Privacy & cookies
Last updated: June 2026
The short version: this site doesn't collect your name, email address or any other personal details. You sign in with an anonymous code. We use one essential cookie to keep you signed in, your own device remembers a couple of small preferences, and there is no advertising, no analytics and no third-party tracking of any kind.
Who runs this site
This site is run by the School of Pharmacy at Queen's University Belfast for the Pathway Opportunity Programme (POP) Summer School. It exists to give participants their teaching materials, the week's schedule, and a few extras like the daily puzzle.
What's stored, and why
- A sign-in cookie (essential). When you sign in, we set one cookie so you stay signed in as you move around the site. It contains only your anonymous login code in a tamper-proof form, and it expires after 12 hours (8 hours for staff). The site cannot work without it.
- Things kept on your own device. Your browser stores your Pharmle puzzle guesses and whether you've dismissed an announcement banner. These never leave your device and are never sent to us. You can remove them at any time by clearing your browser data.
- Activity linked to your anonymous code. So the School can see how the summer school is going, we record — against your code, never your name — when you sign in, which sessions you open, how far through the slides you get, roughly how long you spend, and your daily streak. Any list matching codes to real people is kept by the School separately, offline.
- Security. If someone repeatedly fails to sign in, we temporarily note the network address (IP) the attempts came from — for about 15 minutes — purely to block password guessing. Staff sign-ins and changes made in the staff area are also logged, so there's an accountable record of who changed what.
What we don't do
- No advertising, no analytics services, no social media trackers.
- No third-party cookies — in fact, your browser makes no requests to any third-party service from this site. Everything (including the slide viewer) is served from the site itself.
- We never sell or share information with anyone.
The site runs on Cloudflare's hosting network, which delivers the pages to your browser in the same way any web host does.
Your choices
- You can clear the on-device storage (puzzle progress and banner preference) from your browser settings at any time.
- If you'd like your activity removed, ask the team to delete your login code — deleting a code erases the activity recorded against it.
Questions
Contact the POP Lead, Dr Vicky Kett, at v.kett@qub.ac.uk.