Cookies on this website

When we provide services, we want them to be easy to use, useful and reliable. To help us do this, we sometimes place small files on your device when you visit our website. These files are known as cookies.

Cookies help improve your experience of using our website. They do not usually identify you personally.

Cookies can:

  • recognise your device so you do not have to provide the same information more than once during a task
  • remember information you have entered, such as your sign-in details or preferences
  • help us understand how people use our website so we can improve our services

We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring any information we collect is handled in accordance with data protection legislation.

How to change your cookie settings

You can change your cookie preferences on our website at any time.

Select the Cookie Control icon to open the cookie preferences panel. Use the toggles to update your preferences, then select Save and close. Your changes will take effect immediately.

Most web browsers allow you to manage cookies through your browser settings.

Find out how to manage cookies on popular web browsers:

For information about other browsers, visit the browser developer's website.

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

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.

ICO information about cookies

Essential cookies

Essential cookies are required for our website to work properly. They enable core functions such as:

  • navigating pages
  • accessing secure areas
  • protecting the website from malicious activity, including automated bots and spam

Because these cookies are necessary for the website to operate, you cannot opt out of them through your cookie preferences. You can disable them through your browser settings but some parts of the website may not function correctly.

Server and Content Management System (CMS)

These cookies are used by the website platform and supporting infrastructure to:

  • provide secure access
  • manage user sessions
  • help the website operate correctly
.AspNet.Cookies
Used to authenticate signed-in users and maintain secure access to services.
Expires: End of session
NSC_MC_WT_XDNT_*_TD10_443
Load balancer/network traffic management cookie.
Expires: End of session
RequestVerificationToken
Security cookie used to prevent cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks.
Expires: End of session
sxa_site
Used by the CMS to identify which Hampshire County Council website is being viewed.
Expires: End of session
_cf_bm
Used by Cloudflare to identify and manage automated traffic, helping protect the website from malicious activity.
Expires: 30 minutes
ASP.NET_SessionId
Used to maintain your session while you use the website. This helps the website remember information between pages during a single visit.
Expires: End of session

Accounts and sign-in

These cookies are used when you sign in to your account. They allow you to access secure services without having to sign in again on each page.

HantswebReturnUrl
Used to return you to the requested page after signing in successfully.
Expires: End of session
selectedEmployeeNumber
For employees with multiple roles, identifies the role currently being accessed.
Expires: End of session
UnverifiedSecureNumber
Used to remember whether a signed-in user has completed verification of their registered phone number.
Expires: End of session

Privacy and consent

These cookies remember your privacy and consent preferences to help ensure your choices are applied during future visits.

SC_TRACKING_CONSENT
Used to remember your choice about whether website usage tracking and analytics cookies are enabled. This helps ensure your cookie preferences are respected during future visits.
Expires: 13 months

Language preferences

These cookies remember the language setting for the current website. They expire at the end of your session. The cookie names are:

  • Website#lang
  • customerswebsite#lang
  • esihwebsite#lang
  • extrawebsite#lang
  • paywebsite#lang
  • shell#lang
  • staffwebsite#lang
  • supplierswebsite#lang

Live chat

These cookies support live chat services available on Hampshire County Council websites and employee services, including Extra. Some live chat cookies use dynamic names and may include additional characters or identifiers. These are represented using an asterisk (*).

SnapEngageChatSession
Maintains an active live chat session as you move between pages.
Expires: 16 minutes
SnapEngageNoProactiveChat
Remembers when a user has chosen not to receive proactive chat invitations.
Expires: 30 minutes
SnapEngageChatPoll*
Used by the live chat service during customer interactions.
Expires: 16 minutes
SnapEngageChatView
Helps manage the display of the live chat window.
Expires: 16 minutes
SnapEngageBanned
Used to prevent access to the chat service where restrictions have been applied.
Expires: 30 days
SnapEngageChatWindow
Remembers the state of the live chat window, such as whether it is open or closed.
Expires: 30 minutes
SnapEngageMinimizeStashCookie
Remembers when the chat window has been minimised.
Expires: Per click only.
SnapEngageAgentAvatar
Supports the display of live chat agent information.
Expires: 16 minutes
SnapEngageJWT
Stores a security token used to protect communication between your browser and the live chat service.
Expires: 16 minutes
SnapEngageBugApproval
Stores preferences relating to chat feedback and approval settings.
Expires: 1 year
SnapEngageChatMessage
Temporarily stores chat message information during an active conversation.
Expires: 16 minutes
SnapEngageRef
Records the page or source from which a visitor accessed live chat.
Expires: 120 minutes
SnapEngageUserEmail
Remembers an email address entered for live chat purposes.
Expires: 1 year
SnapEngageUserAlias
Remembers a display name or alias used during live chat sessions.
Expires: 1 year
SnapEngageHistory
Helps maintain chat history between visits.
Expires: 1 year
SnapEngageVisit
Identifies and maintains a live chat visitor session.
Expires: End of session

Shop.hants.gov.uk essential cookies

The online shop uses Shopify to provide shopping and checkout services.

These cookies are required for the online shop to work correctly, including managing your basket, checkout and secure access to services.

__Host-Http-shop_binding
Used to securely connect your browser to the online shop and help protect your shopping session.
Expires: 3 hours
_shopify_essential
Used to support essential shop functions and ensure the website operates correctly.
Expires: 1 year
_shopify_test
Used by Shopify to test and monitor website features to help ensure the online shop operates.
Expires: 1 year
_tracking_consent
Used to remember your cookie consent preferences.
Expires: 1 year
cart
Used to remember the items you have added to your shopping basket.
Expires: 2 weeks
cart_currency
Used to remember the currency applied to your shopping basket.
Expires: 2 weeks
discount_code
Used to remember a discount code applied during your visit.
Expires: End of session
localization
Used to remember your preferred regional and language settings.
Expires: 1 year
login_with_shop_finalize
Used to complete the sign-in process when using Shop account services.
Expires: 5 minutes
shopify_pay
Used to support Shopify payment and checkout services.
Expires: 1 year
storefront_digest
Used to verify access to secure areas of the online shop, such as password-protected content.
Expires: 1 year
shopify_override_user_locale
Used to remember your language and regional preferences.
Expires: 1 year

Vimeo essential cookies

If you apply a DNT parameter  to the player, the only cookies that will be set are player_clearance, cf_clearance and _cfuvid, as these cookies are considered essential to the secure operation of the player.

player_clearance
Vimeo security cookie used for bot prevention.
Expires: 7 days
_cfuvid
Cloudflare security cookie used by Vimeo to enforce rate limiting.
Expires: End of session
cf_clearance
Cloudflare security cookie used by Vimeo for bot prevention.
Expires: 1 year

Google services essential cookies

These cookies support the secure operation of Google services used on our website and remember preferences or consent choices where required.

CONSENT
Stores your preferences and consent choices for Google services.
Expires: Approximately 20 years

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, some features such as embedded videos may not work as intended.

Sitecore Experience Platform

We use Sitecore Experience Platform cookies to:

  • provide forms on our website
  • analyse web traffic patterns and trends to improve performance
  • tailor content based on how visitors use 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

The CMS uses the following cookie to help analyse website usage and personalise content for visitors.

SC_ANALYTICS_GLOBAL_COOKIE
Used for the CMS analytics and personalisation.
Expires: 13 months

CMS optimisation

These cookies support websites testing and content improvements to help us provide a better user experience.

sc_test_combination
Used by the CMS to ensure visitors see a consistent version of content during website testing and optimisation.
Expires: 13 months

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to collect anonymised information about how visitors use hants.gov.uk. This helps us understand how people use the website so we can improve our content and services.

We do not allow Google to use or share information collected from this website.

Google Analytics stores information about:

  • how you arrived at the website
  • 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 all websites by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser extension.

Find out more about how Google uses your browsing data.

_ga
Used to distinguish users.
Expires: 2 years
_gid
Used to distinguish users.
Expires: 24 hours
_dc_gtm_<property-id>
Used to throttle Google Tag Manager (GTM) request rate.
Expires: 1 minute
AMP_TOKEN
Contains a token that can be used to retrieve a Client ID from AMP Client ID service.
Expires: 30 seconds to 1 year
_gac_<property-id>
Contains campaign related information for the user.
Expires: 90 days
__utma
Used to distinguish users and sessions.
Expires: 2 years
__utmz
Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site.
Expires: 6 months

Google services performance cookies

Google may set cookies when pages use services such as maps, videos, translations, security tools or other embedded content. These cookies help support the operation and performance of those services.

1P_JAR
Used by Google services to help measure the effectiveness of services and understand how they are used.
Expires: 1 month
NID
Stores your preferences and settings for Google services, such as language preferences. The NID cookie contains a unique ID Google uses to remember your preferences and other information, such as your preferred language (e.g. English), how many search results you wish to have shown per page (e.g. 10 or 20), and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on.
Expires: 6 months
SID (Performance)
Used for session state management.
Expires: 2 years

YouTube

Pages containing embedded YouTube videos may set cookies from YouTube. These are third-party cookies set by YouTube rather than Hampshire County Council. YouTube may set up to four cookies when you view a page containing embedded video content.

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos.
Expires: 179 days
YSC
Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen.
Expires: 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.
Expires: 8 months
GPS
Registers a unique ID on mobile devices to enable tracking based on geographical GPS location.
Expires: 1 day

Vimeo performance cookies 

Pages containing embedded Vimeo videos may set cookies from Vimeo. These are third-party cookies set by YouTube rather than Hampshire County Council. Vimeo’s embeddable video player sets the following cookies.

Vuid
Vimeo-generated ID used for generating analytics information for the video owner.
Expires: 2 years
Player
Stores preferences for player controls (i.e. volume, stream quality, captions).
Expires: 1 year
flags
Specifies feature flags enabled by the video owner.
Expires: 1 year
[clip_id]_password
Stores an encoded password entered to authenticate a password-protected clip.
Expires: End of session
[webinar_uuid]_webinar_registrant
Stores the ID of a user who has registered for a webinar.
Expires: 7 days
lc_[hash]
Stores the ID of a user who has submitted information through a video registration form.
Expires: 7 days

Shop.hants.gov.uk analytics cookies

These cookies help us understand how visitors use the online shop so we can monitor performance and improve the user experience.

_shopify_analytics
Used to collect information about how visitors use the online shop to help improve performance and user experience.
Expires: 1 year
_shopify_s
Used to identify a browsing session for analytics purposes.
Expires: 30 minutes
_shopify_y
Used to recognise returning visitors for analytics purposes.
Expires: 1 year
shop_analytics
Used to collect information about how visitors interact with the online shop.
Expires: 1 year

Marketing cookies

We use third-party cookies to measure the effectiveness of our advertising and help us share information about Hampshire County Council’s services with people who may be interested in them.

Meta advertising

We use the Meta Pixel (formerly known as Facebook Pixel) to understand how visitors interact with our website after viewing or clicking on our advertising on Facebook and Instagram. This helps us measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns and reach relevant audiences.

The Meta Pixel may associate activity on this website with a user's Facebook or Instagram account for advertising and measurement purposes. It does not provide Meta with access to personal information submitted through hants.gov.uk.

fr
Used by Meta to help deliver, measure and improve advertising.
Expires: 3 months
_fbp
Used by Meta to store and track visits across websites for advertising and measurement purposes.
Expires: 3 months
_fbc
This cookie is only set if you arrive at our website by clicking on a Hampshire County Council advertisement or link on a Meta platform, such as Facebook or Instagram. It stores a unique identifier that helps us measure the effectiveness of our advertising and understand how visitors arrive at our website.
Expires: 3 months
datr
This cookie is used by Meta to help identify suspicious activity and maintain the security and integrity of its services.
Expires: 2 years
sb
This cookie is used by Meta to support security and help protect against misuse of its services.
Expires: 2 years

Google Ads

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

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

Social media sharing

If you share content from our website using social media services such as Facebook, LinkedIn or X (Twitter), those platforms may set marketing or tracking cookies in accordance with their own privacy and cookie policies.

Shop.hants.gov.uk marketing cookies

These cookies support marketing activities and help us measure the effectiveness of communications and campaigns where enabled.

_shopify_marketing
Used to remember your marketing cookie preferences and support marketing-related features where enabled.
Expires: 1 year