize 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 pseudonymized 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 |
| _hjClosedSurveyInvites | Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor interacts with a Survey invitation modal popup. It is used to ensure that the same invite does not re-appear if it has already been shown. | 365 days |
| _hjDonePolls | Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor completes a poll using the Feedback Poll widget. It is used to ensure that the same poll does not re-appear if it has already been filled in. | 365 days |
| _hjMinimizedPolls | Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor minimizes a Feedback Poll widget. It is used to ensure that the widget stays minimizes when the visitor navigates through your site. | 365 days |
| _hjDoneTestersWidgets | Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set once a visitor submits their information in the Recruit User Testers widget. It is used to ensure that the same form does not re-appear if it has already been filled in. | 365 days |
| _hjIncludedInSample | Hotjar cookie. This session cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the sample which is used to generate funnels. | 365 days |
| _hjShownFeedbackMessage | This cookie is set when a visitor minimizes or completes Incoming Feedback. This is done so that the Incoming Feedback will load as minimized immediately if they navigate to another page where it is set to show. | 365 days |
| _hjid | Hotjar cookie. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar 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. | 365 days |
| _hjRecordingLastActivity | This should be found in sessionStorage (as opposed to cookies). This gets updated when a visitor recording starts and when data is sent through the WebSocket (the visitor performs an action that Hotjar records). | Session |
| hjTLDTest | When the Hotjar script executes we try to determine the most generic cookie path we should use,
instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where
applicable). To determine this, we try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for
different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. | Session |
| _hjUserAttributesHash | User Attributes sent through the Hotjar Identify API are cached for the duration of the session in order to know when an attribute has changed and needs to be updated. | Session |
| _hjCachedUserAttributes | This cookie stores User Attributes which are sent through the Hotjar Identify API, whenever the user is not in the sample. These attributes will only be saved if the user interacts with a Hotjar Feedback tool. | Session |
| _hjLocalStorageTest | This cookie is used to check if the Hotjar Tracking Script can use local storage. If it can, a value of 1 is set in this cookie. The data stored in_hjLocalStorageTest has no expiration time, but it is deleted immediately after creating it so the expected storage time is under 100ms. | N/A |
| _hjptid | This cookie is set for logged in users of Hotjar, who have Admin Team Member permissions. It is used during pricing experiments to show the Admin consistent pricing across the site. | Session |
| _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 |