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Cookie policy

Terms and conditions

Please find details of our use of cookies on the CFA UK websites. CFA UK websites use cookies to allow us to collect information automatically in order to personalise your use of our websites.

What is a cookie?

Cookies are small text files of information, downloaded onto your computer or mobile device when you access a website. The information is stored in the form of a small data file written to your hard drive. It allows the website to recognize your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions. This file is neither a virus nor spyware. Access to secure areas of our websites are dependent upon the use of cookies.

Most web browsers have options that allow you to control whether or not to accept cookies and give you the option to delete all cookies. However, please note that disabling cookies in your browser may prevent access to some parts of our websites.

Cookies used in the CFA UK website

Here is a list of the cookies that we store:

cfauk.org  - CFA UK corporate website – for  professional membership body representing more than 12,000 investment professionals in the UK.

  • ASP.NET_SessionId – system cookie Maintains a user’s session state across page requests. Required for core site functionality.
  • SC_ANALYTICS_GLOBAL_COOKIE – system cookie Sitecore analytics cookie used to identify a visitor across sessions and support content personalisation and analytics.
  • __RequestVerificationToken – system cookie Anti‑forgery token used to protect forms from cross‑site request forgery (CSRF) attacks.
  • _ga  Installed by Google Analytics to distinguish unique users and track visitor behaviour, session data, and site usage. Stores information anonymously using a randomly generated identifier.
  • _gcl  Google Ads conversion linker cookie. Helps attribute conversions back to ad clicks and supports advertising performance measurement.
  • _hjSession  Hotjar session cookie used to store session data for behaviour analytics such as heatmaps and user interaction recordings.
  • _hjSessionUser  Hotjar user identifier cookie that persists a unique user ID across sessions to analyse returning visitor behaviour.
  • ai_session  Microsoft Application Insights session cookie used to track session duration and performance metrics for monitoring site health.
  • ai_user  Microsoft Application Insights user identifier cookie that stores a unique ID to correlate telemetry across visits.
  • AspNetCore.Antiforgery – system cookie Anti‑forgery cookie used by ASP.NET Core to protect authenticated actions and form submissions from CSRF attacks.
  • .AspNet.Cookies – system cookie Authentication cookie used by ASP.NET Identity to maintain logged‑in user state.
  • OptanonAlertBoxClosed  OneTrust cookie that records when a user has closed the cookie banner so it does not reappear unnecessarily.
  • OptanonConsent  OneTrust consent‑management cookie that stores the user’s cookie preferences (e.g., analytics, marketing, functional) for compliance with GDPR/PECR.

connect.cfauk.org – CFA UK’s community and volunteer management portal.

  • ASP.NET_SessionID
    • Description: Issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET application, this cookie stores session data during a user's website visit.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Necessary

  • AWSALBCORS
    • Description: Amazon Web Services sets this cookie for load balancing.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Necessary

  • AWSALB
    • Description: This is an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Performance

  • HLTC
    • Description: This is a string; it contains the Higher Logic Tenant Code.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Uncategorized

  • __HL-RequestVerificationToken
    • Description: This is a string; it is our anti-forgery cookie implementation. It is set on page-load with a unique value so that, on form-submission, the request is validated.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Uncategorized

  • CommunityListPageSize
    • Description: This contains the page size to use for the GroupsDashboard control (allcommunities/mycommunities pages). If a user navigates away and returns to the page, it persists that page size (number of communities to return per page). It is removed on page-load after the value has been retrieved.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Uncategorized

  • SSORedirectCount
    • Description: If a user without proper permissions attempts to access a page, Higher Logic attempts to redirect to Authenticate the user via their SSO. After the first redirect attempt, this count is set to 1; this prevents getting stuck in an infinite loop attempting the authentication if the user still does not have permissions to view the page.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Uncategorized

  • EventListPageSize
    • Description: This contains the page size to use for the EventList/Calendar control. If a user navigates away and returns to the page, it persists that page size (number of Events to return per page). It is removed on page-load after the value has been retrieved.
    • Duration: Session
    • Type: Uncategorized

 

Google Analytics

CFA UK uses Google Analytics across our websites to measure and analyse visitor information related to that experience. This involves your IP address, Internet traffic data and data on your browser type and PC being collected by  the following cookies:

  • _utma is used by Google Analytics to identify first-time site ('unique') visitors vs. returning visitors. It expires after two years
  • _utmc identifies unique visitors vs. returning visitors but expires when you close your browser.
  • _utmb is used for general visitor tracking and expires after 30 minutes.
  • _utmz tracks source visits (the origin of the visit). It expires after six months. 

Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)

Our websites may also employ a software technology called clear gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs), which helps us to better manage content on our sites by informing us what content is viewed or clicked on. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier similar in function to cookies. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a visitor's computer, clear gifs are embedded invisibly on web pages and e-mails and are about the size of a period. 


Consent

By using the CFA UK website, by continuing to use the website you consent to the collection and use of the information. CFA UK reserves the right to alter this Cookie Policy from time to time and any changes will take effect from the date they go live on the website.