What are cookies?
This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are and how we use them, the types of cookies we use, the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used, and how to manage the cookie settings.
Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make it more secure, provide a better user experience, and understand how the website performs and to analyse what works and where it needs improvement.
How do we use cookies?
As most of the online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.
The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience and help speed up your future interactions with our website.
Types of cookie we use
Necessary
Necessary cookies are essential for our website to function properly and cannot be disabled.
| Cookie | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|
| NSC_QH-PMY | session | Used by Blackbaud for donation payment purposes. |
| loglevel | never | Used by Spotify to maintain settings and outputs when using the Developer Tools Console on current session. |
| BACKENDID3 | session | Set by embedded Bandcamp player. Registers which server-cluster is serving the visitor. This is used in context with load balancing, in order to optimize user experience. |
| ASP.NET_SessionId | session | Used by Blackbaud for donation payment purposes. Issued by Microsoft’s ASP.NET Application, this cookie stores session data during a user’s website visit. |
| _GRECAPTCHA | 5 months 27 days | Used by Blackbaud for donation payment purposes. This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks. |
| AWSELB | session | Used by Blackbaud for donation payment purposes. Associated with Amazon Web Services and created by Elastic Load Balancing, AWSELB cookie is used to manage sticky sessions across production servers. |
| client_id | 1 year 1 month 4 days | This cookie is used for passing authentication information. |
| JSESSIONID | session | The JSESSIONID cookie is used by New Relic to store a session identifier so that New Relic can monitor session counts for an application. |
| AWSELBCORS | 1 hour | Used by Blackbaud for donation payment purposes. This cookie is used by Elastic Load Balancing from Amazon Web Services to effectively balance load on the servers. |
| UB_UUID | Permanent | Used by third-party student enrollment service. Random identifier to distinguish the source of any software errors. |
| redux:authState | Until logout | Records information about whether you are logged in to Unibuddy or not. |
| cookieyes-consent | 1 year | CookieYes sets this cookie to remember users’ consent preferences so that their preferences are respected on their subsequent visits to this site. It does not collect or store any personal information of the site visitors. |
| wpfront-notification-bar-keep-closed-* | 7 days | Saves user preference to hide notification bar. |
| wp-postpass_* | 24 hours | Allows users to retain access to password-protected pages on www.rncm.ac.uk. |
| ppc_last_visited_page | 1 hour | Remembers page URL visited before logging in with specific user role. |
| SessionId | session | This cookie is set by our ticketing partner, Spektrix, during online ticket purchases. It stores a unique session ID value used to remember what has been added to the basket. This is also essential to retain this information when using a combination of the Spektrix iframes and API. |
| CookieDetection | session | This cookie is set by our ticketing partner, Spektrix. It is used to identify whether cookies can be set. |
| cf_clearance | 1 year | This cookie is set by our ticketing partner, Spektrix, during online ticket purchases. Clearance Cookie stores the proof of challenge passed. It is used to no longer issue a challenge if present. It is required to reach an origin server. |
| QueueNumber | session | This cookie is set by Spektrix, our ticketing partner. It records the customer’s place in a queue for tickets. |
| __cf_bm | 1 hour | This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. |
Preferences
Preference cookies enable our website to remember your choices that affect the way it behaves or looks.
| Cookie | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|
| pll_language | 1 year | The pll _language cookie is used by Polylang to remember the language selected by the user when returning to the website, and also to get the language information when not available in another way. |
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to help us understand how visitors interact with our website.
| Cookie | Duration | Description |
|---|---|---|
| _ga | 1 year 1 month 4 days | The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors. |
| _gid | 1 day | Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website’s performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. |
| CONSENT | 2 years | YouTube sets this cookie via embedded youtube-videos and registers anonymous statistical data. |
| vuid | 1 year 1 month 4 days | Vimeo installs this cookie to collect tracking information by setting a unique ID to embed videos to the website. |
| iutk | 5 months 27 days | This cookie is used by Issuu analytic system to gather information regarding visitor activity on Issuu products. |
| sp_t | 1 year 1 month 4 days | The sp_t cookie is set by Spotify to implement audio content from Spotify on the website and also registers information on user interaction related to the audio content. |
| sp_landing | 1 year 1 month 4 days | The sp_landing is set by Spotify to implement audio content from Spotify on the website and also registers information on user interaction related to the audio content. |
| _gat | 1 minute | This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to restrain request rate and thus limit the collection of data on high traffic sites. |
| _ga_* | 1 year 1 month 4 days | Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views. |
| _gat_UA-* | 1 minute | Google Analytics sets this cookie for user behaviour tracking. |
| _hjIncludedInSessionSample_3356160 | 30 minutes | Set by Hotjar to determine if a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site’s daily session limit. |
| _hjSessionUser_* | 1 year | Hotjar sets this cookie to ensure data from subsequent visits to the same site is attributed to the same user ID, which persists in the Hotjar User ID, which is unique to that site. |
| _hjFirstSeen | 30 minutes | Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores the true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user. |
| _hjSession_* | 30 minutes | Hotjar sets this cookie to ensure data from subsequent visits to the same site is attributed to the same user ID, which persists in the Hotjar User ID, which is unique to that site. |
| _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress | 30 minutes | Hotjar sets this cookie to detect a user’s first pageview session, which is a True/False flag set by the cookie. |
| rpdid | 3 years | Bilibili sets this cookie when loading Chinese-language videos embedded on our website. |
Marketing
Marketing cookies are used by third parties to show you relevant ads based on your use of our website.
| _fbp | 3 months | This cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website. |
| fr | 3 months | Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. |
| YSC | session | YSC cookie is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages. |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 5 months 27 days | A cookie set by YouTube to measure bandwidth that determines whether the user gets the new or old player interface. |
| yt-remote-device-id | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
| yt-remote-connected-devices | never | YouTube sets this cookie to store the video preferences of the user using embedded YouTube video. |
| yt.innertube::nextId | never | This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. |
| yt.innertube::requests | never | This cookie, set by YouTube, registers a unique ID to store data on what videos from YouTube the user has seen. |
| test_cookie | 15 minutes | The test_cookie is set by doubleclick.net and is used to determine if the user’s browser supports cookies. |
| mc | 1 year 1 month | Quantserve sets the mc cookie to anonymously track user behaviour on the website. |
| __qca | never | The __qca cookie is associated with Quantcast. This anonymous data helps us to better understand users’ needs and customize the website accordingly. |
| _twitter_sess | 2 years | This cookie is used by Twitter for user sessions. |
| recordID | 1 year | This cookie is set by the provider DotMailer, an Email marketing platform. This cookie is used for tracking the users to the website from the emails sent via DotMailer. |
| VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA | 5 months 27 days | Stores the user’s cookie consent state for the current domain. |
| NID | 6 months | Google sets the cookie for advertising purposes; to limit the number of times the user sees an ad, to unwanted mute ads, and to measure the effectiveness of ads. |
| dmSessionID | 20 minutes | Dotmailer sets this cookie to evaluate, track and monitor the effectiveness of email marketing efforts. |
Manage cookie preferences
You can change your cookie preferences any time by clicking the above button. This will let you revisit the cookie consent banner and change your preferences or withdraw your consent right away.
In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block/delete the cookies. Listed below are the links to the support documents on how to manage and delete cookies from the major web browsers.
Chrome: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32050
Safari: https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/safari/sfri11471/mac
Internet Explorer: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-delete-cookie-files-in-internet-explorer-bca9446f-d873-78de-77ba-d42645fa52fc
If you are using any other web browser, please visit your browser’s official support documents.
Last updated: 15 October 2026