Cookie Policy
Effective 3 November 2026
1. Introduction
This Cookie Policy explains how NorthQA OPC ("NorthQA", "we", "us") uses cookies and similar technologies on northqa.com and its subdomains (the "Site"). It should be read together with our Privacy Policy, which describes how we handle personal information more generally, and our Terms of Service.
NorthQA is registered with the Philippine National Privacy Commission and processes personal data in line with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173). Where visitors are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or other regions with cookie consent rules, we aim to meet those rules as well.
2. What Are Cookies and Similar Technologies?
Cookies are small text files that a website stores on your browser or device. They let the site recognise your browser, remember choices, and understand how the site is used. In this policy "cookies" also covers related technologies such as pixels, tags, scripts, local storage, and server-side logs that serve a similar purpose.
Cookies may be "first-party" (set by northqa.com) or "third-party" (set by another domain, such as Google, when its service is loaded on our Site). They may be "session" cookies that expire when you close your browser, or "persistent" cookies that stay until they expire or you delete them.
3. Why NorthQA Uses Cookies
We use cookies and similar technologies to:
- Keep the Site secure and protect our contact and report forms from spam and automated abuse
- Understand which pages, blog posts, and tools are useful so we can improve them
- Measure whether our advertising brings relevant visitors, and avoid paying for traffic that does not convert
- Display embedded content such as the map on our contact page
- Meet legal and accounting obligations
4. Categories of Cookies We Use
4.1 Strictly Necessary
Required for the Site to work. This includes security tokens and the reCAPTCHA check that protects our forms. These cannot be switched off through our Site, only through your browser settings, and blocking them may stop forms from submitting.
4.2 Functional
Set by embedded third-party content, currently the Google Maps embed on our contact page. They remember preferences for that embedded service and are only set when the page containing the embed loads.
4.3 Analytics and Performance
Tell us how visitors find and use the Site: which pages are viewed, roughly where traffic comes from, and whether pages load quickly. We use Google Analytics 4 for this. We also use Vercel Web Analytics, which is cookieless and does not store identifiers on your device. We do not use session replay or recording tools.
4.4 Marketing and Advertising
We run Google Ads campaigns. Google Ads conversion cookies let us see that a contact form submission or booked call came from a specific campaign. We do not sell data collected through cookies, and we do not use these cookies to build advertising profiles of you on other sites.
4.5 Security and Abuse Prevention
Google reCAPTCHA v3 runs on pages with forms to detect bots, scraping, and automated submissions. It is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
5. Cookies and Durations
The table below lists the main cookies you may encounter on the Site. Third-party providers may change cookie names or durations without notice, so treat this as a guide rather than an exhaustive list.
| Cookie | Provider | Purpose | Category | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _ga, _ga_* | Google Analytics 4 | Distinguishes visitors and sessions so we can measure page views and traffic sources. | Analytics | Up to 2 years |
| _gcl_au, _gcl_aw | Google Ads | Attributes form submissions and booked calls to the Google Ads campaign that brought you here. | Marketing | Up to 90 days |
| _GRECAPTCHA | Google reCAPTCHA | Tells apart humans from bots on our contact and report forms. | Security | 6 months |
| NID, CONSENT, SOCS | Google Maps | Set by the map embed on our contact page to remember Google preferences and serve the map. | Functional | 6 months to 13 months |
6. Third-Party Providers
The following third parties may set cookies or collect data through our Site:
- Google LLC (Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, reCAPTCHA, Google Maps). See How Google uses cookies.
- Vercel Inc. (hosting and Vercel Web Analytics). Vercel Web Analytics does not use cookies or persistent identifiers. See the Vercel Privacy Policy.
Some of these providers are based outside the Philippines. Where that is the case we rely on the provider's own data transfer safeguards and contractual terms.
7. Cookies in Our QA Services
This policy covers northqa.com only. When we test a client's website or application as part of a QA engagement, any cookies involved belong to the client's product and are governed by the client's own policies and our service agreement. Submitting a URL or build to us for testing does not place NorthQA cookies on that product or its users.
8. Your Choices
You can control cookies in several ways:
- Browser settings. Every major browser lets you block or delete cookies, either for all sites or for specific domains. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may stop our forms from working.
- Google Analytics opt-out. Install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on to stop Google Analytics from collecting your data on any site.
- Google Ads settings. Manage personalised advertising at adssettings.google.com.
- Global Privacy Control. Where the law requires it, we treat a recognised opt-out preference signal sent by your browser as a request not to share your data for targeted advertising. We do not currently respond to generic "Do Not Track" signals.
Withdrawing consent or blocking cookies affects future collection only. It does not delete data a provider already holds; use the provider's own controls, or contact us, for that.
9. Retention
Cookie lifetimes are shown in the table above. Data derived from cookies, such as aggregated analytics reports and conversion counts, is retained for as long as it is useful for the purposes described in this policy or as required by law. Deleting a cookie from your browser does not remove data a provider has already recorded server-side.
10. Updates to This Policy
We may update this Cookie Policy when we add or remove services, or when the law changes. Changes apply from the effective date shown at the top of this page. If a change requires your consent, we will ask for it before the new processing starts.
11. Contact Us
Questions about cookies or this policy can be sent to our Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@northqa.com.
NorthQA OPC
Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines
Phone: (088) 323 0334