Cookie Policy


About cookies

A cookie is a small text file that’s stored on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. We use them to:

  • Improve website performance
  • Tailor our website to your interests
  • Remember your preferences
  • Remind you about open days, events, courses etc by showing adverts on other websites (based on what you have looked at on our website)

There are different types of cookies that we use on the Hacktivity Cyber Security Labs website:

  • First party cookies
    These are set by the website you’re visiting. And only that website can read them. We might use a separate company to analyse how people are using their site. And this separate company will set their own cookie to do this.
  • Third party cookies
    These are set by someone other than the owner of the website you’re visiting. Some Hacktivity web pages may also contain content from other sites like YouTube or Flickr, which may set their own cookies. Also, if you Share a link to a Hacktivity page, the service you share it on (e.g. Facebook) may set a cookie on your browser. Hacktivity has no control over third party cookies.
  • Session cookies
    These are stored while you’re browsing. They get deleted from your device when you close your browser e.g. Google Chrome or Safari.
  • Persistent cookies
    These are saved on your computer. So they don’t get deleted when you close your browser. We use persistent cookies when we need to know who you are for more than one browsing session. For example, we use them to remember your preferences for the next time you visit.
  • Other tracking technologies
    Some sites use things like web beacons, clear GIFs, page tags and web bugs to understand how people are using them and target advertising at people. They usually take the form of a small, transparent image, which is embedded in a web page or email. They work with cookies and capture data like your IP address, when you viewed the page or email, what device you were using and where you were.

Use of cookies

We use different types of cookies for different things, such as:

  • Analysing how you use our website
  • Giving you a better, more personalised experience
  • Giving people outside the UK the international version of the website.

Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies let you use all the different parts of Hacktivity. Without them services that you have asked for cannot be provided.

Some examples of how we use these cookies are:

  • Remembering previous actions such as text entered into a registration form when navigating back to a page in the same session

Functional cookies

These help us personalise our websites for you. For instance, if you have visited our website previously, our website would be able to serve personalised content based upon related pages you have viewed beforehand, in order to give you the most tailored website experience.

We can also use these cookies to remember screen resolution, font size and other accessibility preferences that you have set.

Performance cookies

These help us understand how people are using our websites, so we can make them better. We sometimes get our approved partner companies to analyse how people are using Hacktivity Websites and they may set their own performance cookies in order to do this. You can find details of how to opt out of these cookies below.

Some examples of how we use these cookies are:

  • To collect information about which web pages visitors go to most often so we can improve the online experience
  • Identify and solve errors to make sure the website is working properly
  • Testing designs to help improve the look and feel of the website.

Cookies used on the Hacktivity Cyber Security Labs website

  • allow_cookies: A cookie that indicates that you have accepted the cookie policy
  • _hacktivity​_session: A session cookie, representing your logged in session
  • remember_user_token: Enables opt-in to stay logged in when your browser is closed (via the "remember me" check box). Your session still times out automatically after being inactive.
  • _ga: Google Analytics cookie used for visitor tracking. Google Analytics identifies users by a unique number they call “Client ID.” This client ID along with other parameters are stored within this cookie. This does not include any contact information, the only personal information contained within this is your computer ISP address
  • _gid: Google Analytics cookie used to store Session ID and to group the entire session’s activity together for each user. Structure of its value is very similar to _ga cookie.
  • _gat: Google Analytics cookie used for throttling (limiting) requests to Google Analytics. To limit the requests being sent from your browser to Google doubleclick, this cookie is created. It makes sure that doubleclick doesn’t get choked by too many requests. (Google privacy policy)
  • __utma, __utmc, __utmz: Google Analytics cookies used for visitor tracking. Used to distinguish users and sessions, and explain how the users reached the site.

What happens if third party cookies are disabled on my browser

If third-party cookies are disabled on your browser, some features on the website may not work quite as you'd expect. This is because, like most websites, your Hacktivity accounts rely on cookies to provide some services like personalisation.

If your browser is blocking third-party cookies, some of these features can't work properly so you may experience the website being less focused on your requirements. If you’ve chosen to block third-party cookies on your browser and want to avoid problems using the Hacktivity site(s) in future, be sure to set exceptions for Hacktivity. This won't affect your privacy settings on other websites and services you use.

Advertising partners

Some websites use advertising networks to show you specially targeted adverts when you visit. These networks may also be able to track your browsing across different sites.

Any advertising we do on other sites is delivered to you through our approved specialist advertising partners. The cookies accompanying the adverts allow them and our advertisers to monitor the effectiveness of the adverts. Our Advertisers and their agents may also use cookies that they have set on your device when you were browsing other websites. They do this so that they know you have seen a particular advert. This helps them to do things like cap how many adverts you see across the internet and, if you have taken part in market research, the research company may record that you have seen a particular advert.

Cookies can also be used for ‘retargeting’ (for example, reminding you about an open day or other event you may have booked). A cookie is placed on your device that retains your web browsing activity, such as what pages you view or what actions you take on a website. We can then use this information to provide you with online adverts that we think are the most useful for you. Without these cookies, the online advertisements you are served will be less relevant to your interests.

Any company we allow to add tags or code to our website is vetted to ensure that they handle your data responsibly. However, their use of the data is within their control and is subject to their own privacy practices (see below a list of our key advertising partners). We take reasonable measures to protect our users’ data and ensure that it is used in line with our policies. For example, by using advertising technology partners that actively participate in self-regulatory frameworks (such as the EDAA, DAA or NAI) and by contractually restricting how browsing data from our services may be used.

Our current list of advertising partners are:

  • Facebook (inc. instagram)
  • Snapchat
  • Google (inc. YouTube)
  • Tiktok
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Bing

We may sometimes use some or all of the following cookies to aid our advertising:

  • _fr: Encrypted Facebook cookie that stores Facebook ID and Browser ID cookie used for advertising purposes. (Facebook privacy policy)
  • MediaMath
    • HRL8: mathtag.com cookie used for targeting/advertising
    • mt_misc: mathtag.com cookie used for targeting/advertising
    • mt_mop: mathtag.com cookie used for targeting/advertising
    • uuid: mathtag.com cookie used for targeting/advertising
    • uuidc: mathtag.com cookie used for targeting/advertising
    • (Privacy policy)

The following pages detail how to stop individual cookies:

Opting out

If at any time you do not want information about your browsing behaviour to be used for the purposes of delivering advertising to you on this website, you can "opt out" as described below.

If you do choose to opt-out you will continue to see adverts but they may be less relevant to you as they will not be tailored to your interests.

Change your browser settings

You can prevent your browsing from being tracked generally by adjusting your browser settings, browsing in ‘private mode’ or using browser add-ons. You can find out how to do this by visiting the relevant support page for your browser, or by using the help function on your browser:

Ad choices tools for web browsers

You can opt-out from targeted advertising generally across the internet using the opt-out tools of ad industry bodies, including:

Ad choices for mobile applications

If you are accessing Hacktivity though the web browser on your mobile device, you should follow the instructions above. However, mobile applications use different technologies to recognise your device. To opt out of your app usage data being used to target advertising within apps you should follow the instructions below.

  • Apple iOS
    1. Go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising.
    2. Turn on Limit Ad Tracking.
    3. Visit the Apple support page for more information.
  • Google Android
    1. Go to Settings.
    2. Select Google in the Accounts section.
    3. Select Ads in the Privacy section.
    4. Tick Opt out of interest based ads.
    5. Visit the Google support page for more information.
  • Microsoft Windows
    1. Go to Settings.
    2. Tap on Privacy.
    3. Tap on Advertising ID, and turn off Let apps use my advertising ID for experiences across apps
    4. Visit the Microsoft support page for more information.

Last updated: 2023-07-19