Cookie Notice
Nothing optional runs until you say so. Optional scripts on this site are loaded in a form the browser cannot execute, and are only turned into live scripts after you accept the relevant category. This is not a banner that records your preference while the tracking happens anyway.
This notice covers this tool only. It sits alongside the Smart Spaces Cookie Policy, which covers our main website. The two are different properties running different software, so the cookies are not the same — this page is the accurate one for this tool.
1. What cookies are
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to store. It lets a site recognise the same browser on a later page or a later visit. Some cookies are set by us; others are set by companies whose code runs on the page, which is why the table below names a provider for each one.
The same rules apply to similar technologies such as local storage, so we cover those here too.
2. The four categories we use
Essential
Needed for the tool to work. These remember the cookie choice you make here so we do not ask again on every page. They cannot be switched off and they do not identify you.
Performance
Let us count visits and see which parts of the assessment people find difficult, so we can improve it. We only ever look at this in aggregate.
Functional
Enable optional extras such as embedded content. Nothing on this tool needs them today.
Marketing
Used by advertising partners to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. Switched off unless you turn them on.
3. How our tags are managed
Analytics and advertising tags on this tool are deployed through Google Tag Manager rather than being written into the pages one by one.
We do not load Tag Manager at all until you accept at least one optional category. This matters: simply fetching the Tag Manager container file would disclose your IP address to Google before you had agreed to anything. Loading the container in a "denied by default" state is the common approach and it would make the promise at the top of this page untrue, so we do not do it.
On top of that, we set Google Consent Mode v2 signals to denied before any container could ever load, and update them whenever you change your choice. That is a safety net for tags added to the container later, not the primary control.
We also do not use the Tag Manager <noscript> fallback anywhere,
because it fires unconditionally and cannot be gated on your consent.
No analytics tags are live on this tool yet. The consent machinery described above is built and working, and the cookies listed in the table below are the ones that will be set once tags are switched on. Until then, accepting optional cookies results in nothing being loaded. We have listed them in advance so that this page is accurate on the day they go live rather than after it.
4. Cookies used on this site
This table is kept in step with the cookie register inside the consent code itself, so it cannot quietly drift out of date.
| Name | Category | Provider | Purpose | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ss_consent | Essential | This site (first party) | Stores your cookie choices so the banner is not shown again. | 180 days |
_ga | Performance | Google Analytics | Tells returning visits apart so visitor counts are not inflated. | 2 years |
_ga_* | Performance | Google Analytics | Keeps track of the current session. | 2 years |
_gcl_au | Marketing | Measures which adverts led to a completed assessment. | 90 days | |
_gcl_aw | Marketing | Set when you arrive from a Google advert, to link the visit to that advert. | 90 days | |
IDE | Marketing | Google (doubleclick.net) | Builds an advertising profile so Smart Spaces adverts can be shown to you on other sites. | 13 months |
test_cookie | Marketing | Google (doubleclick.net) | Checks whether your browser accepts cookies at all. | 15 minutes |
li_sugr | Marketing | Probabilistic browser identifier used to match visits to LinkedIn members. | 90 days | |
bcookie | Marketing | LinkedIn browser identifier. | 1 year | |
lidc | Marketing | Routes requests to the right LinkedIn data centre. | 1 day | |
UserMatchHistory | Marketing | Synchronises advert click identifiers. | 30 days | |
AnalyticsSyncHistory | Marketing | Records when a visitor was synchronised with LinkedIn. | 30 days | |
li_gc | Marketing | Stores LinkedIn's own record of consent for non-essential cookies. | 180 days |
5. Third-party requests that happen before you choose
We want to be straight about one exception to the promise at the top of this
page. The typeface used across this tool, halyard-display, is licensed
through Adobe Fonts, and Adobe's licence requires their fonts to be served from
Adobe's own network rather than from our servers. So one request goes to
use.typekit.net when the page loads, before you have made any cookie
choice.
That request sets no cookies and carries nothing about your assessment. It does disclose your IP address and the address of the page to Adobe, in the same way that loading any image from another company's server would. We cannot gate it behind consent without breaking the licence, and we cannot self-host the font for the same reason.
Our other typeface, Open Sans, is served from our own servers precisely to avoid this, so there is no request to Google for fonts.
6. Other things stored in your browser
Two small pieces of information are kept in your browser's own storage rather than in cookies. Neither identifies you and neither is shared with anyone.
cfgSizeUnit— whether you last viewed building sizes in square feet or square metres, so you do not have to switch it again.submissionId— the reference for the assessment you are part-way through, so the configurator can add to the scorecard you just completed instead of starting a second record. Cleared when you close the tab.
These are strictly necessary for the tool to behave sensibly, so they are not gated behind consent. When you withdraw consent we clear everything else in storage but deliberately keep these two, so that withdrawing does not lose your place.
7. Changing your mind
Use Cookie Settings, in the footer of every page, to change your choices at any time. Turning a category off clears the cookies and stored data we can reach and reloads the page into a clean state.
Two honest limitations:
- A script that has already run cannot be un-run. If you accepted analytics, browsed a few pages and then withdrew, we can stop anything further from being sent, but we cannot recall what was already sent.
- We cannot delete another company's cookies. Cookies set on
doubleclick.netorlinkedin.combelong to those domains and are invisible to us. Withdrawing stops us contacting those services, but the cookies themselves stay in your browser until they expire or you clear them yourself.
For that reason, the opt-outs that actually reach those companies are theirs:
- Google My Ad Center
- LinkedIn advertising preferences
- Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out
- Your Online Choices (Europe)
8. This tool and smartspaces.app are separate
The choice you make here applies to this tool only. Our main website at smartspaces.app runs different software with its own cookie banner and its own cookie policy, and you will be asked separately there. The same is true of hidglobal.com, which is a different company's site entirely.
9. Global Privacy Control
If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as an instruction to switch off performance and marketing cookies, and the banner will tell you we have done so. You can still deliberately turn a category on, and we record that as your considered choice so it is not silently undone next time.
A GPC signal can only ever turn things off. It is not affirmative consent, so it can never switch a category on by itself.
We do not act on the older Do Not Track header. It was never
finished as a standard, Safari removed it, and treating it as a preference would
mean guessing at what a visitor meant.
10. Controlling cookies in your browser
Every major browser lets you block or delete cookies in its settings, and that works regardless of anything on this page. Blocking all cookies will stop us remembering your choice, so the banner will appear on every visit. aboutcookies.org has step-by-step instructions for each browser.
Questions about any of this: dpo@smartspaces.app. See also our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use.