About our Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of data that are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website or application.

Websites use them to:

• Remember information about you, so you don’t have to give each time you visit the website.
• Keep you signed in.
• Help understand how people are using services, usually to improve the service offered in some way.
• To deliver advertising.
• Personalise content for you by remembering your preferences / settings.
• Support your progress through a website.

There are a number of different types of cookies:

First-party cookies and third-party cookies

First-party cookies - These cookies are set by the website you’re visiting. And only that website and websites owned by the same company can read them.

Third-party cookies - These cookies are set by someone other than the owner of the website you’re visiting. Some web pages may also contain content from other sites like YouTube or Flickr, which may set their own cookies. The main website will have no control over third-party cookies - you can turn them off, but not through us.

Session and persistent cookies

Session cookies - These cookies only last for a unique online session. They will disappear from your computer or device when you close your browser (like Internet Explorer, Chrome or Safari).

Persistent cookies - These cookies will stay on your computer or device long after your browser has been closed and can last for a time specified in the cookie. These can be set to remain on your machine for years. Luckily they tend to be very small. Persistent cookies maybe used to persist a shopping basket or to remember a user’s preference on a machine.

All cookies have a purpose and these purposes usually fall into 4 basic categories.

• Strictly necessary cookies
• Functional cookies
• Performance cookies
• Advertising cookies

Strictly necessary cookies

These cookies let you use all the different parts of the a website. Without them, the website would not be able to function correctly. Sometimes to ensure a company can continue to offer the services they offer they consider data regarding usage to be essential.

Some examples of necessary cookies are:

• Managing the sign-in and sign-out process on a website
• Remembering cookies and privacy consents
• Cookies required by third-party sites to help the site function. For example Google Maps may be used on a site and this may require its own necessary cookies to be in place to work correctly.
• Collecting information on which pages visitors use so they can improve online services – if users were able to opt out, this would devalue any anonymous statistical data.

Functional cookies

These help personalise a website to your needs by remembering preferences and settings. Some examples of how we cookies are used:

• Remembering your choice of display settings on a device
• Remembering where you progressed to in a shopping experience
• Remembering where you paused a media programme
• Remembering if you have visited the website before so that messages for new visitors are not displayed every time

Performance cookies

These help make sure that the website is working 100% and help to fix any errors.

Advertising cookies

Some websites use advertising networks to show you specially targeted adverts when you visit. These networks may also be able to track your browsing across different sites.

Not just cookies

Sites can use various technologies including cookies to achieve all of the above. Alternatives include local web storage and hidden web assets which perform a similar task. They may use these to again improve the user experience on a site in particular on mobile devices.

How do web browsers track my info?

They use various technical tools, including:

• Cookies
• IP addresses
• HTTP referrer
• Tracking scripts
• User agents
• Browser fingerprinting.

The “Do Not Track” (DNT) setting

Some internet browsers have a DNT setting. This sends a signal to websites asking them not to track your browsing.

This doesn’t work with our website at the moment as it has not been fully adopted as a standard – it is even being considered to be removed from some of browsers who have adopted it.

How to avoid web beacons and other tracking technologies

You can normally render them ineffective by switching off cookies in your browser. There are also browser add-ons and extensions that specifically block web beacons.

To avoid web beacons in emails, you can turn off images in your email service. Check your email’s Help section to find out how.

Change your browser settings

If at any time you do not want information about your browsing behaviour to be used for the purposes of delivering advertising on other websites, you can “opt out” as described below. You can also opt-out with the links provided above. If you do choose to opt-out you will continue to see adverts but they may be less relevant to you as they will not be tailored to your interests.

How can I opt-out?

You can prevent your browsing from being tracked generally by adjusting your browser settings, browsing in ‘private mode’ or using browser add-ons. You can find out how to do this by visiting the relevant support page for your browser, or by using the help function on your browser.

Ad Choices tools for web browsers

You can opt-out from targeted advertising on websites and more generally across the internet using the opt-out tools of ad industry bodies, including:

European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA) Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Network Advertising Initiative (NAI)

Ad choices for mobile applications

If you are accessing websites though the web browser on your mobile device, you should follow the instructions above. However, mobile applications use different technologies to recognise your device. To opt out of your app usage data being used to target advertising within apps you should follow the instructions relevant to the web browser specific to your mobile device.