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Cookies & Privacy

PARLIAMENT'S WEBSITE AND COOKIES

Parliament's websites sets cookies solely in order to enable or enhance functions or improve the navigation experience for the user.

Besides such functional and sessions cookies, analytics cookies are set by third-party tools in order to monitor the quality of the user's experience while visiting the Europarl Parliament website. The European Parliament website does not use web beacons or analogous tracking technologies. Under no circumstances does Parliament use cookies to collect, process, disseminate or record personal data. When relevant, the European Parliament privacy policy applies to local storage and comparable technologies.

Analytics cookies

AT Internet
The following cookies are used on Parliament's website:

  • atidvisitor: this cookie is used to monitor the performance of pages visited by users of Parliament's websites
  • idrxvr: this cookie is used to monitor traffic and highlight issues that may arise by people browsing our websites
  • atredir: this cookie is used to keep of information in case of a JS redirection
  • atuserid: this cookie is used to store the visitor anonymous ID on the Parliament's websites

An AT Internet opt-out option is available. (This page may not be available in your language)

More information on AT Internet data protection policy

Third party cookies

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo, Flickr, Storify and other third-party tools may set cookies for sharing content on social networks or for producing access statistics. The presence, number and status of cookies may depend on how you use the platforms concerned before or while visiting Parliament's website.

You should ascertain what the relevant site's policy is on social networking cookies.

What do you do if you do not want cookies to be set on your computer?

Some people find the notion of information being stored on their computer or mobile device a little intrusive, in particular when that information is stored and used by a third party without their knowledge. If you prefer, it is possible to block some or all cookies, or even delete cookies which have already been set, but you should be aware that you might lose some functions. To do this, you need to alter your browser privacy settings.

Most websites which you visit will use cookies in order to improve your user experience. They enable websites to «remember» you - either for the duration of your visit (using a «session cookie») or for repeat visits (using a «persistent cookie»).

Cookies can have a host of different functions. They let you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster and easier. If a website does not use cookies, it will think you are a new visitor every time you move to a new page on the site – for example, when you close a menu and move to another page, it will not remember that you have closed the menu on the previous page, and it will display the next page with that page's menu open.

Some websites will also use cookies to enable them to target their advertising or marketing messages based, for example, on your location and/or browsing habits.

Cookies may be set by the website which you are visiting («first party cookies») or they may be set by other websites which run content on the page you are viewing («third party cookies»).

A cookie is a simple text file stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server. That server will subsequently be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie. Cookies are managed by your browser. Each cookie is unique and contains some anonymous information such as a unique identifier, site name, digits and letters. It allows a website to remember your browsing preferences.

First party cookies:

First party cookies are set by the website which you are visiting, and they can only be read by that site.

Third party cookies:

Third party cookies are set and used by a different organisation from the owner of the website which you are visiting. For example, to measure its audience a website might use a third-party analytics company, which will set its own cookie to perform that service. The website you are visiting may also have embedded content, e.g. YouTube videos or Flickr slideshows. Those sites may also set their own cookies.

More significantly, a website might use a third-party advertising network to deliver targeted advertising.

Advertising services are not used by Parliament.

Session cookies:

Session cookies are stored temporarily during a browsing session and are deleted from the user's device when the browser is closed.

Persistent cookies:

Persistent cookies are saved on your computer for a fixed period (usually a year or longer) and are not deleted when the browser is closed. They are used where we need to know who you are for more than one browsing session.

Flash cookies:

Many websites use Adobe Flash Player to deliver video and infographics content to their users. Adobe uses its own cookies, which are not manageable through your browser settings. They are used by Flash Player for the same purposes served by other cookies, i.e. to store preferences or track users.

Flash cookies work differently from your web browser's cookies. Instead of having specific cookies for specific functions, a website is restricted to storing all site-related data in one cookie. You can control how much information can be stored in that cookie, but you cannot choose what type of information is allowed to be stored.

What is a web beacon?

A web beacon is an often-transparent graphic image that is placed on a web site that is used to monitor the behaviour of the user visiting the web site. It is often used in combination with cookies.

The European Parliament website does not use web beacons or comparable tracking technologies.

What is local storage?

With local storage, web applications can store data locally within the user's browser. Before HTML5, application data had to be stored in cookies, included in every server request. Local storage is more secure, and large amounts of data can be stored locally, without affecting website performance.