Cookies – What and Why?
What’s on this page?
What are cookies?
Why we use cookies
What cookies do we use?
I want to know more…
Contacting us
Recently there has been a lot of discussion in the media about privacy and the use of cookies on websites. With this in mind we feel it is important to explain what cookies are, and how we use cookies on our website.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small pieces of information that a website stores on your computer either in the memory of your computer or other devices such as mobile phones, tablet devices (these cookies are commonly known as session cookies) or are placed on the hard drive of your device (commonly known as persistent cookies).
Cookies can be created when you visit a website or other service that uses cookies. Most of the time these cookies contain harmless non-identifiable (anonymous) information that help the website provide a better user experience to you; or to assist in improving the website by tracking your interactions.
For more information about cookies, and how to delete and disable cookies please visit www.aboutcookies.org, or refer to the section below about turning cookies off.
Why we use cookies
There are many reasons for a website to use cookies. Anything from allowing you to login to a secure area of a website, to remembering your name or favourite colour for next time you visit the site.
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website in order to provide increased functionality and service. This not only helps us to provide you with a better experience, but also to help us improve our website and services.
Unless you have adjusted your web browser settings (if and where possible) to refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies as soon as you visit our website or related online services. However in doing so, you may find that certain functionality or services may be impaired or unavailable to you.
The cookies we use only contain anonymous information to improve the services we offer, and do not contain personal information.
It is also important to point out that not all cookies used by this website are created by us. These cookies (referred to as third party cookies) are covered below.
What cookies do we use?
The cookies we use are generally only to provide functionality or analytical services.
Analytical cookies
These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to our website, discover how visitors move around our website, and to track the content that visitors view and are interested in. This helps us to tailor the content we provide and make sure we offer more of what our visitors want, and less of what they don’t want. Without this information we would have to rely on you, the visitor, contacting us and letting us know if you don’t like something, or if you want to see more of a particular type of content. Analytics does this automatically, all without personally identifying who you are.
Examples of these include:
Remembering that you have logged in to any secure areas of our website;
Remembering that you have signed up to a particular service on our website;
Allowing you to enter key information once and transfer that information to other pages without having to re-enter it;
Allowing you to access stored information you have provided us with;
Allowing you to set preferences that retain across visits to our website;
Embedded content
From time to time we may embed photos or video content from websites such as Flickr or YouTube. As a result, when you visit a page containing these items you may be presented with cookies from these websites.
We do not control these cookies and you should check the relevant third party’s website for more information on their cookies usage or privacy policies.
Sharing tools
On a lot of our pages you will see sharing buttons which enable you to easily share content with your friends through the most common social networks. When you click on any of these links, a cookie may be set by the social network you have chosen to use. As with embedded content, we do not control these cookies, so always check with your chosen social network for more information.
I want to know more…
You can find out more about cookies, including how to disable/enable them at the following website: www.aboutcookies.org
You can also choose to block most cookies by configuring the settings in your web browser. However, if you use your browser to block all cookies (including the essential ones our website requires) you may not be able to access all parts of our website, or you may find that particular functionality is reduced or missing. Unless you have adjusted your browser settings to block cookies, our website will issue cookies as soon as you visit it.
If you are trying to delete or disable cookies on your mobile phones, tablets, or any other internet-enabled devices, please refer to the manual that was provided with it, or to the device manufacturer’s website.
Contacting us
If you have any questions about your privacy, or the information we may hold, please refer to our privacy policy for more information. If you have any other related questions, queries or complaints, please contact us.