Privacy and Cookies Statement

This Privacy Statement sets out the data processing practices of the Scottish Qualifications Authority ('SQA') for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and related legislation, through the use of the internet and the World Wide Web. Please read and agree to these terms prior to sending us your details in any electronic communications or for any online transaction.

Privacy Statement

Information about our use of cookies

  1. This policy explains how we use cookies on this website. We recommend that you read our cookies policy so that you are aware of how we use them and can take steps to reject or delete the cookies if you do not agree to them being used.
  2. Cookies are small text files stored on your device and used by website operators in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the operators of the website or certain third parties. Each cookie usually contains a unique string of characters, which allows a website to distinguish your browser or device from other users. In this cookies policy, we also use the term "cookie" to mean any other similar technology, such as web beacons, local stored objects (such as "Flash cookies"), and pixel tags.
  3. We use cookies to enable you to navigate between pages and to generally improve your user experience. We also use cookies to analyse how users interact with this Website, to enable you to share content using social media, and to provide you with embedded content from third parties. We also sometimes use cookie type technologies in emails to identify how users come to this Website so that we can evaluate and measure the effectiveness of our email marketing.
  4. We may combine information collected via cookies with information such as your IP address, the type of browser, device and operating system, for example to provide statistical information about visitors to the Website. Where this Website uses third party cookies, you should check with the relevant third party to see how they use cookies (see section 2 below).
  5. You can find out more about cookies at http://www.allaboutcookies.org. The user instructions for your browser or device will explain how you can control the use of cookies on your device.

Cookies we use

We use the following cookies on this Website:

  1. Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of this Website.
    Purpose Cookie Name Description Expiration

    Load Balancing

    HASQA

    This cookie ensures delivery of this website, by distributing workload across multiple computing resources.

    Session
  2. Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around this Website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way this Website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
    Purpose Cookie Name Description Expiration

    Google Analytics

    _utma
    _utmb
    _utmc
    _utmt
    _utmz

    _ga
    _gat

    These cookies are used to monitor website traffic, search queries and visits to this website.

    _utma – 2 years
    _utmb – 30 minutes
    _utmc – Session
    _utmt – 10 minutes
    _utmz – 6 months

    _ga - 2 years
    _gat - 10 minutes

    Optimizely

    optimizelyBuckets 
    optimizelyEndUserId
    optimizelyPendingLogEvents
    optimizelyRedirect
    optimizelyReferrer
    optimizelySegments 

    This service uses cookies to identify a visitor's browser and track website usage while on this website. The cookies do not collect personal information about you.

    optimizelyBuckets - 10 years
    optimizelyEndUserId - 10 years
    optimizelyPendingLogEvents - 15 seconds
    optimizelyRedirect - 5 seconds
    optimizelyReferrer - 5 seconds
    optimizelySegments - 10 years

     

    Hotjar
     
    _hjClosedSurveyInvites
    _hjDonePolls 
    _hjMinimizedPollsr
    _hjDoneTestersWidgets
    _hjMinimizedTestersWidgets 
    _hjIncludedInSample

    These cookies record information on how visitors are interacting with the website.

    1 year
     
  3. Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to this Website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).
    Product / Purpose Cookie Name Description Expiration

    Cookie Control

    civicAllowCookies

    This cookie is used to track consent, and allow users to control how cookies are set when using this site

    3 months

    Session Tracking

    JSESSIONID

    This cookie is used to track sessions on SQA.org.uk and  the past papers application

    Session

    Site Search

    PREF

    This cookie is set after performing a search through the SQA.org.uk website.

    2 years
    Recruitment Portal ajax_search_cookie Holds the search string used when filtering jobs 1 week
    Recruitment Portal - Secure

    ccp_user5152
    lastaccesstime5152
    sessionid5152

    		 Identifies logged in user
    Holds timestamp for when a page is called from the server
    Holds session ID    		 End of session
    Text size TEXT_SIZE Holds text size to be used -
    Region picker choosecountryregion Cookie to hold country/region chosen 6 months
    Region picker choosecountryregionurl Cookie to hold url for specific region page used on SQA.org.uk 6 months
    Style style Cookie to hold accessibility settings 1 year

    Google Maps

    NID

    This cookie is used for the Postcode Finder service

    6 months
  4. Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to this Website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make this Website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.Not used on SQA.org.uk
  5. Third Party Cookies. In addition to the cookies listed above, we also use the following third party cookies for performance and functional purposes, to provide additional function and to make it easier for you to share content on this Website. These are cookies that are set by a third party when you access this Website, and controlled by that third party.
    Product  Cookie Name Description Expiration

    Insipio Speakit

    _gali

    This cookie is set when you opt to listen to a particular page.

    1 minute

    iPerceptions Survey

    ipe_s
    ipe.pageViewedCount

    IPE

    These cookies relate to the iPerceptions survey that appears on SQA.org.uk, with the last being set only after participation in the survey.

    ipe_s – Session
    ipe.pageViewedCount – Session

    IPE – 3 months

    YouTube

    YSC
    VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

    These cookies relate to the user's YouTube preferences.

    YSC – Session
    VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE – 8 months

Accepting and rejecting cookies