- OVERVIEW
- Regulation 2016/679 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation, hereinafter “GDPR”) was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on 27 April 2016 and its provisions are directly applicable as of 25 May 2018. The GDPR applies directly in all Member States of the European Union, protecting the rights of all natural persons within the European Union. From a substantive point of view, the GDPR is applicable to all controllers who process personal data.
- The GDPR does not apply to the processing of personal data relating to legal persons, and in particular to undertakings having legal personality, including the name and type of the legal person, as well as its contact details. Personal data is defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. An identifiable natural person is a person who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier, such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier, or to one or more specific elements.
- In relation to the GDPR, cookies can be defining elements in the identification of an individual online, as they can store certain data or information that could lead to the “tracking” and then identification of an individual online. In this sense, the use of cookies can be a way of collecting personal data and therefore falls under the GDPR.
- POLICY ON THE USE OF COOKIES
- This policy covers cookies that are used and run on the https://spark.school/ website and platform.
- WHAT ARE COOKIES?
- This website uses cookies to provide users with an intuitive and interactive online experience.
- Cookies are pieces of text placed on the device you use to access this website. A cookie is a small file of alphanumeric characters that will be stored on a user’s computer, mobile device or other equipment from which a website using this element is accessed.
- This automatic data storage technology is widespread, and is used to collect information such as browser type and operating system, source page, domain name from which the visitor linked to the site, etc., in order to understand how visitors use this web page.
- A cookie does not contain and is not made up of pieces of code, therefore it cannot be run or executed in any way. The cookie cannot produce any change in the device on which it is stored, which is why it cannot pose any threat to the security of the information stored on your device.
- WHAT ARE COOKIES USED FOR?
- Most web browsers, smartphones and other web-enabled devices are normally set to accept cookies.
- The cookies used by this website neither request personal information nor can they lead to the personal identification of internet users who access the website. The data collected through cookies are purely functional, statistical and objective. Often, disabling cookies essential to the website’s functioning can lead to incorrect functioning, a failure to display certain sections or even to the website’s overall failure to function.
- These files make it possible to recognise the user’s terminal and to present the content on the site in a relevant way, adapted to the user’s preferences. Cookies provide users with a pleasant browsing experience and support our efforts to provide convenient services to website users (e.g., online privacy preferences, relevant advertisements, useful recommendations, etc.).
- Cookies are also used to prepare anonymous statistics that help us understand how users benefit from our website, how they use it, and for what purpose. This enables us to improve the structure and content offered on our website, excluding the personal identification of the user.
- You have several possibilities to manage cookies on your computer or device. You can change your browser settings not to accept cookies, or depending on the browser you are using, you may be notified if a website tries to place a cookie on your browser.
- CLASSIFICATION OF COOKIES
- Cookies are diversified, and variations are different, each following a well-defined purpose or coming from a specific source. Thus, cookies can be classified into:
- First-Party Cookies: These cookies are the cookies of the site accessed by a visitor. They mainly have a purely statistical purpose, i.e., calculating the views/accesses of the site (or of a certain section thereof), the number of active sessions, etc.
- Third-Party Cookies: These cookies do not belong to and are not controlled by the site being accessed. They are set by web domains that are not necessarily accessed directly by the user. Third party cookies are inserted by website owners when they wish to interconnect several facilities offered online. A good example of this is the use of an existing YouTube video in the interface of another website. By pressing the “play” button of the video, YouTube can also place cookies on the device from which the access takes place, without the user entering www.youtube.com by default.
- Session Cookies: these cookies are stored for the duration that the browser remains open and are deleted immediately (or at most a few seconds) after closing the browser. These cookies have a purely administrative and functional purpose as they allow the user to benefit from the accessed website in a useful manner.
- Persistent Cookies: As the name suggests, these cookies are stored longer. They have a specific duration for which they will exist on the user’s terminal (from a few minutes to years or decades) and are not automatically deleted when the web browser is closed. The purpose of these cookies is to track users’ interaction with a particular website. An example of this would be to keep the login data of a specific website (Remember Username/Password). However, the user still has full control over these persistent cookies and can delete or block them from their terminal anytime.
- Data Security Cookies: These cookies can only be used by websites using the HTTPS protocol. These cookies contain encrypted data for online payments, transactions, online/mobile banking services, etc.
- WHAT COOKIES ARE USED ON THIS WEBSITE
- The following cookies are used on this website, with the following functionality:
-
COOKIE
DESCRIPTION
SOURCE
VALIDITY
OptanonConsent
This is a general-purpose session cookie used to maintain an anonymised user session by the server. This cookie contains only a randomly generated session ID
.calendly.com
1 year
BE_CLA3
Enables data aggregation, analysis, and report creation to assess marketing effectiveness and for website performance.
.calendly.com
1 year
cb_anonymous_id
Used to facilitate data centre selection and pre-identify visitors on the website without using PII.
.calendly.com
1 year
cb_group_id
Used to assign visitors into segments, making website advertisement more efficient.
.calendly.com
1 year
_clck
This cookie is installed by Microsoft Clarity to store information of how visitors use a website and help in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected includes the number of visitors, the source from which they have come, and the pages visited anonymously.
.calendly.com
1 year
mutiny.user.token
This cookie allows to track a user’s journey and make improvements to optimise this journey for future users.
.calendly.com
3 years
cb_user_id
Used to facilitate data centre selection and pre-identify visitors on the website without using PII
.calendly.com
1 year
__Secure-3PSIDCC
Used by for targeting purposes to build a profile of the website visitor’s interests in order to show relevant & personalised Google advertising.
.google.com
1 year
__Secure-1PSIDCC
Cookie required to use website options and services
.google.com
1 year
__Secure-3PSID
These cookies are used to deliver more relevant ads for you and your interests.
.google.com
2 years
__Secure-1PSID
Cookie required to use website options and services
.google.com
2 years
__Secure-3PAPISID
These cookies are used to deliver more relevant ads for you and your interests.
.google.com
2 years
SAPISID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.com
2 years
APISID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.com
2 years
SIDCC
Google/YouTube. Security cookie that protects user data from unauthorized access.
.google.com
1 year
SID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.com
2 years
__Secure-1PAPISID
Cookie required to use website options and services.
.google.com
2 years
SSID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.com
2 years
HSID
These cookies contain digitally signed and encrypted records of a user’s Google Account ID and most recent sign-in time. The combination of these cookies allows us to block many types of attack, such as attempts to steal the content of forms that you complete on web pages.
.google.com
2 years
1P_JAR
This cookie is used by Google to display personalized advertisements on Google sites, based on recent searches and previous interactions.
.google.com
1 month
AEC
It ensures that requests within a browsing session are made by the user, and not by other sites. These cookies prevent malicious sites from acting on behalf of a user without that user’s knowledge
.google.com
6 months
__Secure-ENID
It is used to secure digitally signed and encrypted data from the unique Google ID and store the most recent login time that Google uses to identify visitors, prevent fraudulent use of login data and protect visitor data from unauthorized parties.
.google.com
6 months
NID
This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation.
.google.com
7 months
HSID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.ro
2 years
__Secure-1PSID
Cookie required to use website options and services.
.google.ro
2 years
APISID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.ro
2 years
__Secure-3PSID
These cookies are used to deliver more relevant ads for you and your interests.
.google.ro
2 years
SAPISID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.ro
2 years
__Secure-1PAPISID
Cookie required to use website options and services.
.google.ro
2 years
SSID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.ro
2 years
SID
Download certain Google Tools and save certain preferences, for example the number of search results per page or activation of the SafeSearch Filter. Adjusts the ads that appear in Google Search.
.google.ro
2 years
__Secure-3PAPISID
These cookies are used to deliver more relevant ads for you and your interests.
.google.ro
2 years
AEC
It ensures that requests within a browsing session are made by the user, and not by other sites. These cookies prevent malicious sites from acting on behalf of a user without that user’s knowledge
.google.ro
6 months
__Secure-ENID
It is used to secure digitally signed and encrypted data from the unique Google ID and store the most recent login time that Google uses to identify visitors, prevent fraudulent use of login data and protect visitor data from unauthorised parties.
.google.ro
6 months
NID
This cookie is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation.
.google.ro
7 months
1P_JAR
This cookie is used by Google to display customised advertisements on Google sites, based on recent searches and previous interactions.
.google.ro
1 month
_fbp
To store and track visits across websites. We show advertising on Facebook to prospective customers. Facebook places cookies to select the visitors for whom they are most likely to be relevant, and to track and analyse the performance of the ads. For more information refer to Facebook’s cookie policy.
.spark.school
3 months
__gpi
Collects information on user behaviour on multiple websites. This information is used in order to optimize the relevance of advertisement on the website.
.spark.school
Per session
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
.spark.school
20 hours
_ga
Any site that implements Google Analytics, including Google services, uses the ‘_ga’ cookie. Each ‘_ga’ cookie is unique to the specific property, so it cannot be used to track a given user or browser across unrelated websites.
.spark.school
2 years
__hs_opt_out
This cookie is used by the opt-in privacy policy to remember not to ask the visitor to accept cookies again. This cookie is set when you give visitors the choice to opt out of cookies.
.spark.school
6 months
__gads
It is associated with the DoubleClick for Publishers service from Google. It serves purposes such as measuring interactions with the ads on our domain and preventing the same ads from being shown to you too many times.
.spark.school
13 months
_gcl_au
First-party cookie _gcl_au Google Adsense Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services.
.spark.school
3 months
wp-settings-14
This cookie is used to customize your view of admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface.
spark.school
1 year
moove_gdpr_popup
Cookie required to use website options and services
spark.school
1 year
wp-settings-time-14
This cookie is used to customize your view of admin interface, and possibly also the main site interface
spark.school
1 year
ln_or
Used to determine if analytics can be carried out on a specific domain.
spark.school
1 day
DV
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use the Site and use the information to compile reports and to help improve the Site.
www.google.com
Per session
OTZ
It is used by Google Analytics and provides an aggregate analysis of Website visitors. The “S” cookie may collect certain information used to help improve services, including the pages users visit most often and whether users get error messages from certain pages.
www.google.com
1 month
- WHAT COOKIES ARE USED ON OUR PLATFORM?
- Functional cookies are used to allow platform use and improve qualities through third-party applications such as Google Analytics and Hotjar.
- HOW DOES THIS WEBSITE USE COOKIES?
- A visit to this site may place the cookies listed in the previous paragraph on the user’s terminal for the following purposes:
- To store user preferences;
- To make the user’s experience on this site a useful one;
- To keep the site operational;
- To be able to offer users all the options available on the website;
- To collect data for purely analytical purposes.
- DELETING COOKIES
- In general, any application that access web pages allows cookies to be saved on the terminal by default. These settings can be changed at any time by the user from the “Settings” menu of each application. Therefore, the user can set the web browser to disallow the storage of cookies, allow cookies only from certain sites, delete cookies already stored and many other such actions. Detailed information about the possibilities and ways to manage cookies can be found in the settings area of the application (web browser).
- OTHER SECURITY ISSUES RELATED TO COOKIES
- As protecting personal data is a goal to be met, it is advisable to be aware of the potential problems that cookies, or, more specifically, their use, may create.
- Since cookies constantly transmit data back and forth (from the user to the website and vice versa), if an attacker or unauthorised person intervenes during the data transmission process, the information contained in cookies can be intercepted, altered or even blocked. Although very rare, this can happen. For example, if the browser connects to the server using an unencrypted network (an unsecured WiFi network), then an attacker can intercept the data transmission.
- OUR RECOMMENDATION
- To use this website to its fullest extent, you must click to accept its cookies. Certain features of the website will not work if you reject the cookies.
- We reserve the right to make any additions or changes to the content of this document. Please visit this page regularly to inform yourself of these and any new applicable information.
- Please also note that each time we change this section, we will mention in the footer of the page the date on which this Policy was last updated.