Cookie Policy

How this website uses cookies

The Homeless Oxfordshire website uses cookies to help us to improve our website and to help the site provide a better user experience.

Cookies are ‘local storage files’ and are used to help websites function and enhance a users experience as well as in some cases collect data about a visitor’s activity on a website. By themselves web pages cannot hold and pass information easily. Cookies help overcome this. They are small text files that are created on a visitor’s computer to store information that aids the running of the website. Cookies come in many guises including:

  • Session: Any first-party cookie with no expiry time, or more specifically any first-party cookie set to expire when the web browser is closed. First-party cookies are those with a domain name that matches the domain or any sub domain(s) of the actual site being analysed. Often this is essential data storage such as a user being able to login to the website account and move around the website whilst being kept logged in or being able to add items to their basket and consequently pay and complete a transaction. These cookies are temporary and when a browser is closed then they are removed.
  • Persistent Cookies: Any first-party cookie with a fixed expiry time in the future. Used for ‘Remember Me’ and functionality that work between browser sessions. Services such as Google Analytics will use cookies to record page hits, referrals and track a visitor’s activity on a particular website.
  • Third-party: Any third-party cookie regardless of expiry time. Third-party cookies are those with a domain name that differs completely from the domain of the actual site being analysed. These cookies can also be used by social networking websites such as Facebook or Twitter. If social bookmarking links are used on a website then Facebook and Twitter will use cookie to enhance a visitor’s interaction with these services. Google Analytics is also considered a third party cookie.

Cookies we use on this website

Below we list a breakdown of the cookies we use on this website and their purpose. Our usage of cookies is completely legitimate and we don’t collect any data for the purposes of cross website advertising.

Tracking Cookies

We use tracking cookies to allow us to better understand the kind of people who visit this website and what content they’re reading. This allows use to make better decisions about our content, offers and fundraising campaigns. Occasionally, we will compile aggregate statistics about the number of visitors this site receives, and browsers being used. No personally identifying data is included in this type of reporting.

Google Analytics

The following activity falls within the bounds of the Google Analytics Terms of Service and the Google Tag Manager Terms of Service

  • Cookie Name: _ga / Cookie Type: Google Analytics / Purpose: to distinguish users / Duration: 2 years
  • Cookie Name: _gidCookie Type: Google Analytics / Purpose: to distinguish users / Duration24 hours
  • Cookie Name: _gat / Cookie Type: Google Analytics / Purpose: Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_ / Duration1 minute
  • Cookie Name: NID / Cookie TypeGoogle Analytics / Purpose: This cookie contains a unique ID Google uses to remember your preferences and other information, such as your preferred language (e.g. English)

Hotjar

This measures how users interact with certain elements on the webpage to help us improve our UX design. The following activity falls within the bounds of the Hotjar privacy policy.

  • Cookie Name: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress / Purpose: used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. / Duration: 30 minutes
  • Cookie Name: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample / Purpose: This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by your site's pageview limit. / Duration: 30 minutes
  • Cookie Name: _hjid / Purpose: Hotjar cookie that 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. / Duration: 365 days
  • Cookie Name: _BEAMER_DATE / Purpose: Hotjar cookie that is used to identify the point at which the user takes an action on the website.
  • Cookie Name: _BEAMER_FIRST_VISIT / Purpose: Hotjar cookie that is used to identify the point at which the user first visits the site.
  • Cookie Name: _BEAMER_LAST_UPDATE / Purpose: Hotjar cookie that is used together with the date to identify the time elapsed between the current and previous actions.
  • Cookie Name: _BEAMER_USER_ID / Purpose: Hotjar cookie that is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier.

Facebook Pixel

We use a facebook pixel to track how you interact with our website through Facebook Ads and posts. You can control how Facebook uses your data for marketing purposes here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen