Cookies
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.
How do we use cookies?
The OLS website and the OLS Web Application (hereinafter together the “Websites”) mostly use “first-party cookies”. These are cookies set and controlled by the service provider, ALTISSIA, who acts on behalf and under the instructions of the OLS Data Controller[1]. This type of cookie can only be read by our Websites.
However, some of our Websites’ pages might use external services, which also set their own cookies, known as third-party cookies. You will therefore have to accept cookies from those external services to view some of our pages.
The 3 types of first-party cookie we use are to:
- Store visitor preferences
- Make our Websites operational
- Gather data for analysis (about user behaviour)
Visitor Preferences
These are set by us and only we can read them:
| Name | Service | Purpose | Cookie type and duration |
| remember_web | OLS Web Application | The “remember_web” cookie (aka the “remember me” cookie), is generated by the Service when you log in the application. This cookie remembers your login credentials, to let you quickly log in if the session logged you out. If you log out, it’s deleted. | First-party persistent cookie, 5 years |
| ips4_member_id | OLS Web Application | This cookie would contain the user’s member ID, used to “remember” the user in case their session ends between visits. | First-party cookie |
Operational Cookies
There are some cookies that must be included so that certain web pages function. For this reason, they do not require your consent. In particular:
- Authentication cookies
- Technical cookies required by certain IT systems
Authentication Cookies
These are stored when you log in to the OLS platform. When you do this, you accept the associated privacy policy.
| Name | Service | Purpose | Cookie type and duration |
| device_uuid | OLS Web Application | This is a necessary cookie for accessing secure areas of the site (areas that require authentication). It is used to maintain your logged-in status across different pages. | First-party persistent cookie, 5 years |
| ips4_device_key | OLS Web Application | This cookie is used to improve account security. | First-party cookie
|
| ips4_loggedIn | OLS Web Application | This cookie is set after login, it is used by caching mechanisms to identify if you are logged in. | First-party cookie
|
| ips4_IPSSessionFront | OLS Web Application | This cookie contains the ID of your current session. | First-party cookie
|
| ips4_login_key
| OLS Web Application | A unique key to authenticate your member ID cookie. | First-party cookie
|
Technical cookies
| Name | Service | Purpose | Cookie type and duration |
| laravel_cookie | OLS Web Application | Internally, Laravel framework uses laravel_session to identify a session instance for a user. | First-party persistent cookie, 2 hours |
| XSRF-TOKEN | OLS Web Application | Laravel framework stores the current CSRF token in a XSRF-TOKEN cookie that is included with each response generated by the framework. Laravel uses the CSRF token to protect the application from cross-site request forgery. | First-party persistent cookie, 2 hours |
| qtrans_front_language | OLS Public Website | Used to track which language you have selected to display the public site in. | First-party cookie, 393 days |
| ips4_ipsTimezone | OLS Web Application | This cookie is set by javascript to detect the user’s local time zone so that the software can adapt the displaying of times automatically. | First-party cookie
|
| ips4_noCache | OLS Web Application | This cookie is set in order to prevent certain pages that have been cached from being served to a guest. | First-party cookie
|
| ips4_hasJS | OLS Web Application | This cookie is set by javascript and then later read to determine if javascript is supported in the user agent. | First-party cookie
|
| guestTime – | OLS Web Application | This cookie stores a timestamp so that the system knows when to refresh the guest cache. | First-party cookie
|
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 Websites – as an anonymous user (the data gathered does not identify you personally).
This data is not shared with any third parties or used for any other purpose.
| Name | Service | Purpose | Cookie type and duration |
| _pk_id# | Corporate web analytics service, based on Matomo open source software | Recognises website visitors (anonymously – no personal information is collected on the user). | First-party persistent cookie, 13 months |
| _pk_ses# | Corporate web analytics service, based on Matomo open source software | Identifies the pages viewed by the same user during the same visit. (anonymously – no personal information is collected on the user). | First-party persistent cookie, 30 minutes |
Third-party Cookies
Some cookies are placed by third-party services (Zendesk) that appear on our pages. Zendesk is the OLS support service. It handles the ticketing system and the articles displayed on the support page of the OLS Website.
| Name | Service | Purpose | Cookie type and duration |
| _zendesk_session | Support service | Stores unique session key for Zendesk Classic application. | Third-party essential cookie, 1 year |
| __cfduid | Support service | Cloudflare security settings for guide assets. | Third-party functional cookie, 1 year |
You can only access the OLS support service once you have given your consent to enable third-party tracking cookies and web beacons. Consent to access the support service is requested by a consent pop-up when accessing the Website. By clicking on the “Access Support” link, you agree to enable third party cookies and web beacons.
Some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g. Vimeo and Adobe Connect.
To view this third-party content, you must first accept their specific terms and conditions. This includes their cookie policies, which we have no control over.
If you do not view this content, no third-party cookies will be installed on your device.
Third-party Providers on OLS Websites
Adobe Connect
Vox Teneo
Elastic Cloud
Vimeo
Crashlytics
SendBird
OVH
Zendesk
Invision Community
These third-party services are outside of our control. Providers may, at any time, change their terms of service, purpose and use of cookies, etc.
[1] Head of Unit EACEA.A.2 – Erasmus +: Platforms, Skills and Innovation
How to control cookies
You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish – for details, see aboutcookies.org. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.
Opt-out features
The OLS website uses Matomo (Piwik). Visit our disclaimer page for more information.
By default, website visitors are tracked using the first party persistent cookie from Matomo (Piwik). You may choose not to be tracked by Piwik (opt-out). If you change your mind, you can choose to be tracked again by Piwik (opt-in).
Choosing not to be tracked by Piwik does not affect your navigation experience on the OLS website.
Cookie ‘piwik_ignore’
To check your current status and make your choice, tick the corresponding box in the text below.
Do Not Track feature
Do Not Track is a feature that enables visitors to opt-out from being tracked by websites for whatever purpose, including the use of analytics services, advertising networks and social platforms.
To enable the Do Not Track feature in your browser:
Matomo (Piwik) respects visitors’ preference and will not track visitors that have enabled the Do Not Track feature in their web browsers:
- If the Do Not Track feature is enabled, the visitor will not be tracked. This is a layer on top of the cookies and opt-out mechanism.
- If the visitor does not have the Do Not Track feature enabled and clicks on the opt-out option, the cookie ‘piwik_ignore’ is stored in the browser. All visitors with a piwik_ignore cookie are not tracked.
- If the visitor has disabled all cookies from their browser, the visitor is still tracked but the data is less accurate (Piwik cookies are not used).