Legal
Cookie policy
We use cookies to keep you signed in and remember your statistics choices. We count visits with Vercel's statistics, which use no cookies. We use Google Analytics cookies only if you say yes. We do not use advertising trackers.
Cookies we set ourselves
| Name | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|
| idea_session | Keeps you signed in to your account. Without it you would be asked for your password on every page. | 30 days if you tick “keep me signed in”, otherwise until you close your browser |
| idea_admin | Keeps academy staff signed in to the admin area. It is never set for students. | 8 hours |
| idea_mfa_pending | Used only if you have two-step sign-in turned on, while you sign in. It holds a random code that links your password to the code you type next. We delete it when you finish signing in. | 5 minutes |
| idea_analytics_consent | Remembers whether you accepted or rejected analytics cookies, so we do not ask you again on every page. It only holds the word granted or denied. We set it only after you press one of the two buttons. | 6 months |
| idea_study_hub_statistics | Remembers only whether Study Hub statistics are on or off for this browser. It contains no visitor identifier. | 6 months |
These are first-party cookies. They are sent only to this site and are encrypted in transit. The three sign-in cookies cannot be read by JavaScript. The statistics choice cookies can be, because the page needs them to respect your choices. None of them is used to advertise to you.
Study Hub statistics
We automatically count openings of free Study Hub pages and Instructor Resources to see what is useful. We retain only combined page totals for each UTC day, with the page title and Study Hub part, for up to 90 days. The totals are available only to authorised academy administrators.
This collection has no account or visitor identifier and does not send your sign-in cookies. The totals contain no names, emails, IP addresses, referrers or individual histories. They do not show general browsing across the website, private pages, PDI Portal questions or answers, forms, searches, video playback or document downloads. Page openings do not prove reading or learning completion.
You can object using the button below. We remember only on or off in the first-party cookie listed above for six months. Your courses, progress and account are unaffected. Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control signals also prevent this collection. Google Analytics choices remain separate.
Study Hub statistics: Checking your choice
This choice applies to this browser. It does not affect your courses, progress or account.
Technical hosting and security logs are separate from these statistics. Read our privacy policy for the details.
Website visitor statistics and performance
Vercel Web Analytics helps us see how many people visit our public pages and which pages they find useful. It gives us combined counts and summaries of page views, visitors, referring websites, approximate location and device and browser types. It does not use cookies to collect these statistics or track you across different websites.
Vercel Speed Insights measures how quickly public pages load and respond, and whether their layout moves while loading. Reports include page addresses, browser and device information, network type, country and technical descriptions of page elements involved in a measurement. It does not use analytics cookies.
We exclude sign-in, account, student, staff, payment and certificate pages from visitor and performance reports. We remove query strings and page fragments from page addresses before sending them. We do not send form answers, email addresses, account identifiers, quiz results or chat messages as analytics events.
Vercel processes technical information from the request to produce these statistics. Read more in our privacy policy and Vercel’s Web Analytics privacy information and Speed Insights privacy information.
Vercel’s statistics do not use cookies, so they work the same whatever you choose in our cookie banner.
Google Analytics, only if you say yes
We would also like to use Google Analytics, a service from Google. It tells us more about how people use our public pages. For example, it shows which pages they visit, how long they stay and which websites or campaigns sent them.
Google Analytics only runs if you press “Accept analytics cookies” in our cookie banner. If you press “Reject”, or do not answer, Google Analytics does not load and nothing is sent to Google Analytics. If you have not seen our cookie banner, Google Analytics has not run for you.
What it collects
When it runs, Google Analytics collects the address and title of the public page you view, and the website that sent you to us. It records how you use the page, for example how far you scroll or which links to other websites you click. It also collects your type of device and browser, your language, your screen size and a rough location, such as your town or country.
Google uses your IP address to work out that rough location. Google says Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses.
What we never send
We only measure public pages, like our home page, course pages and study hub. We never measure sign-in, account, learning, payment, certificate, staff or admin pages, even after you say yes.
Before a page address is sent, we remove everything after the ? except campaign tags (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id). Campaign tags tell us which advert, email or listing brought you here. We also remove the part after #. We never send your name, email address, account details, form answers, quiz results or chat messages.
Our settings
We have turned off Google signals and ad personalisation. This means Google does not use this data to show you personalised adverts, and it is not used for reports about age, gender or interests. We also tell Google not to store advertising cookies.
The cookies Google Analytics sets
| Name | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | Tells one visitor from another. It holds a random number, not your name. | Up to 2 years |
| _ga_1044M2ZF4Q | Remembers your current visit, so the pages you view are counted together. | Up to 2 years |
Google sets these cookies for our whole website address. Each visit can start the 2 years again. If you change your answer to no, we delete them straight away.
Who handles the data
Google provides Google Analytics. Google processes this data for us, as our processor, under Google’s data processing terms. We do not let Google use it for its own products and services. Google keeps the detailed records for 2 months, then deletes them. After that, our reports only keep totals, such as how many visits a page had. Read Google’s privacy policy and how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
Google may process this data outside the UK, including in the United States. When it does, it uses the legal safeguards that UK data protection law requires.
Changing your mind
You can change your answer at any time. Use Cookie settings at the bottom of our pages, or the button below. If you change to Reject, Google Analytics stops at once and we delete its cookies from your browser.
Advertising and other trackers
We do not use advertising or remarketing pixels, or social media trackers. Our typefaces are served from this site.
Videos
Lesson and study videos are not loaded until you press play. Until then you are looking at a still image and no video service is contacted for the player itself. When you do press play, the video loads from YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode or from Vimeo, and at that point their own policies apply.
One thing worth stating plainly: the still images on our study-hub video pages are hosted by YouTube, so your device requests them from Google as soon as the page opens. They set no cookies, but your IP address does reach Google. If you would rather that did not happen, most browsers and privacy extensions can block it without affecting the rest of the site.
Other things stored on your device
We use browser storage to remember your sign-in status, Ask IDEA settings and your PDI Portal sound choice. Ask IDEA may also keep a chat on this device when it is not saved to an account. The PDI Portal keeps unsaved answers on your device until they can be saved to your account.
Clearing your browsing data removes these local settings and any unsaved answers. It does not delete work already saved to your account.
If you close the IDEA email invitation, or submit its signup form, we remember that choice in session storage for this browsing session. The preference is called idea-updates-dismissed-v1 and contains no name or email address. It prevents the invitation from reopening as you move between pages. If browser storage is blocked, we remember the choice only while this page remains open. We do not use it for advertising or profiling.
Your choices
You can accept or reject Google Analytics cookies at any time with Cookie settings, as explained above.
You can also refuse or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block the sign-in cookies you will not be able to stay signed in, so your account, your course and your submitted work will not be reachable, but everything public on this site, including the whole free study hub, will still work normally. If you block the cookie choice cookie, we will ask about analytics cookies again each time you open the site, and Google Analytics stays off until you say yes.
Questions about this policy: Innovative Driving Education Academy Ltd, company no. 15749902, admin@smartlearner.com.