Privacy Policy - Cookies

A cookie lets a website recognise your device and store some information about your preferences or interactions.

Why we use cookies

We use protect.scot cookie tracking data to make informed decisions on whether the site is meeting your needs, which leads to us making improvements. For example, we monitor how much traffic each part of the site gets and work to improve areas which are not being found when they should be.

Google Analytics

This site places small files, known as 'cookies', onto your computer to collect information about how you browse. These cookies aren't used to identify you personally.

You will normally see a message on the site before we store a cookie on your computer.

Find out more about how to manage cookies.

Measuring site usage

We use Google Analytics to collect information about how you use protect.scot. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting your needs and to help us make improvements.

We store information about:

  • The pages you visit and how long you spend on each page
  • How you got to protect.scot
  • What you click on while you're visiting protect.scot

We do not:

  • Collect information that can be used to identify you; for example, we never receive your name or address
  • Make any attempt to find out the identities of people visiting protect.scot
  • Allow the tools that we use to find out the identities of people visiting protect.scot
  • Sell, trade or give your details to third parties, unless we are required to do it by law

All information we get through cookies and analytics will be treated in confidence.

Find out more about security and privacy in Google Analytics.

Name Information Expiry

_ga

This is used to understand and differentiate between different users.

38 Months

_gid

_gid has a different ID for each page set on, and a timestamp. This assists with plotting user journeys.

24 Hours

_gat

We use Google Tag Manager to tailor our tracking in case we have different elements that are being tested. For example, setting a tag to track how far a user is having to scroll down a long page. The _gat tag pushes the request rate through quicker.

1 Minute

Opt out: You can opt out of Google analytics cookies.

YouTube: Pages on protect.scot which contain YouTube videos will not set third-party cookies (we use YouTube-nocookie.com). More information is available here.

Help stop the virus. Download the app today.

By using the Protect Scotland app, alongside existing public health and contact tracing measures, you can help to stop the spread of the virus in Scotland.

Help family members to download the app, encourage your colleagues to use it and share it with friends.

If we all play our part, we can all help protect ourselves, our families and Scotland against coronavirus.