The websites managed by the European Commission mostly use first-party cookies. These are cookies set and controlled by the European Commission, not by any external organisation.
However, to view some of our pages, you will have to accept cookies from external organisations.
The 3 types of first-party cookie we use are to:
- store visitor preferences
- make our websites operational
- gather analytics data (about user behaviour).
1. Visitor preferences
These are set by us and only we can read them. They remember:
- if you have agreed to (or refused) this site's cookie policy
- if you have already replied to our survey pop-up (about how helpful the site content was) - so you will not be asked again.
Visitor preferences cookies are:
Name: ecsi
Service: Website survey tools
Purpose: Stores information on whether you have already replied to a survey pop-up - so you will not be asked again
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 month
Name: cck3
Service: Cookie consent kit
Purpose: Stores your preferences for 3rd-party cookies (so you won't be asked again)
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie deleted after you quit your browser
Name: cck1
Service: Cookie consent kit
Purpose: Stores your cookie preferences (so you won't be asked again)
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 6 months
2. Operational cookies
There are some cookies that we have to include in order for certain web pages to function. For this reason, they do not require your consent. In particular:
- Authentication cookies: these are stored when you log in to a site managed by the European Commission, using our authentication service (EU Login). When you do this, you accept the associated privacy policy.
Authentication cookies are:
Name: MyEACSDomain
Service: Identity Management Service
Purpose: Remembers your domain
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: __Secure_CASTGC
Service: Identity Management Service
Purpose: Identifies your session
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: __Secure_ECAS_SESSIONID
Service: Identity Management Service
Purpose: Identifies the current Central Authentication Service session
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: ECAS_PREFS
Service: Identity Management Service
Purpose: Remembers your settings and preferences: user id, user name, acknowledged cookie policy, high contrast mode, privacy mode, view account details after login, last strength selected
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
The names of these cookies may change, for technical reasons (particularly __Secure-CASTGC and __Secure-ECAS_SESSIONID).
- Technical cookies required by certain IT systems are:
Name: has_js
Service: Corporate content management platform, based on Drupal open source software
Purpose: Determines whether Javascript is enabled in your browser. This allows our websites to function properly
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: JSESSIONID / CFID / CFTOKEN
Service: Java IT platform / Coldfusion IT platform
Purpose: Maintain a secure session for you, during your visit
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: ecsi
Service: Website survey tools
Purpose: Stores information on whether you have already replied to a survey pop-up - so you will not be asked again
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 month
Name of cookie: MoodleSession
Service/website where cookie used: CusTax - EU Learning**
Purpose of cookie: Identifies your session**
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser**
Name: GS_FLOW_CONTROL
Service: GeoServer
Purpose: Used to provide improved performance.
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: SERVERID
Service: GISCO
Purpose: Used to maintain your session secure during your whole visit.
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: jrc_cookie
Service: F5
Purpose: Used to maintain your session secure during your whole visit.
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: TS#
Service: F5 (WAF/ASM)
Purpose: Used to maintain your session secure during your whole visit.
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: enrol-course-url
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Stores the course that the user wanted to enroll to before logging in and enroll the user automatically after the user logins.
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 day
Name: current-url
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Stores the current URL to redirect the user to the same page after login.
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 day
Name: scopes_children
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Used to provide improved cache performance.
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 3 minutes
Name: coursesForTemplate
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Stores all courses that are included in the current branch, excluding courses that the user is already enrolled in, to display them in the result page.
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 5 minutes
Name: learningPlans
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Stores all learning plans that are included in the current branch, excluding learning plans that the user is already enrolled in, to display them in the result page.
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 5 minutes
Name: user_logins
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Counts the number of logins for a user to display a popup containing a form for the user to complete personal information and preferences.
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 day
Name: MOODLEID1_SESSSIONCOOKIE
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Sets a Moodle cookie with a weakly encrypted username.
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 60 days
Name: moodledownload_SESSKEY
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Sets a cookie which is used to inform page JavaScript in submit.js. Used if a form submit results in a file download instead of navigating to a new page, before the file download is sent.
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: SourceUrl
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Used for the user redirection made after the AWS WAF will block a request
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 60 minutes
Name: CaptchaSession
Service: EU-Academy
Purpose: Cookie checked by the AWS WAF in order to establish if the CAPTCHA was solved by the user
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 60 minutes
Name: dtLatC
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Measures server latency for performance monitoring.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: dtPC
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Required to identify proper endpoints for beacon transmission; includes session ID for correlation.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: Rxvt
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Specifies the session timeout.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: rxVisitor
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Contains the visitor ID to correlate sessions.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: dtCookie
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Tracks a visit across multiple requests.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: dtSa
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Measures server latency for performance monitoring.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: dtValidationCookie
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Used to determine the top-level domain.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Cookie, deleted after a few milliseconds; no expiry date set
Name: dtDisabled
Service: IT hosting infrastructure
Purpose: Determines if the RUM JavaScript should be deactivated due to cost and traffic control or overload prevention.
Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser
Name: X-Qlik-Session
Service: QlickSense
Purpose: Opens and maintains an X-Qlik user session
Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after 30 minutes of inactivity
3. Analytics cookies
We use these purely for internal research on how we can improve the service we provide for all our users.
The cookies simply assess how you interact with our website - as an anonymous user (they data gathered does not identify you personally).
Also, this data is not shared with any third parties or used for any other purpose. The anonymised statistics could be shared with contractors working on communication projects under contractual agreement with the European Commission.
However, you are free to refuse these types of cookies - either via the cookie banner you will see on the first page you visit or at Europa Analytics.
Analytics cookies are:
Name: _pk_id#
Service: Corporate web analytics service
Purpose: Recognises website visitors (anonymously - no personal information is collected on the user)
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 13 months
Name: _pk_ses#
Service: Corporate web analytics service
Purpose: Identifies the pages viewed by the same user during the same visit. (anonymously - no personal information is collected on the user)
Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 30 minutes