This is the cookie policy for www.sseairtricity.com. It applies to information collected and used by SSE Airtricity, which is a trading name of SSE Airtricity Limited, SSE Airtricity Energy Supply (NI) Limited and SSE Airtricity Gas Supply (NI) Limited which are members of the SSE Group. SSE Airtricity Home Energy Services is our dedicated Boiler & Home Services Division. When we refer to 'SSE', 'we', 'us', and 'our', we mean any of those SSE entities, as appropriate. This information is collected through instruments known as cookies and various other technologies, collectively referred to in this Cookie Policy as 'cookies'.
Please review this Cookie Policy and our Privacy Notice here
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files transferred and stored by your web browser to your computer or mobile device when you visit or use a website. Cookies allow websites to recognise your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions.
Cookies can be considered as 'first party' or 'third party' cookies depending on the domain that places them. First party cookies are cookies set by a website visited by the user (for example, cookies placed by SSE Airtricity for www.sseairtricity.com. Third party cookies are set by a domain other than that of the website visited by the user, so if a user visits a website and a third-party organisation sets a cookie through that website, this would be a third-party cookie.
Cookies can also be considered as 'persistent' or 'session' cookies depending on their duration. Persistent cookies remain on a user's device for the time specified in those cookies. They are activated every time that user visits the website that created the cookies, until the cookies expire or are disabled by the user. Session cookies allow the actions of a user to be linked during a single browsing session. A session starts when a user opens a browser window and ends when the browser window is closed, following which all session cookies are deleted.
Why do we use cookies?
We use cookies and other similar technologies to collect information about your browsing activity and about the device you have used to access our website (including the make, model and operating system, IP address, browser type and mobile device identifiers) so we can provide essential features and functionality on our website:
- Make our website as easy and intuitive as possible for you to use
- Monitor and analyse website usage and performance so we can measure the effectiveness of our website and improve it (including security)
- Remember choices you make when visiting our website and recognise you when you return so you don't have to remind us
- Remember certain information about your browsing activity on our website, such as the web pages you have viewed and your preferences. This information can then be used to personalise and improve the way you interact with our website (for example, displaying content we think might be relevant to you based on your previous activity) and inform you of special offers and promotions tailored to your interests (where you have consented to receiving marketing communications from us).
Why do we use cookies?
The cookies used on our website can be broken down into four categories:
- Strictly necessary
- Performance
- Functional
- Targeting advertising
Strictly necessary
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you that amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms.
You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but then some parts of the site will not work.
Performance
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve site performance. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site.
If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Functional
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies some or all of these services may not function properly.
Targeting advertising
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites.
These cookies are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Targeted advertising or remarketing is a type of targeted advertising that displays our adverts on third party websites across the internet to users who have previously visited this website. Remarketing involves collecting cookies to inform, optimise and serve adverts based on someone's past visits to this website. To opt out of this type of advertising you can use this free Google tool.
Managing cookies
When you visit our websites, you will be presented with a cookie banner. It gives you the choice to accept the use of cookies on the site or not. It will also present you with a link to our cookie manager. Through the cookie manager, you can choose to opt-in or opt-out of the types of cookies active on our sites. You can also find out a bit more about what we use them for. Our cookie manager will only remember your preferences for our site for the specific browser that you're using at that time.
You can also manage your cookie preferences at any time via this link:
If you wish to change your cookie settings generally, you can delete cookies stored on your computer or change your privacy settings at any time via your browser settings.
Cookie list
Strictly Necessary
Google Tag Manager
This cookie is associated with Google Tag Manager. We use this tool to load scripts into our website pages and to support our cookie management.
| Cookie | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| _dc_gtm_UA-4334107-17 | A few seconds | First | .sseairtricity.com |
SSE Airtricity
This is a general purpose session cookie. It allows for the retaining of information over multiple pages of a journey, for example when completing a signup form or when in a logged in state.
| Cookie | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| SECSESSID | Session cookie | First | .sseairtricity.com |
Optanon / OneTrust
These cookies relate to the OneTrust cookie compliance solution.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| OptanonConsent | OptanonConsent stores information about the categories of cookies the site uses and whether visitors have given or withdrawn consent for the use of each category. This enables site owners to prevent cookies in each category from being set in the user’s browser, when consent is not given. The cookie has a normal lifespan of one year, so that returning visitors to the site will have their preferences remembered. It contains no information that can identify the site visitor. | 1 year | First | .sseairtricity.com |
| OptanonAlertBoxClosed | OptanonAlertBoxClosed stores information about the categories of cookies the site uses and whether visitors have given or withdrawn consent for the use of each category. This enables site owners to prevent cookies in each category from being set in the users browser, when consent is not given. The cookie has a normal lifespan of one year, so that returning visitors to the site will have their preferences remembered. It contains no information that can identify the site visitor. | 1 year | First | .sseairtricity.com |
| eupubconsent | eupubconsent is used by the IAB Europe Transparency & Consent Framework to store the user's consent to the data collection Purposes. The cookie holds an encrypted consent string that vendors participating in the framework can read and determine the user's consent. | 5 months | First | .sseairtricity.com |
DynaTrace
These cookies are provided by Dynatrace, an application performance management (APM) software company. They monitor the availability and performance of software applications and the impact on user experience in the form of deep transaction tracing, synthetic monitoring, real user monitoring, and network monitoring.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| rxvt | This cookie is used to store two timestamps to determine session length and the end of a session. | Session cookie | First | sseairtricity.com |
| dtCookie | This cookie name is associated with, software from Dynatrace, an application performance management (APM) software company. Their software manages the availability and performance of software applications and the impact on user experience in the form of deep transaction tracing, synthetic monitoring, real user monitoring, and network monitoring. | Session cookie | First | sseairtricity.com |
| dtPC | This cookie name is associated with, software from Dynatrace, an application performance management (APM) software company. Their software manages the availability and performance of software applications and the impact on user experience in the form of deep transaction tracing, synthetic monitoring, real user monitoring, and network monitoring. | Session cookie | First | sseairtricity.com |
| dtLaC | Session cookie | First | sseairtricity.com | |
| dtSa | This cookie is used to save action names across pages so that performance can be monitored across pages. | Session cookie | First | sseairtricity.com |
Communicator
Communicator is an email marketing platform. The cookies set are used in an online form to allow eligible customers to redeem their welcome credit.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| ASP.NET_SessionId | General purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written with Miscrosoft .NET based technologies. Usually used to maintain an anonymised user session by the server. | Session cookie | Third | .www.communicatoremail.com |
| .ASPXANONYMOUS | This cookie is used by sites using the .NET technology platform from Microsoft. It enables the site to maintain an anonymous user-id to track unique users within a session without them logging in or otherwise identifying themselves. | 2 months | Third | www.communicatoremail.com |
eGain
eGain is our web chat system. This is a session cookie set to facilitate web chats.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| JSESSIONID | JSESSIONID is a general purpose platform session cookie, used by sites written in JSP. Usually used to maintain an anonymous user session by the server. | Session cookie | First | redoakegainwsa.airtricity.com |
SiteSearch360
SiteSearch is a search engine tool we use to manage text search on our website. These are security and session cookies that enable the storage of search terms during a session by customers.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| ssi--lastInteraction | ssi—lastInteraction is used to store the last entered query so that when the user navigates back to the search result page the correct results are shown. | A few seconds | First | sseairtricity.com |
| __cfduid | __cfduid is a cookie associated with sites using CloudFlare, used to speed up page load times. According to CloudFlare it is used to override any security restrictions based on the IP address the visitor is coming from. It does not contain any user identification information | 3 years | First | sitesearch360.com |
| ssi--sessionId | ssi—sessionId lets us track if the same user searches for ABC and then DEF. It does not store any IP-related information. | 1 year | First | sitesearch360.com |
Azure Affinity
In order for Azure to distribute users connecting to the Mobile App correctly across web server instances, a special cookie (known as an affinity cookie) is used, which allows the service to choose the right instance that the user was using to serve subsequent requests made by that user in the same session. In this way, it is ensured that once a client establishes a session with a specific server instance, it will keep talking to the same server as long as his session is active.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| ARRAffinity | This cookie is set by websites run on the Windows Azure cloud platform. It is used for load balancing to make sure the visitor page requests are routed to the same server in any browsing session. | Session | First | SSE Azure cloud infrastructure |
Performance Cookies
Google Analytics
These Google Analytics cookies are used to gather information about how customers use our website. They contain no information that can identify the site visitor.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| _gid | This cookie is associated with Google Universal Analytics. This appears to be a new cookie and as of Spring 2017 no information is available from Google. It appears to store and update a unique value for each page visited. | A day | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _ga | _ga is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. By default it is set to expire after 2 years, although this is customisable by website owners. | 2 years | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _ga_UA-nnnnnnn-nn | ga_UA-nnnnnnn-nn is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. | A minute | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _utma | _utma is used to calculate new and returning visitor statistics. | 2 years | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _utmb | _utmb determines new sessions and visits. | 30 minutes | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _utmt | _utmt is used to throttle the request rate for the Google Analytics service – limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites. | 10 minutes | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _utmc | _utmc is a session cookie used to set interoperability with the older version of Google Analytics code known as Urchin. | A few seconds | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _utmz | _utmz is used to identify the source of traffic to a site. | 6 months | First | sseairtricity.com |
| _gclxxxx | This is a conversion tracking cookie. | 90 days | First | sseairtricity.com |
Functionality Cookies
DynaTrace
This cookie is provided by Dynatrace, an application performance management (APM) software company. It monitors the availability and performance of software applications and the impact on user experience in the form of deep transaction tracing, synthetic monitoring, real user monitoring, and network monitoring.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| rxVisitor | This cookie is used to store an anonymous ID for the user to correlate across sessions on the world service. | Session cookie | First | sseairtricity.com |
Targeting Cookies
Eloqua
We use Eloqua to personalise the way we communicate with you. When you first visit our website, a third party cookie from eloqua.com is stored in your browser. This cookie is then used to track the pages that you visit during your session. Whilst the cookie may be used across our sites, the information collected on SSE Airtricity’s website is visible only to SSE Airtricity and is not shared with any third parties including Eloqua or other users of the Eloqua system.
We use this information to improve our service to you such as choosing how we communicate with you (subject to your consent) and tailoring the content of our communications to you to include information that reflects the interest that you have shown in the content of our web pages, or by choosing offers or promotions that we think may interest you and to improve how we respond to your needs.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| ELOQUA | This cookie collects and transfers contact information from webforms to internal databases. | 2 years | First | sseairtricity.com |
| ELQSTATUS | ELQSTATUS is used to recognise unique visitors to website pages and to track the pages they visit. | 2 years | Third | eloqua.com |
DoubleClick
These cookies are owned by Doubleclick (Google). They are used to support our digital marketing campaigns by measuring the reach and success of digital advertisements.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| IDE | IDE - This domain is owned by Doubleclick (Google). The main business activity is: Doubleclick is Googles real time bidding advertising exchange | 1 year | Third | .doubleclick.net |
| test_cookie | This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to determine if the website visitor's browser supports cookies. | A few seconds | Third | .doubleclick.net |
YouTube
YouTube is a Google owned platform for hosting and sharing videos. YouTube collects user data through videos embedded in websites, which is aggregated with profile data from other Google services in order to display targeted advertising to web visitors across a broad range of their own and other websitesg adverts to the content on the pages where its customer's adverts appear.
| Cookie | More information | Lifespan | Cookies used | Host |
| YSC | This cookie is set by YouTube to track views of embedded videos | A few seconds | Third | .google.com |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | This cookie is set by Youtube to keep track of user preferences for Youtube videos embedded in sites; it can also determine whether the website visitor is using the new or old version of the Youtube interface. | 180 days | Third | .google.com |
| GPS | This cookie is used to collect location data for mobile users. | A few seconds | Third | .google.com |
Who should I contact with a question or a complaint?
If you would like to contact us in relation to your rights or if you are unhappy with how we've handled your information, yo may contact us by sending a letter:
Republic of Ireland
Data Protection Specialist
SSE Airtricity,
Red Oak South,
South County Business Park,
Leopardstown,
Dublin 18,
D18 W688
Northern Ireland
Data Protection Specialist
SSE Airtricity,
3rd Floor Millennium House,
17-25 Great Victoria Street,
Belfast
BT2 7AQ
or sending an email to irelanddataprotection@sse.com.
If you would like to contact our Data Protection Officer, you may do so using the following details:
- Email: dpo@legal.sse.com
- Phone: 0345 070 7378
- Postal: Data Protection Officer,
No. 1 Forbury Place,
43 Forbury Road,
Reading,
RG1 3JH