Cookies policy
Southampton City Council websites place small files called cookies onto your computer or mobile device. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
Southampton City Council makes every effort to maintain the accuracy of the information on our websites and this privacy statement applies to it's subdomains including:
- careers.southampton.gov.uk
- transport.southampton.gov.uk
- data.southampton.gov.uk
It does not apply to the www.southampton.gov.uk website. There is a separate cookies policy for this.
It also does not apply to linked external websites. When linking to another website, we recommend that you read their privacy statement on cookies.
Read on to find out more about the cookies we use, what they are for, and when they expire.
Strictly necessary cookies
Necessary cookies enable core functionality that our websites rely on to work. These cookies can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| CookieControl | Civic UK Cookie Control | This cookie is used to remember a user’s choice about cookies on our website. Where users have previously indicated a preference, that user’s preference will be stored in this cookie. | Six months |
| lbSO_SCCWEB | Load balancing | This is used by our network load balancer. | End of browser session |
| _hjSession_[id] | Careers website | Used to provide functions across pages. | End of session |
| sessionid[id] | Careers website | Used to store token which is used to identify a user that has logged into a website. | End of session |
| lastaccesstime[id] | Careers website | Used to record the time when the website was last accessed. | End of session |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | Careers website | Used to store unique visits. | End of session |
| _hjFirstSeen | Careers website | Used to store first visit to the site. | End of session (Only first time) |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample | Careers website | Used to determine if a user is included in the data sampling defined by the website's daily session limit | End of session |
| _hjSessionUser_[id] | Careers website | Used to store a unique user ID | 1 year |
| _gcl_au | Careers website | To understand how the candidate interacts with the site. | 3 months |
| hs_lastaccesstime[id] | Careers website | Used to record the time when a unique user last signed-in on the website. | End of session |
| hs_sessionid[id] | Careers website | Stores the session id whenever the user signs-in on the website | End of session |
| hs_ccp_user[id] | Careers website | Created when a user signs-in on the portal to track session (to log out user after the timeout period) | End of session |
First-party cookies
First-party cookies are those set directly by our websites. You have full control over these by using the button in the bottom left-hand corner.
Analytical cookies
Analytical cookies are used to collect and report anonymised information on how our websites are used. This helps us to improve the websites based on the needs and behaviour of our visitors.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics cookies to collect information about how visitors use our websites. We do not use this for tracking purposes. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone, including the number of visitors to the website, where visitors have come to the website from and the pages they visited. We also collect the following information: IP address, country, browser, operating system, and screen resolution.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expiration time |
|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google Analytics | Used to distinguish users. | Two years |
| _gid | Google Analytics | Used to distinguish users. | 24 hours |
| _ga_(container-id) | Google Analytics | Used to persist session state. | Two years |
| _gac_gb_(container-id) | Google Analytics | Contains campaign related information. | 90 days |
| _utma | Google Analytics | Used to distinguish users and sessions. | Two years |
| _utmb | Google Analytics | Used to determine new sessions/visits. | 30 minutes |
| _utmc | Google Analytics | Operates in conjunction with the _utmb cookie to determine whether the user was in a new session/visit. | End of browser session |
| _utmt | Google Analytics | Used to throttle request rate. | 10 minutes |
| _utmz | Google Analytics | Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site. | Six months |
Crazy Egg
We use Crazy Egg to learn about how our websites are being used and consider how we can improve the experience for our users. Crazy Egg collects aggregated information and individual anonymised recordings showing how website visitors use the website:
- Whether they are a new or returning visitor
- Page(s) viewed and form(s) interacted with
- Length of visit and time on each page
- Usage of page e.g. where visitors scrolled and/or clicked
- Information about the visitor’s device and referral information
Keystrokes are not recorded and are automatically masked by Crazy Egg. You can view Crazy's Egg's Privacy Policy and how to opt out of Crazy Egg tracking on all websites. You have full control over these by using the button in the bottom left hand corner.
At any time, a Crazy Egg Client or Crazy Egg Visitor may access and/or modify their Personally Identifiable Information or other Information stored by Crazy Egg on their behalf, to enable them to access, rectify and restrict processing of their respective Information, and allow them to export their Information, by accessing their Crazy Egg account and contacting Crazy Egg at privacy@crazyegg.com.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expiration time |
|---|---|---|---|
| _ceir, is_returning | Crazy Egg | Track whether a visitor has visited the site before. | One year |
| _CEFT | Crazy Egg | Store page variants assigned to visitors for A/B performance testing. | One year |
| _cer.s | Crazy Egg | Track a recording visitor session unique ID, tracking host and start time. | Recording session |
| _cer.v | Crazy Egg | Track whether a visitor has visited the site before. | Up to 31 days (expires on the first of the month) |
| _ce.s | Crazy Egg | Track a recording visitor session unique ID, tracking host and start time. | One year |
| _ce.cch | Crazy Egg | Used to check if cookies can be added. | One second |
| _ce.gtld | Crazy Egg | Used to identity the top level domain. | One second |
| ce_need_secure_cookie | Crazy Egg | Used to determine cookie security parameters. | One second |
| ce_successful_csp_check | Crazy Egg | Used to determine if the page has a Content Security Policy rule that would prevent tracking. | 24 hours |
| cebs | Crazy Egg | Used to track the current user session internally. | Session |
| cebsp | Crazy Egg | Used to determine if a survey should be shown. | Session |
| _gat | Crazy Egg | Request rate throttling. | 10 minutes |
| _gat_gtag_UA_[id] | Crazy Egg | Track user behaviour in videos. | 24 hours |
Careers website
The careers.southampton.gov.uk website has additional analytics cookies to understand more about the way website visitors interact with the system.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| ps_rvm_SsY7 | Careers website | Used to assist with visitor monitoring on the ProvideSupport Live Chat tool running on the dashboard. | 1 year |
| ats_ga | Careers website | Used to record the data which the Source Report Internet field uses. | 1 year |
Communications and marketing cookies
We use communications and marketing cookies to share information about your use of our sites to help us show you relevant content on other platforms.
We use a Facebook pixel for the purpose of sharing information about your use of our sites, such as what pages you visit. This helps us show you relevant advertising content when you are on Facebook. It is published by Facebook (Meta) and used by The Ubiquity Group to deliver targeted online advertising across Facebook and Instagram.
Visitors can view their Facebook ads settings and update their preferences at any time. Consent for Facebook third-party cookies cannot be automatically removed by our tool, so please opt out manually.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expiration time |
|---|---|---|---|
| _fbp | First-party cookie. | Up to 180 days | |
| Third-party cookie, set by facebook.com. | End of browser session | ||
| fr | Third-party cookie, set by facebook.com. | Three months |
Google pixels
Published by Google and used by both Southampton City Council and The Ubiquity Group to deliver targeted online advertising across the Google display network. Find out how you can opt out of personalised ads.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expiration time |
|---|---|---|---|
| gtag | Deliver targeted online advertising. | Up to 540 days |
Quantcast pixels
Published by Quantcast and used by The Ubiquity Group to deliver targeted online advertising across the Quantcast network.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expiration time |
|---|---|---|---|
| d | Quantcast | Deliver targeted online advertising. | Up to 13 months |
Basis pixels
Published by Basis and used by The Ubiquity Group to deliver targeted online advertising across Facebook and Instagram.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expiration time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UpTag | Basis | Deliver targeted online advertising. | Up to 180 days |
How do I change my cookies settings?
If you select the 'C' icon in the bottom left corner this will allow you to change your cookie settings. You can then adjust the available sliders to ‘On’ or ‘Off’, then click ‘Confirm your choices’. You may need to refresh your page for your settings to take effect. Consent for Facebook third-party cookies cannot be automatically removed by our tool, so please opt out manually.
Alternatively, 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.
You can also opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites.
Legacy cookies
The above information relates to the cookies we currently set on our website. If you have visited our website before and other cookies have been set on your device, those cookies will clear when they reach their expiration date. If you wish to clear all cookies from your device, please follow the instructions in your browser. This is sometimes described as clearing your browser cache.
Third-party cookies
Third-party cookies are those set by another domain other than the one you are visiting. For instance, some of our web pages may contain content from other sites, like YouTube or Google Maps, which may set their own cookies.
We also use some third-party cookies to help us deliver our services. Please see these links for their cookie policies:
- Capita
- Civica eStore
- Conduent
- Granicus
- Home Connections
- NEC Software Solutions
- Stopford
- Unit4
- Unicard
In these instances, please refer to the cookies policy of the third party for further information about their cookies and details on how to opt out.
Verint
We use Verint for many of our online forms. This has the following third-party necessary cookies which can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.
| Cookie | Name | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| PORTAL_SESSION_ID | Verint Cloud Services | Required | Session |
If you have any concerns or questions relating to this statement then please contact: dataprotection@southampton.gov.uk.
Date last updated: 15 April 2026