Use of cookies on this website

Learn more about the cookies that Hampshire County Council put on your device

When we provide services we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, we sometimes place small files on your device to help us achieve these goals. These files are commonly known as cookies.

Cookies help to improve your experience on the site but cannot be used to identify you personally.

Cookies can:

  • enable a service to recognise your device so you do not have to give the same information several times during one task
  • recognise that you may already have given a username and password so you do not need to do it for every web page requested
  • measure how many people are using our services so they can be improved

We have split our cookies into three groups.

Essential cookies

Essential cookies are required to make our website work. They enable core functionality such as navigating our pages, accessing secure areas and protecting us from attack, robots and spam. We cannot offer an opt-out as without them the site will not work. These cookies can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.

Server and Content Management System (CMS) cookies

Cookie Purpose Expires
ASP.NET_SessionId ASP.NET_SessionId End of session
website<time/date>T000000Z Cookie generated by the CMS on hants.gov.uk 5 years

Citrix Application Firewall cookies

Cookie Purpose Expires
citrix_ns_id Citrix NetScaler load-balancing cookie End of session
citrixns_id.hants.gov.uk_/_wlf Citrix NetScaler persistent cookie Persistent
citrixns_id.hants.gov.uk_/_wat Citrix NetScaler Transient cookie End of session

Account cookies

When you sign in to your account on our website, these cookies are set to let us know you are signed in.

Cookie Purpose Expires
amlbcookie ForgeRock OpenAm load-balancing cookie (after sign in) End of session
HccIdentity ForgeRock OpenAm session cookie (after sign in) End of session
.ASPXAUTH ASP.NET authentication cookie – local Sitecore ID End of session
HantswebReturnUrl URL to redirect to after successful sign in End of session
Performance cookies

Performance cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on its usage. If you opt-out of performance cookies on our website, then videos will not play.

We use the Sitecore Experience Platform to deliver personalised content. The Sitecore Experience Platform allows us to:

  • provide forms on our website
  • analyse web traffic patterns and trends to improve performance
  • tailor content to user preferences based on previous interactions with the website
  • present different versions of content to different users (also known as A/B testing)

To provide this personalised content, we collect your:

  • IP address
  • GeoIP address

Our commitment is to provide you with relevant content and to uphold our dedication to data protection and privacy.

We use Google Analytics software (Universal Analytics) to collect anonymised information about how you use hants.gov.uk. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.

We do not allow Google to use or share the data about how you use this site.

Google Analytics stores information about:

  • how you got to the site
  • the pages you visit on hants.gov.uk and how long you spend on them
  • what you click on while you are visiting the site

You can opt-out of Google Analytics tracking across the whole web by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser extension.

Find out more about how Google uses your browsing data.

Cookie Purpose Expires
_ga Used to distinguish users 2 years
_gid Used to distinguish users 24 hours
_dc_gtm_<property-id> Used to throttle GTM request rate 1 minute
AMP_TOKEN Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service 30 seconds to 1 year
_gac_<property-id> Contains campaign related information for the user 90 days
SID Used for session state management 2 years
SC_ANALYTICS_GLOBAL_COOKIE Used for Sitecore analytics and personalisation 1 years

YouTube

YouTube may set their own cookies on pages that contain video content. Cookies from services like this are known as third-party cookies. YouTube will set up to four cookies in your browser when you first load a page containing embedded YouTube content.

Cookie Purpose Expires
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos 179 days
YSC Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen End of session
PREF Registers a unique ID that is used by Google to keep statistics of how the visitor uses YouTube videos across different websites 8 months
GPS Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location 1 day

If you share a link to a hants.gov.uk page, the service you share it on (for example, Facebook) may set cookies. We have no control over cookies set on other websites. You can turn them off, but not through us.

Marketing cookies

We use third party cookies on our site to serve you with advertisements we believe are relevant to you and your interests.

We use Facebook Pixel to create custom audiences for our Facebook advertising campaigns. Facebook Pixel lets Facebook connect your activity on this site to your Facebook account for advertising purposes, but it does not give Facebook access to any personal data you submit to us via hants.gov.uk. 

Cookie Purpose Expires
fr Encrypted Facebook ID and Browser ID used to deliver advertising products 3 months
_fbp Used by Facebook to deliver advertising products including remarketing and custom audiences 3 months

Google Ads

Hampshire County Council use Google Ads to promote choose-to-use services and deliver public information campaigns.

Cookie Purpose Expires
HSID Set by DoubleClick to aid in ad serving 10 years
IDE Set by DoubleClick. Contains information about advertising you may have seen before arriving on this website 2 years
SSID Set by Google. Stores information about how you use our website and advertising that you may have seen before arriving. 2 years
How to change your cookie settings

You can change your cookie preferences on our website at any time. Press the Cookie control icon at the bottom of your screen. This will open the Cookie preferences panel, and you can use the toggles to change your preferences. When you press Save and close, your choice will apply instantly.

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, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. 

Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:

To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer's website. 

Find out how opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites.

Where to find further information and guidance

Visit the Information Commissioners Office website to find out more about cookies and the rules organisations must follow when handling your personal data.