This policy explains what this website stores in your browser, what each item is for, and how to control it. It sits alongside our Privacy Policy, which covers personal information more broadly.
The short version: if you are simply reading sam4tech.ca, this site sets no cookies at all. The few cookies described below exist only for people who sign in to the administration area — which means our own team.
What cookies are
A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to store and send back on later visits. Cookies are commonly used to keep someone signed in, remember a preference, or measure how a site is used. Related technologies — local storage, session storage, tracking pixels, and browser fingerprinting — do similar jobs by different means. Where this policy says “cookies”, it covers those too.
Cookies are described as first-party when the site you are visiting sets them and third-party when another domain does, and as session cookies when they disappear as you close the browser or persistent when they survive until they expire or you delete them.
How we use them on this site
We use the smallest number of cookies that lets the site work. We run no advertising cookies, no third-party tracking pixels, no social media embeds, and no analytics scripts, and we do not build profiles of visitors or share browsing behaviour with anyone. Because nothing is set for ordinary visitors, this site shows no cookie consent banner — there is nothing to consent to.
Cookies this site can set
All of the following are first-party cookies set by WordPress, the software this site runs on. Every one of them is strictly necessary, and every one relates to signing in to the administration area.
| Cookie | Purpose | Set for | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
wordpress_test_cookie | Checks that your browser accepts cookies before a sign-in is attempted | Anyone opening the sign-in page | End of session |
wordpress_[hash] | Authenticates the request while the administration area is in use | Signed-in users only | Session, or 14 days with “remember me” |
wordpress_logged_in_[hash] | Records that you are signed in and which account you are | Signed-in users only | Session, or 14 days with “remember me” |
wp-settings-[id], wp-settings-time-[id] | Remembers editor and dashboard layout preferences | Signed-in users only | 1 year |
These cookies are exempt from consent requirements because the site cannot provide a sign-in service without them.
The contact form does not use a cookie
If you submit the contact form with a field missing or invalid, the site needs to show the form back to you without losing what you typed. It does that on the server, not in your browser: the entries are held for up to five minutes against a one-way hash of your IP address and browser identifier, and are erased as soon as the form is redisplayed. Nothing is written to your device, and a successful submission stores nothing at all.
Analytics and advertising
We currently run no analytics, no advertising, no retargeting, and no marketing automation on this website. Our understanding of how the site is used comes from aggregate server logs, which are described in the Privacy Policy.
If that ever changes we will update this page before the change goes live, name the tool and what it collects here, and — where consent is required — ask for it before anything is set.
Third-party requests your browser makes
Two typefaces on this site, Outfit and Inter, are requested from Google Fonts at fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com. That request sets no cookies, but like any request to another server it does reveal your IP address, your browser and operating system, and the page you were on. It is the only third-party request this site makes as standard.
If we later embed something from another provider — a video, a map, or a booking widget — those providers may set their own cookies. We will list any such embed here, and we will not add one that tracks you without asking first.
Managing cookies in your browser
You are always in control. Every major browser — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge — lets you view stored cookies, delete them individually or all at once, block third-party cookies, and block cookies from a specific site. Look under Settings, then Privacy. Private or incognito windows clear everything they set as you close them.
Blocking cookies will not stop you reading anything on this site. It will stop our team signing in to manage it, which is only our problem, not yours. Note that browser controls apply per browser and per device, so a preference set on your laptop does not carry over to your phone.
Do Not Track and global privacy signals
Because we do not track visitors across websites, there is nothing here for a Do Not Track header or a Global Privacy Control signal to switch off. If we ever introduce anything that would be affected by one, we will honour those signals and say so on this page.
Cookies in the systems we build
This policy covers sam4tech.ca only. Websites, applications, and platforms we build for clients have their own cookie and privacy policies, written for what those systems actually do and published by the client who operates them.
Changes to this policy
We review this page whenever we change how the site is built or what it loads. The “last updated” date at the top reflects the current version.
Questions
If anything here is unclear, or you want to know exactly what a page loaded during your visit, write to info@sam4tech.ca and we will tell you.