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Cookies

We use cookies on our website. A cookie is a small piece of data that a website stores on the visitor’s computer or mobile device.

We use cookies for the technical functioning of the website and, if you consent to it, to collect your browsing experience on our website for aggregated statistics, whose purpose is to improve our communication and the service we offer.

You can find in this page the option to manage your consent.

You can also find some information about cookies relating to our social media channels.

Europa Analytics and its cookies

Europa Analytics is the corporate service, which monitors and evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of the EDPS and the European Commission websites as well as the other websites the Commission data centre hosts.

It uses an open-source analytics platform, Matomo (formerly Piwik), fully controlled by the European Commission. This platform enables the protection of end-user personal data thanks to features such as IP address de-identification. On top of that, the EDPS has created a feature to manage users’ consent to the collection of users’ browsing experience for aggregated statistics.

Data protection information and measures in Europa Analytics

Europa Analytics is configured to use the second level domain europa.eu (used by the websites of European institutions) and to store first-party cookies.

Cookies (from Matomo) used by Europa Analytics enable the European Commission to track the following information about visitors. We use this information to prepare aggregated statistics reports of visitors’ activity:

  • IP address (masked)
  • Location: country, region, city, approximate latitude and longitude (Geolocation)
  • Date and time of the request (visit to the site)
  • Title of the page being viewed (Page Title)
  • URL of the page being viewed (Page URL)
  • URL of the page that was viewed prior to the current page (Referrer URL)
  • Screen resolution of user's device
  • Time in local visitor's time-zone
  • Files that were clicked and downloaded (Download)
  • Links to an outside domain that were clicked (Outlink)
  • Pages generation time (the time it takes for webpages to be generated by the webserver and then downloaded by the visitor: Page speed)
  • Main language of the browser being used (Accept-Language header)
  • Browser version, browser plugins (PDF, Flash, Java, …) operating system version, device identifier (User-Agent header)
  • Language of the visited page
  • Campaigns
  • Site Search
  • Events

To improve the accuracy of the produced reports, information is also stored in a first-party cookie from our website and then collected by Europa Analytics:

  • Random unique Visitor ID
  • Time of the first visit for the specific visitor
  • Time of the previous visit for the specific visitor
  • Number of visits for the specific visitor 

 

The European Commission retains full control of the data collected through first-party cookies by storing the data in servers fully owned and controlled by the European Commission itself.

Besides some session cookies, a random ID persistent cookie is generated by Matomo, which allows Europa Analytics to identify when a user returns to the site. This cookie has an expiration date of 13 months, after which it is automatically removed from the user's device.

  • First party cookies are cookies set by the website you’re visiting. Only that website can read them.  In addition, a website might potentially use an external service to analyse how people are using their site. Europa Analytics sets their own cookie to do this and does not use external parties.
  • Persistent cookies are cookies saved on your computer and are not deleted automatically when you close your browser, unlike a session cookie, which is deleted when you close your browser.

 

Consent to collecting your browsing experience for aggregated statistics

By default, the browsing experience of our website visitors is NOT tracked by Europa Analytics. You may, though, choose to consent to contributing your browsing experience on our website for us to produce aggregated statistics.

If you enable the Do Not Track option (see below for an explanation) in your web browser, we will respect your choice and your  browsing experience on our website will not be tracked for our aggregated statistics.

If you have not enabled the Do Not Track option, we will prompt you a cookie banner for you to make your choice and install a cookie called “edp_cookie_agree” to keep track of your choice. If you consent to analytics, then Europa Analytics is activated and some relevant cookies loaded. You can always decide to withdraw your consent or consent again at any time.

The “edp_cookie_agree” expires after 6 months: then, if your Do Not Track option is not enabled, you will be prompted the cookie banner again to renew your choice.

In case you have disabled all cookies, you will be prompted the cookie banner at each visit of our website.

If you wish to consent to (or withdraw your consent from) analytics:

Accept Refuse

 

Do not track preferences

Do Not Track is a function that allows visitors no to be tracked by websites. Do Not Track options are available in a number of browsers including:

Firefox

Internet Explorer

Chrome

Safari

Opera

 

Restricted access to information

All analytics data communication is encrypted via HTTPS protocol. The analytical reports generated by Europa Analytics can only be accessed through the European Commission Authentication System (ECAS) by authorised Commission staff dealing with Matomo, the relevant European institution staff or by duly authorised external sub-contractors, who may be required to analyse, develop and/or regularly maintain certain sites.

Masking of IP addresses

Note: institution, city and country of origin for statistical purposes are determined from the full IP, then stored and aggregated before a mask is applied. Europa Analytics uses an IP de-identification mechanism that automatically masks a portion of each visitor's IP (Internet Protocol), effectively making it impossible to identify a particular Europa visitor via the sole IP address.

Visitor logs

Europa Analytics automatically deletes visitors' logs after 13 months. Aggregated data are stored for an indefinite period by the European Commission for analysis purposes.

Social media cookies

The EDPS is active on three social media platforms. Our presence in the Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn communities strengthens our online presence and visibility.

  • The EDPS website does not set cookies when displaying links to our social media channels when you browse our website.
  • You can watch EDPS videos, which we upload also to our YouTube page. You can also follow links from our website to Twitter and LinkedIn.
  • Similarly, by clicking on the LinkedIn button on our website, you will be redirected to the LinkedIn site, which has its own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control.

The display of our Twitter feed on this website uses a cookie-free component (provided to us by the European Commission). Clicking on the Twitter icon on this website will re-direct you to the Twitter site, which has its own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control.

Contact

You can enquire us about the way we use cookies via our contact form.