Cookie policy

This cookie policy sets out how we use cookies and similar technologies on this website.

We may update this cookie policy from time to time in order to keep you fully informed about our latest practices involving cookies and similar technologies on our website. You should check this policy each time you visit our website in order to find out whether our use of cookies and similar technologies has changed. The effective date of this cookie policy was 20 April 2021. We commit to reviewing this policy annually with our latest update on 18 November 2025.

About cookies

Cookies are data files that are sent between web servers and web browsers, processor memory or hard drives (clients) to recognise a particular user’s device when the user accesses a website. They are used for a range of different purposes, such as customising a website for a particular user, helping a user navigate a website, improving that user’s website experience, and storing that user’s preferences and login information.

Cookies can be classified as either ‘session’ or ‘persistent’ cookies. Session cookies are placed on your browser when you access a website and last for as long as you keep your browser open. They expire when you close your browser.

Persistent cookies are placed on your computer when you access a website and expire at a fixed point in time or if you manually delete them from your browser, whichever occurs first.

Cookies will be set either by our website domain or by third party domains on our behalf. Cookies set by us on our website domain are referred to as ‘First Party’ cookies. Cookies set by third party domains or set on or via our domain on behalf of third parties, are referred to as ‘Third Party’ cookies.

Cookies do not usually contain personal information. Cookies may, however, be used in combination with other information to identify you. We use first party and third-party cookies on our website, and both session and persistent cookies.

Essential cookies

These are cookies which are necessary in order for us to run our website and its essential functions. We use essential cookies for the following purposes on our website:

To administer our website
To ensure our website functions properly when you interact with it
To ensure our website third party plug-ins function properly when you interact with them

Functional cookies

These are cookies that store information about your preferences and recognise you whenever you return to a website, in order to improve your website experience and personalise it for you. We use functional cookies for the following purposes on our website:

To recognise you when you return to our website
To improve your experience of our website
To recognise whether you have accepted the use of cookies on our website
To recognise the type of browsing device you are using, including your browser and browser settings, for the purpose of displaying our website to you in an appropriate format
To remember the language in which to display our website to you
To remember your preferences regarding our website’s appearance

If you require further information about cookies in general, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org

Types of cookies used

Wolverhampton Homes currently uses Google Analytics to monitor traffic to and around our website. Google Analytics uses cookies to help the website analyse how users use the site.

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

We use the following cookies:

Cookie	Description	Duration	Type
CONSENT	This cookie carries out information about how the end user uses the website and any advertising that the end user may have seen before visiting the said website.	6105 days	Necessary
_ga	Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.	2 years	Statistics
_gat	This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to throttle the request rate to limit the collection of data on high traffic sites.	1 day	Statistics
_gid	Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website.	1 day	Statistics
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress	This cookie is used by HotJar to detect the first page view session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie.	1 day	Statistics
_hjFirstSeen	Identifies a new user's first session on a website, indicating whether or not Hotjar's seeing this user for the first time.	1 day	Statistics
_hjid	This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behaviour in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.	1 year	Statistics
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample	Determines if the user's navigation should be registered in a certain statistical place holder.	1 day	Statistics
_hjTLDTest	Registers statistical data on users' behaviour on the website. Used for internal analytics by the website operator.	Session	Statistics
p.gif	Keeps track of special fonts used on the website for internal analysis. The cookie does not register any visitor data.	Session	Statistics
_fbp	Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers.	3 months	Marketing
fr	Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers.	3 months	Marketing
IDE	Used by Google DoubleClick to register and report the website user's actions after viewing or clicking one of the advertiser's ads with the purpose of measuring the efficacy of an ad and to present the targeted ads to the user.	1 year	Marketing
test_cookie	This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to determine if the website visitor's browser supports cookies.	1 day	Marketing
tr	Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers.	Session	Marketing

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	This cookie is set by Youtube to keep track of user preferences for Youtube videos embedded in sites; it can also determine whether the website visitor is using the new or old version of the Youtube interface.	179 days	Marketing
YSC	This cookie is set by YouTube to track views of embedded videos.	Session	Marketing
yt.innertube::nextId	Registers unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from Youtube the user has seen.	Persistent	Marketing
yt.innertube::requests	Registers unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from Youtube the user has seen.	Persistent	Marketing
yt-remote-connected-devices	Stores the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.	Persistent	Marketing
yt-remote-device-id	Stores the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.	Persistent	Marketing
yt-remote-fast-check-period	Stores the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.	Session	Marketing
yt-remote-session-app	Stores the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.	Session	Marketing
yt-remote-session-name	Stores the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.	Session	Marketing
Secure-3PSIDCC	For targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests in order to show relevant & personalised Google advertising.	1 Year	Marketing
Secure-3PAPISID	For targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests in order to show relevant & personalised Google advertising.	1 Year	Marketing
SAPISID	This cookie is generally set through the site by advertising partners, and used by them to build a profile of the website visitor's interests and show relevant ads on other sites.	2 Year	Marketing
SSID	These are essential site cookies, used by the google reCAPTCHA. These cookies use an unique identifier for tracking purposes.	1 Year	Strictly necessary
APISID	These are essential site cookies, used by the google reCAPTCHA. These cookies use an unique identifier for tracking purposes.	2 Year	Strictly necessary
Secure-3PSID	For targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor's interests in order to show relevant & personalised Google advertising.	1 Year	Marketing
HSID	These are essential site cookies, used by the google reCAPTCHA. These cookies use an unique identifier for tracking purposes.	1 Year	Strictly necessary
SID	These are essential site cookies, used by the google reCAPTCHA. These cookies use a unique identifier for tracking purposes.	1 Year	Strictly necessary
SIDCC	This cookie carries out information about how the end user uses the website.	2 Year	Marketing
LOGIN_INFO	Used by YouTube (Google) for storing user preferences and other unspecified purposes.	10 years	Marketing
PREF	Used by YouTube (Google) for storing user preferences and other unspecified purposes.	11 years	Marketing
Recite_Session	Set by Recite Accessibility bar to store users preferences.	Session	Strictly necessary

Recite.Persist	Set by Recite Accessibility bar to store users preferences.	Session	Strictly necessary
Recite.Preferences	Set by Recite Accessibility bar to store users preferences.	Session	Strictly necessary
hssc	This cookie name is associated with websites built on the HubSpot platform. It is reported by them as being used for website analytics.	1 day	Marketing
hssrc	This cookie name is associated with websites built on the HubSpot platform. It is reported by them as being used for website analytics.	Session	Marketing
hstc	This cookie name is associated with websites built on the HubSpot platform. It is reported by them as being used for website analytics.	1 year	Marketing
hubspotutk	This cookie name is associated with websites built on the HubSpot platform. HubSpot report that its purpose is user authentication. As a persistent rather than a session cookie it cannot be classified as Strictly Necessary.	1 year	Functionality
hs-messages-hide-welcome-message	This cookie is used for determining whether you have seen the popup content.	1 day	Functionality
_gat_UA-40911016-1	This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites.	1 minute	Performance

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Google Analytics and performance cookies

Wolverhampton Homes currently uses Google Analytics to monitor traffic to and around our websites. This helps us to provide the best possible user experience and encourages customers to use more cost-effective channels for accessing information on Wolverhampton Homes services. Analytics also help us to identify if our digital channels are offering value for money.

How we audited these cookies

Cleared all existing cookies from the browser
Browsed through navigation and pages within the website
Revisited the cookies tab in the browser to discover cookies that are used on the site
Used definitions of cookies provided by the analytics supplier

Google Analytics uses the following cookies on our website:

pref: This cookie expires after 2 years and is considered as minimally intrusive. It is used to remember your language preferences if you choose to translate any pages. If you block this cookie - the language will default to English and the site will work normally. However, if you want to use the translate feature on more than one page at a time - you will need to enable the cookie.

__utma: This cookie expires after 2 years and is considered as minimally intrusive. Each unique browser that visits a page on the site is provided with a unique ID via the __utma cookie. In this way, subsequent visits to the website via the same browser are recorded as belonging to the same (unique) visitor. Thus, if a person interacted with the website using different browsers, the analytics reports would track this activity under two unique visitors. Similarly if the same browser were used by two different visitors, but with a separate computer account for each, the activity would be recorded under two unique visitor IDs. On the other hand, if the browser happens to be used by two different people sharing the same computer account, one unique visitor ID is recorded, even though two unique individuals accessed the site.

__utmb expires after 30 minutes and __utmc expires at the end of your session: These cookies are considered as minimally intrusive. Google Analytics uses these two cookies to establish a session. If either of these two cookies is absent, further activity by the user initiates the start of a new session.

_utmz: This cookie expires after 6 months and is considered as minimally intrusive. When visitors reach the site via a search engine result, a direct link, or an ad that links to the page, Google Analytics stores the type of referral information in a cookie. The parameters in the cookie value string are parsed and sent in the GIF Request (in the utmcc variable). The expiration date for the cookie is set as 6 months into the future. This cookie gets updated with each subsequent page view to the site; thus it is used to determine visitor navigation within the site.

Google Analytics uses cookies to help the website analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.

Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.

Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf.

Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you in the manner and for the purposes set out in this information.

*Minimally intrusive - limited to first party websites with a low level of intrusiveness and risk of harm to individuals.

My Account and performance cookies

My Account uses cookies to provide a secure, personalised experience and to support essential functionality. Cookies are small text files stored on your device when you access our services.

Types of cookies we use

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Purpose: Enables secure login, session management, and core platform features.

Examples: KEYCLOAK_SESSION, AUTH_SESSION_ID.

Consent: Not required; these cookies are essential for service delivery.

Community Forum Cookies

Purpose: Support forum access, prefill forms, and manage redirects after login or Single Sign-On (SSO).

Examples: email, destination_url.

Consent: Required only if you use the forum feature.

Personalisation Cookies

Purpose: Store your preferences for themes, colour schemes, and text size.

Retention: Up to 12 months.

Consent: Required; you can manage these settings at any time.

Authentication & Security Cookies

Purpose: Maintain secure access and protect against denial-of-service attacks.

Examples: _t (authentication token), dosp.

Consent: Not required; these cookies are necessary for security.

Anonymous Session Tracking

Purpose: Collect non-identifiable analytics to improve platform performance.

Example: ANON_SESSION.

Consent: Not required; data is annonymised.

Types of cookies used

We use the following cookies:

Cookie Name	Type	Lifespan	Purpose
KEYCLOAK_SESSION	Strictly Necessary	Session	Identifies the current browser session for authentication.
KEYCLOAK_IDENTITY	Strictly Necessary	Session	Tracks the authenticated user identity.
AUTH_SESSION_ID	Strictly Necessary	Session	Maintains authentication session state.
email	Community Forum	Session	Prefills forms during account creation or password reset.
destination_url	Community Forum	Session	Redirects user to requested page after login.
sso_destination_url	Community Forum	Session	Redirects user after SSO authentication.
_t	Authentication Token	Up to 1440 hours	Stores authentication token for secure access.
dosp	Security	Session	Indicates denial-of-service protection.
cookietest	Security	Session	Checks if cookies are enabled when authentication fails.
_bypass_cache	Functional	Session	Skips cache during SSO callback.
_forum_session	Functional	Session	Maintains session for forum pages.
ANON_SESSION	Functional	Session	Tracks anonymous sessions for server-side analytics.
Personalisation Cookies	Personalisation	Up to 1 year	Stores user preferences (theme, colour scheme, dark mode, text size).

Your rights and choices

You can manage your cookie preferences at any time through our cookie settings tool
Non-essential cookies will only be activated after you provide explicit consent
You have the right to withdraw consent and request deletion of non-essential data

Data protection

We comply with GDPR and other applicable privacy laws
All cookies have a defined purpose, limited retention period, and are secured using encryption
For more details, please refer to our full Privacy Policy or contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) at DP@wolverhamptonhomes.org.uk

How will we keep our cookie policy up to date?

Wolverhampton Homes will aim to review what cookies are used on our site every year. We will conduct the same audit process as outlined above and update this policy accordingly.