Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device (such as a smartphone or a tablet) when you visit the site. 

We use cookies for the technical functioning of the website and, if you consent to it, to collect your browsing experience on our website for aggregated statistics, whose purpose is to improve our communication and the service we offer. Our cookies are not used to identify you personally. 

You can also find some information about cookies relating to our social media channels. 

ELA uses different types of cookies: 

• First party cookies. These are set by the website you’re 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. These are set and stored by a different website in a manner that is outside the control of ELA. 

• Session cookies are temporary cookies that are normally deleted when you close your browser, while persistent cookies remain stored on your device after you close your browser and they are deleted when their specified retention period expires or when you remove them through your browser or cookie settings. 

How do we use cookies?

At ELA we mostly use first party cookies, which comprise of two categories: 

• Essential cookies (also referred to as technical/functional cookies), which are necessary for the technical functioning and security of the website. These cookies are always placed when you visit the ELA website. Typically, this type of cookies does not require user’s consent. Apart from the first party cookies, cookies associated with the europa.eu domain may also be used when visitors complete forms protected by CAPTCHA, which helps distinguish human users from automated programmes, or log in the website.

• Analytics cookies, which are used, subject to your consent, to generate anonymous and aggregated website statistics and improve the usability, accessibility, navigation, content structure and overall user experience of the ELA website. Analytics cookies are provided through Europa Analytics (Matomo) and Hotjar. Europa Analytics sets their own cookie to do this and does not use external parties. Also, Hotjar is an external service provider, but its Tracking Code places cookies through the ELA website domain. 

By default, the browsing experience of our website visitors is NOT tracked by analytical cookies. You may, though, choose to consent to contributing your browsing experience on our website for us to produce aggregated statistics. 

Note that every time you visit ELA’s website, you will be prompted (via a cookie banner) to accept all or accept only essential cookies. 

If you accept all cookies, it is considered that you provide your consent for analytics cookies. 

If you accept only essential cookies, a cookie will still be placed to prohibit any tracking for analytics purposes on our side. 

Refusing or withdrawing your consent to analytics cookies does not affect your access to or use of the ELA website.

What cookies do we use specifically?

The following first-party cookies are used in the ELA’s website: 

Videos and multimedia: 

Some pages of the ELA website contain embedded YouTube videos. Before viewing a video, you are asked to choose whether to display the external content through the following message: “This content is hosted by a third party. By showing the external content you accept the terms and conditions of youtube.com.” Cookies for the domain “youtube-nocookie.com” will only be added to your browser after you accept this message.

If you select “Remember my choice”, your preference is saved in a cookie managed by europa.eu until you close your browser. 

Europa Analytics and its cookies

Europa Analytics is the corporate service, which monitors and evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of the European Labour Authority (ELA), EDPS and the European Commission websites as well as the other websites the Commission data centre hosts. 

It uses an open-source analytics platform, Matomo (formerly Piwik), fully controlled by the European Commission. This platform enables the protection of end-user personal data thanks to features such as IP address de-identification. Cookies can also be used to establish anonymised statistics about the browsing experience on our sites.

Data protection information and measures in Europa Analytics

Europa Analytics is the corporate service that measures the effectiveness and efficiency of the European Union Institutions’ websites on Europa. 

You are free to refuse the use of this service – either via the cookie banner that appears at the top of the first page you visit or at Europa Analytics. 

Choosing not to use this service does not affect your navigation experience on Europa sites. Europa Analytics is configured to use the second level domain europa.eu (used by the websites of European institutions) and to store first-party cookies. 

Cookies (from Matomo) used by Europa Analytics enable the European Commission to track the following information about visitors. We use this information to prepare aggregated statistics reports of visitors’ activity: 

• IP address (masked) 

• Location: country, region, city, approximate latitude and longitude (Geolocation) 

• Date and time of the request (visit to the site) 

• Title of the page being viewed (Page Title) 

• URL of the page being viewed (Page URL) 

• URL of the page that was viewed prior to the current page (Referrer URL) 

• Screen resolution of user's device 

• Time in local visitor's time-zone 

• Files that were clicked and downloaded (Download) 

• Links to an outside domain that were clicked (Outlink) 

• Pages generation time (the time it takes for webpages to be generated by the webserver and then downloaded by the visitor: Page speed) 

• Main language of the browser being used (Accept-Language header) 

• Browser version, browser plugins (PDF, Flash, Java, …) operating system version, device identifier (User-Agent header) 

• Language of the visited page 

• Campaigns 

• Site Search 

• Events 

To improve the accuracy of the produced reports, information is also stored in a first-party cookie from our website and then collected by Europa Analytics: 

• Random unique Visitor ID 

• Time of the first visit for the specific visitor 

• Time of the previous visit for the specific visitor 

• Number of visits for the specific visitor  

The European Commission retains full responsibility and control of the data collected through first party cookies by storing the data in servers fully controlled by the European Commission.  

The data collected contains no personal information and the random unique visitor ID that is generated by the software cannot be used to identify a particular visitor. Data will not be shared with any other organisations for marketing, market research or commercial purposes.  

Restricted access to information

All analytics data communication is encrypted via HTTPS protocol. The analytical reports generated by Europa Analytics can only be accessed through the European Commission Authentication System (ECAS) by authorised Commission staff dealing with Matomo, the relevant European institution staff or by duly authorised external sub-contractors, who may be required to analyse, develop and/or regularly maintain certain sites. 

Masking of IP addresses

Note: institution, city and country of origin for statistical purposes are determined from the full IP, then stored and aggregated before a mask is applied. Europa Analytics uses an IP de-identification mechanism that automatically masks a portion of each visitor's IP (Internet Protocol), effectively making it impossible to identify a particular Europa visitor via the sole IP address. 

Visitor logs

Europa Analytics automatically deletes visitors' logs after 13 months. Aggregated data are stored for an indefinite period by the European Commission for analysis purposes. 

Hotjar/Contentsquare analytics and its cookies

In addition to Europa Analytics, ELA uses Contentsquare/Hotjar, subject to your consent, as a behavioural analytics tool to understand how visitors interact with the ELA corporate website and to improve its usability, accessibility, navigation, content structure and overall user experience. 

Contentsquare uses cookies to collect anonymous and aggregated information about how visitors interact with the ELA corporate website through functionalities such as heatmaps, session recordings and funnels. This may include information about page views, clicks, scrolling behaviour, navigation paths, session duration and progression through selected pages. This information is used solely to analyse website usage and improve the website's usability, accessibility, navigation, content structure and overall user experience. The information is not shared with third parties for advertising or marketing purposes. 

Keystrokes and information entered in website forms are masked before the data are collected. Contentsquare is not used for advertising, marketing, profiling, surveys, feedback tools or automated decision-making. 

Contentsquare cookies and similar technologies may be used to maintain visitor sessions, distinguish repeat visits from the same browser, and support analytics functionality.

Data protection information and measures in Hotjar /Contentsquare

Hotjar/Contentsquare is used to analyse how visitors interact with the ELA corporate website and to produce aggregated statistics for the improvement of its usability, accessibility, navigation, content structure and overall user experience. 

Hotjar may collect the following information: 

• internet protocol (IP) address (masked);  

• a session identifier, a pseudonymous Hotjar User ID and a cookie identifier generated by Hotjar;  

• pages visited, clicks, scrolling activity and on-page movement patterns;  

• navigation behaviour, time spent on pages, content interactions and interaction flows during browsing sessions;  

• progression through selected pages or content steps, including drop-off points;  

• page interaction metrics and user journey patterns; 

• browser type and version;  

• device type and operating system;  

• screen resolution, language settings and browser viewport information;  

• JavaScript errors and other technical diagnostic information necessary for website performance analysis; and  

• the visitor’s approximate location limited to city-level.  

How can I opt out from the analytics cookies?

If you have initially consented to analytics cookies and now wish to withdraw your consent (opt-out), please untick the relevant box below. You can (re)activate the analytics cookies by ticking the box at any time. 

Please note that in any case our cookies are not used to identify you personally. 

Do not track preferences

Do not track is a function that allows visitors to opt out from being tracked by websites for any purpose including the use of analytics services, advertising networks and social platforms. Do not track options are available in a number of browsers including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Opera.

On ELA’s website:

• If you have enabled do not track in your web browser, we will respect your choice;
• If you have enabled the do not track function, you will not be tracked. This is in addition to the approach of consent and opting out processes that we follow.

Social media cookies

ELA is active on several social media platforms. Our presence in the X, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram communities strengthens our online presence and visibility. 

• ELA website does not set cookies when displaying links to our social media channels when you browse our website. 

• You can watch ELA videos, which we upload also to our YouTube page. You can also follow links from our website to X,  LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. 

• Similarly, by clicking on the social media button button on our website, you will be redirected to relevant sites, which have their own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control.

The display of our X feed on this website uses a cookie-free component (provided to us by the European Commission). Clicking on the X icon on this website will re-direct you to the X site, which has its own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control. 

Contact

You can enquire us about the way we use cookies via our data-protectionela [dot] europa [dot] eu (Data Protection Officer).