What a cookie is
A cookie is a small file a site asks your browser to keep and hand back on the next page, so that one page can know what the last one did. Without one, signing in would last exactly as long as the page it happened on.
What the Academy sets
Two, and neither is asked about, because neither can be done without: one signs you in, and the other remembers the answer you gave to the question on this page. The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations exempt both. Nothing here counts what you read.
| Name | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHPSESSID | The Academy | Carries your sign-in from one page to the next. It holds a reference to the session on our server and nothing about you. | Until you leave the Academy or close the browser |
| ace_consent | The Academy | Remembers whether you allowed the film players, and when you were asked. It reads as v1. <date>. players or ….none — nothing else, and nothing that identifies you. | Six months, after which you are asked again |
The film players, and the question we ask first
The films are played from Vimeo and, where used, YouTube. Their players may set cookies or similar storage of their own, and loading one reaches them from your browser directly — which tells them your address and which film you opened, before you have pressed anything.
So we do not load one until you say we may. Until you do, a film shows as a curtain naming whose player it is, and nothing of yours has gone anywhere. The banner asks the question once; declining is a button of the same size as allowing, and silence is not taken for either.
When you do allow them, we ask for the quietest arrangement each offers: the Vimeo player is loaded with its do not track setting, and YouTube on its no-cookie host. What they set after that is theirs, under their own policies:
- Vimeo’s cookie policy
- Google’s cookie notice, which covers YouTube
Changing your mind
Taking an allowance back is no harder than giving it, and does not need this page: from here, or use Cookie choices in the small print at the foot of any page.
A change takes effect on the next page you open. Declining after having allowed does not reach into Vimeo’s or Google’s own records — no player will be loaded for you again, but anything they already hold is theirs to answer for, through the notices linked above.
We ask again every six months in any case, and straight away if the question itself changes.
What we do not do
There is no analytics on this site. No advertising cookie, no tracking pixel, no social button, no fingerprinting, no third party told where you have been. We do not measure which volumes you open or how long you spend in them.
Managing cookies in the browser itself
Every browser will show you the cookies a site holds and let you delete them, refuse them, or clear the lot on closing. The controls sit under Privacy or Site settings, and aboutcookies.org explains them browser by browser.
Two things follow from doing it that way rather than through the question above. Refuse the session cookie and the members’ entrance will simply hand you back the sign-in form each time you submit it — nothing is broken; the site has no way to remember that you arrived. And clear the consent cookie and you will be asked about the players again, because the record of your answer was the thing you deleted.
Changes to this policy
If the Academy ever sets another cookie, it will be listed here before it is set — and if it is not strictly necessary, it will be asked for rather than assumed.