Use of cookies on our websites

To make the websites managed by the European Commission work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site.

First party cookies are cookies set by the website you are visiting. Only that website can read them. In addition, a website might potentially use external services, which also set their own cookies, known as third-party cookies.
Persistent cookies are cookies saved on your computer and that are not deleted automatically when you quit your browser, unlike a session cookie, which is deleted when you quit your browser.

Every time you visit the websites managed by the European Commission, you will be prompted to accept or refuse cookies.

The purpose is to enable the site to remember your preferences (such as user name, language, etc.) for a certain period of time.

That way, you do not have to re-enter them when browsing around the site during the same visit.

Cookies can also be used to establish anonymised statistics about the browsing experience on our sites.

How do we use cookies?

The websites managed by the European Commission mostly use first-party cookies. These are cookies set and controlled by the European Commission, not by any external organisation.

However, to view some of our pages, you will have to accept cookies from external organisations.

The 3 types of first-party cookie we use are to:

store visitor preferences
make our websites operational
gather analytics data (about user behaviour).

1. Visitor preferences

These are set by us and only we can read them. They remember:

if you have agreed to (or refused) this site’s cookie policy
if you have already replied to our survey pop-up (about how helpful the site content was) – so you will not be asked again.

Visitor preferences cookies are:

Name: ecsi

Service: Website survey tools

Purpose: Stores information on whether you have already replied to a survey pop-up – so you will not be asked again

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 month

Name: cck3

Service: Cookie consent kit

Purpose: Stores your preferences for 3rd-party cookies (so you won't be asked again)

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie deleted after you quit your browser

Name: cck1

Service: Cookie consent kit

Purpose: Stores your cookie preferences (so you won’t be asked again)

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 6 months

2. Operational cookies

There are some cookies that we have to include in order for certain web pages to function. For this reason, they do not require your consent. In particular:

Authentication cookies: these are stored when you log in to a site managed by the European Commission, using our authentication service (EU Login). When you do this, you accept the associated privacy policy.

Authentication cookies are:

Name: MyEACSDomain

Service: Identity Management Service

Purpose: Remembers your domain

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: __Secure_CASTGC

Service: Identity Management Service

Purpose: Identifies your session

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: __Secure_ECAS_SESSIONID

Service: Identity Management Service

Purpose: Identifies the current Central Authentication Service session

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: ECAS_PREFS

Service: Identity Management Service

Purpose: Remembers your settings and preferences: user id, user name, acknowledged cookie policy, high contrast mode, privacy mode, view account details after login, last strength selected

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

The names of these cookies may change, for technical reasons (particularly __Secure-CASTGC and __Secure-ECAS_SESSIONID).

Technical cookies required by certain IT systems are:

Name: has_js

Service: Corporate content management platform, based on Drupal open source software

Purpose: Determines whether Javascript is enabled in your browser. This allows our websites to function properly

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: JSESSIONID / CFID / CFTOKEN

Service: Java IT platform / Coldfusion IT platform

Purpose: Maintain a secure session for you, during your visit

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: ecsi

Service: Website survey tools

Purpose: Stores information on whether you have already replied to a survey pop-up – so you will not be asked again

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 month

Name of cookie: MoodleSession

Service/website where cookie used: CusTax - EU Learning**

Purpose of cookie: Identifies your session**

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser**

Name: GS_FLOW_CONTROL

Service: GeoServer

Purpose: Used to provide improved performance.

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: SERVERID

Service: GISCO

Purpose: Used to maintain your session secure during your whole visit.

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: jrc_cookie

Service: F5

Purpose: Used to maintain your session secure during your whole visit.

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: TS#

Service: F5 (WAF/ASM)

Purpose: Used to maintain your session secure during your whole visit.

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: enrol-course-url

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Stores the course that the user wanted to enroll to before logging in and enroll the user automatically after the user logins.

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 day

Name: current-url

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Stores the current URL to redirect the user to the same page after login.

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 day

Name: scopes_children

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Used to provide improved cache performance.

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 3 minutes

Name: coursesForTemplate

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Stores all courses that are included in the current branch, excluding courses that the user is already enrolled in, to display them in the result page.

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 5 minutes

Name: learningPlans

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Stores all learning plans that are included in the current branch, excluding learning plans that the user is already enrolled in, to display them in the result page.

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 5 minutes

Name: user_logins

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Counts the number of logins for a user to display a popup containing a form for the user to complete personal information and preferences.

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 1 day

Name: MOODLEID1_SESSSIONCOOKIE

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Sets a Moodle cookie with a weakly encrypted username.

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 60 days

Name: moodledownload_SESSKEY

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Sets a cookie which is used to inform page JavaScript in submit.js. Used if a form submit results in a file download instead of navigating to a new page, before the file download is sent.

Cookie type and duration: First-party session cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: SourceUrl

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Used for the user redirection made after the AWS WAF will block a request

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 60 minutes

Name: CaptchaSession

Service: EU-Academy

Purpose: Cookie checked by the AWS WAF in order to establish if the CAPTCHA was solved by the user

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 60 minutes

Name: dtLatC

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Measures server latency for performance monitoring.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: dtPC

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Required to identify proper endpoints for beacon transmission; includes session ID for correlation.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: Rxvt

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Specifies the session timeout.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: rxVisitor

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Contains the visitor ID to correlate sessions.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: dtCookie

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Tracks a visit across multiple requests.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: dtSa

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Measures server latency for performance monitoring.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

Name: dtValidationCookie

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Used to determine the top-level domain.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Cookie, deleted after a few milliseconds; no expiry date set

Name: dtDisabled

Service: IT hosting infrastructure

Purpose: Determines if the RUM JavaScript should be deactivated due to cost and traffic control or overload prevention.

Cookie type and duration: First Party Session Cookie, deleted after you quit your browser

3. 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 website – as an anonymous user (they data gathered does not identify you personally).

Also, this data is not shared with any third parties or used for any other purpose. The anonymised statistics could be shared with contractors working on communication projects under contractual agreement with the European Commission.

However, you are free to refuse these types of cookies – either via the cookie banner you will see on the first page you visit or at Europa Analytics.

Analytics cookies are:

Name: _pk_id#

Service: Corporate web analytics service

Purpose: Recognises website visitors (anonymously – no personal information is collected on the user)

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 13 months

Name: _pk_ses#

Service: Corporate web analytics service

Purpose: Identifies the pages viewed by the same user during the same visit. (anonymously – no personal information is collected on the user)

Cookie type and duration: First-party persistent cookie, 30 minutes

Third-party cookies

Some of our pages display content hosted by contracted services on domains external to europa.eu, for example our contractor who helps operating the Europe Direct Contact Centre. The external hosting may need cookies in order to function.

Name of the cookie: PHPSESSIONID

Service: Europe Direct contact form

Purpose: Session info (random number), used for dealing with multi-language forms. No additional information stored

Cookie type and duration: Third-party session cookie, set by our contractor. Deleted after you quit your browser

Some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

To view this third-party content, you first have to accept their specific terms and conditions. This includes their cookie policies, which we have no control over.

But if you do not view this content, no third-party cookies are installed on your device.

Third-party providers on Commission websites

These third-party services are outside of the control of the European Commission. Providers may, at any time, change their terms of service, purpose and use of cookies, etc.

How can you manage cookies?

Removing cookies from your device

You can delete all cookies that are already on your device by clearing the browsing history of your browser. This will remove all cookies from all websites you have visited.

Be aware though that you may also lose some saved information (e.g. saved login details, site preferences).

Managing site-specific cookies

For more detailed control over site-specific cookies, check the privacy and cookie settings in your preferred browser.

Blocking cookies

You can set most modern browsers to prevent any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page. And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all (e.g. profile logging-in).

Managing our analytics cookies

You can manage your preferences concerning cookies from Europa Analytics on the dedicated Europa Analytics page.