Cosmos Portal Cookie Policy

The European Space Agency (herein the "Agency" or "ESA") is an intergovernmental organisation established by its Convention opened for signature in Paris on 30 May 1975 having its headquarters located at 24 rue du Général Bertrand, CS 30798, 75345 Paris Cedex 07, France.

Protection of Personal Data is of great importance for ESA, therefore this Cookie Notice aims to ensure lawfulness and transparency by explaining the cookies and similar technologies that we use in the website , what they do, what your choices regarding their use are and how you can contact us.

In the following cookie policy:

• 'Portal' means the www.cosmos.esa.int web portal and its content
• ‘Content’ means all pages, screens, information and materials included in or accessible throughout the Portal (including any content available on any e-mail service)
• ‘you’, ‘your’ and ‘yours’ means you, the person(s) accessing our Portal and related services, and the party on whose behalf you are doing so
• ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ means the European Space Agency (ESA).

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small text file that a website may save on your device, for instance mobile device or computer, upon your visit to the website. Cookies may allow a website to recognise an individual's device and store some information about the user.

Why do we use cookies and similar technologies?

Cookies do a lot of different jobs, such as remember that you are logged in, letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences and generally improving the user experience.

Do we use cookies for marketing, Targeting and Social Media?

No, we don't use cookies for marketing purposes or social media and we have not enabled analytics cookies like for instance Google Analytics. Cookies that we generate are not shared with third party companies.

Do we use any cookies from third party companies?

Some cookies we use are from third party companies, such as reCAPTCHA, to provide us with anti-spam and protection intelligence about our sites. These companies use programming code to collect information about your interaction with our sites, such as the pages you visit, the links you click on and how long you are on our sites. This code is only active while you are on Cosmos websites. For more information on how these companies collect and use information on our behalf, please refer to the Google Privacy & Terms.

What types of cookies are there and which ones do we use?

A cookie can be classified by its lifespan and the domain to which it belongs. By lifespan, a cookie is either a:

• Session cookie which is erased when the user closes the browser or;
• Persistent cookie which remains on the user's computer/device for a pre-defined period of time;

We use both session and persistent cookies on our Portal.

As for the domain to which it belongs, there are either:

• First-party cookies which are set by the web server of the visited page and share the same domain;
• Third-party cookies stored by a different domain to the visited page's domain. This can happen when the webpage references a file, such as JavaScript, located outside its domain.

Which cookies do we use?

Strictly Necessary or Essential cookies: Without these cookies you would not be able to access the services or the website and therefore this category cannot be disabled. These cookies are strictly necessary for the website to provide the services that you requested and/or for the solely purpose of the transmission of the services and/or the website.

1) The "COOKIE_SUPPORT" cookie is provided by the software product we use for our portal to store the fact that we have enabled the Cookie mechanism as such.
2) The "GUEST_LANGUAGE_ID" cookie is provided by the software product we use for our portal to identify which language is used by the browser. This would allow for displaying messages in the default language of the browser instead of the provided English text.
3) The "JSESSIONID" cookie is provided by the software product we use for our portal to maintain the session state of the user, in other words to keep track if the user is still logged in. If the session period expires or if the cookie is removed, the user is logged out.
4) The "LFR_SESSION_STATE" cookie controls the session expiration time in a similar way as the "JSESSIONID" cookie, but this one is used specifically in combination with JavaScript code that is running in the browser.

Functional cookies: These cookies are not strictly necessary, but allow you to have a with a better experience by providing enhanced and more personal features. We only place these cookies if you have provided your prior consent.

1) The Cookiebar is the message field at the top of the screen where a user can agree to our Cookie Policy.
The "ACCEPT_COSMOS_COOKIE" cookie is used to store in the browser if the user clicked on the OK button.
2) The Message Of The Day (MOTD) display is an additional message field at the top of the screen where site administrators can display messages for a specific site or the whole portal.
The "cookiebar" cookie is used to store in the browser if the user has clicked away the message in order to make sure it doesn't appear anymore on subsequent pages while navigating through the site.

Analytics cookies: These cookies help a site to improve and measure the performance of our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. We only place these cookies if you have provided your prior consent.

We don't use Analytics cookies in our Portal.

Social Media Plugin cookies: These cookies enable you to share our website content via your social media account(s) or easily share information with others.

We don't use Social Media Plugin cookies in our Portal.

How do you withdraw your consent and/or delete the cookies?

• Cookies Policy Banner: When you visit the Cosmos web portal for the first time, a banner is displayed that you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy. If you don't agree, only the Essential cookies are used. In that case the Cookie policy Banner will stay on the screen and cannot be removed.
• Message Of The Day (MOTD) Banner: By not clicking on the MOTD banner, no cookie is stored in the browser that remembers that you have clicked away the message. As a result the message will be displayed on every page you visit.
• Using Your Browser: All the cookies used on our website can be disabled through your browser. To disable cookies through your browser, follow your browser instructions. Normally within the "Help", "Tools" or "Edit" menus in your browser. Please note that blocking or deleting cookies may lead to reduced functionality of some features on the website. Therefore, the website may not function optimally without enabled cookies, in particular strictly necessary and essential cookies.

Changes to our Cookies Notice

All future changes we make to our Cookie Notice will be posted on this website.

Contact

In case of any question, you can contact ESA DPO, as first point of contact, by sending an email to: dpo@esa.int

Related Privacy Publications

Please note that alongside this Cookie Policy, we also publish our Cosmos Portal Privacy Policy and our Cosmos Portal Terms & Conditions.