Data HQ Cookie Notice: VistaConnect and BlogPilot

Version: 1.1 Effective date: 2026-09-29 Owner: Data HQ Limited

This notice explains how Data HQ uses cookies and similar technologies on its VistaConnect and BlogPilot websites and applications. It sits alongside the Data HQ Privacy Notice at vista.datahq.co.uk/legal/privacy and applies to vista.datahq.co.uk and any subdomain, to blogpilot.datahq.co.uk, and to the VistaConnect and BlogPilot applications.

What cookies are

Cookies are small text files stored on your device by websites you visit. We also use "local storage": similar, but stored in your browser rather than sent with each request. For convenience we refer to both as "cookies" below.

What we use and why

Strictly necessary (always on)

These keep the service working. They are exempt from the consent requirement of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). The underlying processing of personal data carried out by these cookies has the following UK GDPR Article 6 lawful bases: contract performance (Article 6(1)(b)) for session, authentication and UI-preference cookies that are necessary to deliver the Services you have signed up for; and legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f)) for security and anti-abuse cookies that protect the platform from fraud and attack.

Analytics (requires consent)

When we add analytics cookies, we'll use them to understand which marketing pages are useful and where people drop off. Individual user profiles are not built. Data is aggregated.

• Today: none. The analytics category is a placeholder so that consent is already captured before we ever ship a tracker that uses cookies.
• If that changes, the specific tool used (e.g. a privacy-respecting product like Plausible, or a consent-gated GA4 deployment) will be listed here and you will be asked again for consent if the tool changes materially.

Marketing (requires consent)

Optional cookies for measuring advertising effectiveness and tailoring landing-page experiences across marketing platforms. Today: none. Same position as analytics.

Cookieless visit measurement on the BlogPilot website

The BlogPilot website, blogpilot.datahq.co.uk, measures visits with Data HQ's own BlogPilot tracking script, the same script our BlogPilot customers can add to their own websites. Data HQ is the controller of this data, and no third party receives it.

• No cookies. The script does not set cookies and does not use your browser's local storage or session storage.
• What it records. For each page you view: the page address without any query string or fragment, the page title, the referring page (also without any query string or fragment), the utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign values if the page address contains them, the device type (mobile, tablet or desktop, worked out from the width of your browser window, which is not stored), and the time. While the page is visible, it sends a short message every 30 seconds so that time on page can be estimated.
• Unique visits. Your IP address and browser User-Agent string are used only in memory, together with a random value that changes every day and is never stored, to create a one-way identifier that lets us count unique visits within a day. Your IP address and User-Agent string are not stored, and the identifier cannot be linked to you on another day.
• What it does not do. It does not record your country or location, collect names, email addresses or form contents, or follow you across other websites.
• Why. We use it to understand how the BlogPilot website is used and to improve it, on the basis of our legitimate interest. We rely on the exemption for analytics that improve our own website, which the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 added to regulation 6 of PECR, and we give you a simple way to opt out.

How to opt out. Use the "Opt out of visit measurement on this website" switch on the Cookies page of the BlogPilot website. When you switch it on, the measurement script is not loaded in that browser. Your choice is remembered in your browser's local storage (see the strictly necessary table above), so it applies only to that browser and is lost if you clear your browser storage.

Websites of BlogPilot customers that use the tracking script are covered by those businesses' own privacy information. For those websites the customer is the controller and Data HQ is its processor. What the script collects is described at blogpilot.datahq.co.uk/tracking-privacy.

Cookies the logged-in applications don't use

The signed-in VistaConnect portal (everything behind /dashboard, /bulk-enrichment, /list-builder, etc.) and the signed-in BlogPilot application use only the "strictly necessary" category listed above. They do not load third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

How to change your mind

Use the Cookie preferences link in the footer of any public marketing page. You can toggle analytics and marketing on or off at any time; your preference is stored on your device.

For visit measurement on the BlogPilot website, use the opt-out switch on its Cookies page, described above. You can switch it off again at any time.

You can also clear cookies using your browser's settings; we will re-ask you on your next visit.

How we respect "Do Not Track" and Global Privacy Control

Where your browser signals Global Privacy Control, we treat the optional categories above as rejected, and on the BlogPilot website the visit measurement script is not loaded, as if you had used the opt-out switch. The ICO currently recognises GPC; we follow that position.

Contact

• Data-protection queries: legal@datahq.co.uk
• Postal: Data HQ Limited, Saxon House, 27 Duke Street, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1HT
• ICO registration: Z5561873

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