Cookies
We may store information about your visit using cookies (small files of letters and numbers which are sent by us to your computer or other access device when you visit our website) which we can access when you visit our corporate site in future. We do this for the following reasons:
- recognising your preferences so you don't need to re-enter them on every visit
- tracking progress through online applications
- monitoring site performance and content popularity
- remarketing: using third party technologies to advertise online and make ads more relevant to you.
In addition, some third-party services featured on our site may also use cookies for similar reasons.
By using our site, we assume that you're happy to use cookies but if desired, cookies can be disabled through your browser settings - please view your browser's options or help pages for more information. Please note, however, that by deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our site.
We use first-party cookies to store user preferences and provide statistical analysis, while third-party services use cookies to store settings and provide additional functionality.
Preferences
Access the cookie preference centre to update or change your settings.
Update My PreferencesFirst-party cookies
Google Analytics
This is a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. which uses cookies to show us how visitors found and explored our website, and how we can enhance their experience. It provides us with information about the behaviour of our visitors e.g. how many visitors we've had, how long they stayed on the site etc. This service may set up to five cookies from our site, all of which contain anonymous data.
More information on the use of cookies for Google Analytics can be found at Google Analytics Cookie Usage on Websites and Safeguarding your data.
Other
Some of our pages are used for online services (such as making payments and submitting applications), which use 'session' cookies to login or progress through application stages, and are only present within the session. These cookies are strictly necessary to provide the service that the user has requested.
Third-party cookies
In addition to the cookies above, some third-party services we use also store cookies.
X (formerly known as Twitter)
On some pages, we display X (formerly known as Twitter) feeds and share buttons. If you are not already logged into X (formerly known as Twitter), only one cookie is set but being logged in means several are used. For more information, see X (formerly known as Twitter)'s Privacy Policy.
Some of our pages contain a Facebook share button, which sets a number of cookies if you are already logged into your account. For more information please see Facebook's Policy on Cookies, Pixels & Similar Technologies.
Advertising and remarketing
Heriot-Watt University uses third party technologies to advertise online and make ads more relevant. These third parties include media partners such as Google, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Snapchat, LinkedIn, IDP Connect and TEADS who make use of remarketing cookies – both first party (such as Google Adwords and Google Analytics) and third party (such as DoubleClick) – to serve more relevant ads to users based on such users' past visits to our website, whether those users are on our website or on other websites.
Remarketing cookies typically expire a maximum of 180 days from the time that the cookie is set or updated (whichever is the later).
| Service | Purpose | Privacy policy | How to opt out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Advertising Services | Google serves Heriot-Watt's online advertising on Google sites and third-party sites based upon the hw.ac.uk content you have viewed. | https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en | https://adssettings.google.com |
| Facebook will deploy Heriot-Watt's online advertising across the Facebook platform based upon the hw.ac.uk content you have viewed. | https://www.facebook.com/about/basics | Facebook members can choose to opt out by adjusting their advertising preferences in their Facebook account settings. Guidance for members and non-members at https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies/ | |
| LinkedIn Marketing Solutions will deploy Heriot-Watt's online advertising across the LinkedIn platform based upon the hw.ac.uk content you have been viewing. | https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy | There are separate opt-out pages for visitors and members, both available from https://www.linkedin.com/legal/cookie-policy | |
| DoubleClick | DoubleClick is a subsidiary of Google and the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform will deploy Heriot-Watt's online advertising on third-party sites based upon the .hw.ac.uk content you have been viewing. | Privacy Policy | https://adssettings.google.com |
| Snapchat | Snapchat will deploy Heriot-Watt's online advertising on Snapchat based upon the .hw.ac.uk content you have been viewing. | https://www.snap.com/en-GB/cookie-policy/ | https://snap.com/en-GB/cookie-settings |
| Teads | Teads tracks anonymised cookie data to serve advertising, and to make adverts more relevant based upon the hw.ac.uk content you have been viewing. | https://www.teads.com/privacy-policy/ | https://www.teads.com/privacy-policy/ |
| X (formerly known as Twitter) | X (formerly known as Twitter) will deploy Heriot-Watt's online advertising on X (formerly known as Twitter) based upon the .hw.ac.uk content you have been viewing. | https://twitter.com/en/privacy | X (formerly known as Twitter) account holders can adjust their personalisation and data settings across their devices. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-cookies |
| Unibuddy | Unibuddy is an online chat service that allows prospective students to contact our student ambassadors directly to ask questions and find out more about Heriot-Watt. | Unibuddy Privacy Policy | Unibuddy Terms and Conditions |
To opt out of other third-party vendor's use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page or the Digital Advertising Alliance Consumer Choice page.