Legal
Cookie Policy
This policy lists every cookie and similar technology used on trainstackapp.com: what each one does, who sets it, and how long it lasts.
Nothing beyond strictly necessary storage runs until you have chosen. Analytics and marketing technologies load only after you allow them, and you can change or withdraw that permission at any time from this page.
01
What these technologies are
A cookie is a small file a website asks your browser to keep. Local storage does much the same job: it holds a small amount of data in your browser between visits. Both are covered by this policy, and both are described below as "cookies" for short.
A first-party cookie is set by this site. A third-party cookie is set by a provider whose tag we load. Where a provider sets its own cookie it decides what it does with that data, so its privacy notice applies as well as ours.
02
How your choice works
On your first visit you see a banner offering two equally weighted options: allow everything, or allow strictly necessary only. Nothing optional is loaded before you answer - not held back from sending, but not downloaded at all. The measurement code is fetched at the moment you allow it and never reaches the browser of anyone who does not. If you open the preferences panel, every optional category starts switched off; nothing is pre-selected for you.
Your answer is stored in your browser, not on our servers, so we can respect it without asking again on every page. It applies to the browser and device you used; visit from another browser and you will be asked again.
The "Cookie settings" control in the footer, and at the bottom of this page, reopens the panel whenever you want to change it.
03
Strictly necessary
Always active. These keep the site working and let it defend itself against abuse. They are not used to build a profile of you or to follow you across other websites, and they cannot be switched off - if you block them, parts of the site stop working properly.
Only one of them stores anything in your browser by default, and it is the record of your own cookie choice:
| Name | Type | Expires | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| trainstack.consent.v1 | Local storage entry | Until you change your choice or clear your browser storage | Stores which categories you allowed and the date you chose, so the banner does not reappear on every page. |
This entry never leaves your browser. We do not copy it to our servers and it contains nothing that identifies you.
- Abuse prevention on the application form counts submissions per IP address in the server’s memory for one hour. Nothing is written to your browser, and the counter is discarded when the hour ends.
- The application page loads Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that a submission comes from a real browser rather than a script. It runs only on the application page, and only there because the form would otherwise be trivial to abuse. Turnstile is a security measure rather than a measurement one: it does not profile you, does not track you across sites, and is not used for advertising. Because it is strictly necessary to protect the form, it runs without waiting for a cookie choice, as the rules on strictly necessary technologies allow. It may store a short-lived token in your browser for the duration of the check.
- This site runs on a virtual server we rent and administer ourselves, behind our own web server. Neither sets a cookie of its own, and no content delivery network sits in front of the site to add one.
- Session replay and heat mapping are used on this site, but they belong to the analytics category below and run only if you allow it. Neither is strictly necessary, and nothing in this section records what you do.
04
Analytics
Loaded only if you allow the analytics category, and never before. These show us which sections of a page creators actually read, where they click, and where applications are abandoned, so we can fix what is not working.
This category includes session replay: a reconstruction of a visit built from the page as it was served plus a record of scrolling, clicking and typing timings. It is a rebuild of the page rather than a video of your screen - nothing outside this website is captured, and every form field is masked in your browser before anything is sent, so what you type is not in the recording. It is also where the heat maps of clicks and scroll depth come from.
| Name | Type | Expires | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| ph_phc_AzsXbatnT9rzJsY8RQhMfWmhEDxr6uXemW9wHAao3JPp_posthog | First-party cookie | 1 year | Holds a randomly generated device identifier, the current session identifier, the page you arrived from and any campaign parameters in the link you followed, so several page views can be counted as one visit rather than several strangers. |
| ph_phc_AzsXbatnT9rzJsY8RQhMfWmhEDxr6uXemW9wHAao3JPp_posthog | Local storage entry | Until you switch analytics off or clear your browser storage | A mirror of the cookie above. PostHog writes both so that the same visit is not counted twice if one of them is dropped by the browser. |
| __ph_opt_in_out_phc_AzsXbatnT9rzJsY8RQhMfWmhEDxr6uXemW9wHAao3JPp | First-party cookie | 1 year | Records that measurement is currently allowed. It is deleted, along with everything else in this table, the moment you switch the analytics category off. |
| ph_phc_AzsXbatnT9rzJsY8RQhMfWmhEDxr6uXemW9wHAao3JPp_window_id | Session storage entry | Until you close the tab | Identifies this browser tab, so a session recording is attributed to the tab it came from. A companion entry, ph_phc_AzsXbatnT9rzJsY8RQhMfWmhEDxr6uXemW9wHAao3JPp_primary_window_exists, marks which tab is the active one. |
PostHog is where we look at what happens on this site: which sections of a page are actually read, where people click, and a replay of how a visit moved through the page. Everything you type is masked in the browser before it is sent - the name, email address, link and notes on the application form are never transmitted to PostHog and never stored there - and no request or response content is recorded. We never call PostHog's identification function, so you stay an anonymous device identifier to it rather than a named person. The project is on PostHog's EU region and the data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany.
05
Marketing
No advertising or campaign-measurement technology is currently loaded on this site - neither before nor after consent. No pixel, tag or advertising cookie is present on any page.
If we start running campaigns, every pixel and its cookies will be listed here before the first one loads, and each will still require your consent.
06
Provider privacy notices
Where a provider processes data for its own purposes, its notice applies alongside ours. Cookie names and lifetimes are set by the provider and can change; the tables above record what the current version of each tag sets.
07
Changing or withdrawing your choice
Use the cookie settings control at the bottom of this page. A change applies immediately: anything you switch off is not loaded again, on this visit or any later one.
Switching the analytics category off does not wait for a reload. Recording stops on the spot, measurement is switched off, and every entry in the PostHog table above is deleted from your browser by name - the cookies, the local storage entry and the session storage entries. Turning the category back on starts again from a new identifier, with no link to the previous one.
Cookies a provider has already set stay in your browser until they expire or you remove them. Every major browser lets you inspect and delete the cookies and local storage held for a single site, and block them in future - in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge this sits under privacy or site settings.
Clearing your browser storage also deletes the record of your choice, so the banner will appear again on your next visit.
08
Changes to this policy
If we add, remove or replace any technology listed here, this page is updated before the change reaches the site. The date shown alongside the contents is the date of the current version.
Your current choice
Reading your saved choice…
Changing this takes effect immediately: anything you switch off is not loaded again, here or on a later visit. Cookies a provider has already set remain until they expire or you delete them in your browser.
Questions about this document? Write to office@trainstackapp.com.