What We Collect

• Email address (optional). If you choose to save your progress, we turn your email address into a secure code (a cryptographic 'hash') and store that instead of the actual email address. We hold on to your real email address only as long as we need to in order to email you a link so you can resume later, then we delete our record of this. We retain the secure code version for a maximum of 3 months after your last use of this tool.
• Anonymous usage info - we record the web page or service you came from (known as the referrer). We store your answers as to whether you undertake the cybersecurity actions we recommend, but we cannot identify you as an individual even if you give your email address (as we anonymise this). We record how many people click on links taking them to other guidance, but not who does this. This data is always aggregated so it can’t identify you, but it lets us understand the impact of this tool on reducing cybercrime and helps us improve the app.
• Your Police Area (approximated) - we use your Internet Protocol (IP) address to estimate which Police Force area in the UK you are visiting this tool from in order to understand uptake of the use of this tool. See below for more information.

Cookies

We use only three essential cookies and four functional cookie:

• "police_cybercheck_session" : This helps ensure your progress isn’t lost as you move around the site, and can resume using the tool without having to request a resume link by email (expires after 18 hours).
• "cybercheck_channel" : This keeps track of whether you're answering this as an individual or sole trader (expires after 24 hours).
• "XSRF-TOKEN" : Protects the site against certain technical attacks by cyber‑criminals. (expires when you close your browser or after 18 hours).
• "cc_referrer_id, cc_event_id, cc_raw_referer, cc_source" : These functional assist us in understanding where the people who arrive at Police CyberCheck found this tool. They are not linked to your individual use of this app and are only kept for aggregate statistics. These expire when you close your web browser.

Your Police Area

When you load a page your browser sends our server your Internet Protocol (IP) address - this is necessary for the internet to work and our server to reply to your request. We use it once to estimate which Police Force area in the UK the request came from in order to understand uptake of Police CyberCheck around the country, and to support aggregate performance reporting. If you visit from outside the UK, we store the ISO Country Code (e.g. GB, US).

This estimation happens on our server using a copy of the MaxMind GeoLite2 database that we have stored. We do not send your IP address to MaxMind or to any other third-party. IP-based geolocation is very approximate. Corporate gateways, mobile networks and other technology can make it appear that a visitor is in a different area to where they really are. MaxMind offer a more precise geolocation (to the 'city' level) but we do not use and are not interested in this.

This geolocation information does not change the guidance you see or how you can interact with this tool. We do not use it for advertising or tracking, and it is not used to make decisions about you.

Abuse

We do not try to monitor the browsing behaviour of individual users through any hidden means. However, as a Police tool should this web application come under criminal attack we reserve the right to implement other lawful security measures without prior notice.