Cookies
Overview
Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently.
We use cookies to collect information about how you use our website, such as the pages you visit. We collect this information in a way that does not identify anyone.
Cookies we use
Analytics cookies
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors use our website. We use that information to help us improve the website for users. Google Analytics cookies store anonymous information about:
- How you got to the website, for example, using a search engine
- What pages you visit, and how long you spend on them
- What you click on the website
Google Analytics collect cookies in a way that does not directly identify anyone. Find out more about how Google safeguard your data
| Name | Expires | Description |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | Two years | These help us count how many people visit our website by tracking if you’ve visited before |
| _gid | 24 hours | These help us count how many people visit our website by tracking if you’ve visited before |
| _gat | One minute | These are used to throttle request rate |
This anonymous data is stored in Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. It’s accessed by our Digital Communications and Learning team to improve the performance of the website.
You can opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites
You can disable these cookies on our website at any time by updating your preferences
Hotjar cookies
We use Hotjar to better understand how you use our website. The service gives us information such as how much time users spend on a page, and what they choose to click on. We use this information to make improvements to the website for all users.
We also use Hotjar to get feedback from users through surveys and polls.
Hotjar uses cookies to collect information on users' behaviour and devices, such as:
- device's IP address (collected and stored anonymously)
- screen size
- device type
- browser
- geographic location (country only)
- preferred language
Hotjar stores this information in a pseudonymised user profile. Neither Hotjar nor we will ever use this information to identify individual users or to match it with further data on an individual user.
For more information, read Hotjar's privacy policy.
You can disable these cookies on our website at any time by updating your preferences
| Name | Expires | Description |
|---|---|---|
| _hjSessionUser_{site_id} | One year | Set when a user first lands on a page. It's used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site and to ensure data from subsequent visits to the same site are attributed to the same user ID. |
| _hjClosedSurveyInvites | One year | Set once a user interacts with an External Link Survey invitation modal. It's used to make sure that the survey doesn't reappear if it's already been shown |
| _hjDonePolls | One year | Set once a user completes a survey on the site. It's used to make sure that the survey doesn't reappear if it has already been completed |
| _hjMinimizedPolls | One year | Set once a user minimises a poll on the site. It's used to make sure the poll stays minimised as a user navigates through the site |
| _hjShownFeedbackMessage | One year | Set once a user minimises or completes Incoming Feedback. It's used to make sure Incoming Feedback stays minimised as a user navigates to other pages where it's set to show |
| _hjid | One year | Set when a user first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It's used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behaviour in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID |
| _hjTLDTest | Session | When the Hotjar script executes, it tries to determine the most generic cookie path it should use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, it tries to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed |
| _hjUserAttributesHash | Session | 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 |
| _hjCachedUserAttributes | Session | 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 |
| _hjLocalStorageTest | Under 100 ms | 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 almost immediately after it is created |
| _hjIncludedInPageviewSample | 30 minutes | Set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample | 30 minutes | Set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's daily session limit |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | 30 minutes | This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie |
| _hjFirstSeen | Session | This identifies a new user’s first session. It's used by Recording filters to identify new user sessions. |
| _hjViewportId | Session | This is used to store user viewport details such as size and dimensions. |
| _hjSession_{site_id} | 30 minutes | This holds current session data. It is used to ensure subsequent requests in the session window are attributed to the same session. |
| _hjSessionTooLarge | Session | This causes Hotjar to stop collecting data if a session becomes too large. It is determined automatically by a signal from the WebSocket server if the session size exceeds the limit. |
| _hjSessionRejected | Session | This cookie, if present, set to '1' for the duration of a user's session, when Hotjar has rejected the session from connecting to our WebSocket due to server overload. It is applied in extremely rare situations to prevent severe performance issues. |
| _hjSessionResumed | Session | This is set when a session/recording is reconnected to Hotjar servers after a break in connection. |
| _hjRecordingEnabled | Session | Set when a Recording starts.It is used to read when the Recording module is initialized to see if the user is already in a recording in a particular session. |
| _hjRecordingLastActivity | Session | Set in Session storage as opposed to cookies. It's updated when a user recording starts and when data is sent through the WebSocket (the user performs an action that Hotjar records). |
Performance cookies
We may work with other partners to monitor and improve the performance of our website. These cookies measure things like how you view YouTube videos that are on our website.
You can disable these cookies at any time by updating your preferences
Necessary cookies
Necessary cookies make the website work. They do things like:
- Security
- Accessibility settings
- Remember which notifications you’ve seen so we don’t show them again
- Remembers your cookie preferences so that we don’t have to ask you again
You may disable these cookies by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.
Secure connection cookies
Your browser uses cookies to make secure connections to websites with a ‘https’ URL. Different versions are used for different levels of security.
PEF online
If you visit PEF Online, additional cookies to those set out above will be placed:
| Name | Set by | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ASP.NET_SessionId | Website | Deleted when user leaves site or after 20 minutes of inactivity | Identifies user for duration of visit to website |
| PEFLanguage | Website | 1 year | Identifies whether user prefers English or Welsh language version of site |
Search.electoralcommission.org.uk
If you visit the political finance search site, no additional cookies to those set out above are used. This site only uses the Google Analytics cookies.
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
If you continue to access the Commission’s websites without changing these settings, we will consider that you consent to the use of cookies as set out above. Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our websites.
How to contact us
Queries about how we collect and handle personal information may be submitted to us by mail or email. Please send requests to:
Andy Smith
Data Protection Officer
The Electoral Commission
General information
This site has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of material under our control.
However, we accept no responsibility for alteration, manipulation or interpretation of its data once placed on the World Wide Web.
Our information on the World Wide Web is subject to change without notice.
Where we provide links to sites, we do not by doing so endorse any information or opinions appearing in them.
We accept no liability over the availability of linked pages. This website is governed by UK law.