Cookie law

The Cookie Law is a piece of privacy legislation that requires websites to obtain consent from visitors to store or retrieve any information on a computer or any other web connected device, like a smartphone or tablet.

It has been designed to protect online privacy, by making consumers aware of how information about them is collected by websites, and enable them to choose whether or not they want to allow it to take place.

It started as an EU Directive that was adopted by all EU countries on May 26th 2011. At the same time the UK updated its Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which brought the EU Directive it into UK law. Other EU countries have made similar changes to their laws.

Cookie information

Your Privacy - how cookies are used

Cookies are often used by website owners to help them understand how visitors use their website. A small file is stored on the computer or mobile device accessing the site. These cookies cannot be used to identify you personally, and do not collect information from your computer.

Some examples of how this information is used to improve services can be found below:

Measuring how people are using services
Technology being used to access the site, for example, web browser

Our use of cookies

We may use both "session" cookies and "persistent" cookies on the website. We may use the session cookies to keep track of your visit while you navigate our website. We may use the persistent cookies to enable our website to recognise you when you visit. Session cookies will be deleted from your computer when you close your browser. Persistent cookies will remain stored on your computer until deleted, or until they reach a specified expiry date.

Most browsers allow you to reject all cookies, while some browsers allow you to reject just third party cookies. You can check the settings of the browser you are using for available options. However, blocking all cookies might have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

Cookies used on this site

Cookies used by this website are "session" cookies that exist only until you close your web browser. These cookies do not collect any information that can identify you personally.

We use a Google product on this website called reCaptcha. It is used on web forms to prevent web bots submitting the forms automatically. As part of this tool Google places a couple of "persistent" cookies on your computer.

Name: PREF, NID
Purpose: These cookies are used by Google to store user preferences and information
Type: Persistent, expiry dates are varied