What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your browser or the hard drive of your computer or mobile device when you first visit one of our web pages.

Why are cookies needed?

Websites use cookies to distinguish you from other users of the website, allow you to navigate around and let the website owner tailor the content to fit your needs. If cookies are not enabled, the website and your experience of it may not be as good as the designer intended it to be.

Most cookies don’t collect personal data about you, however a cookie may store information if you click a ‘remember me’ button after inputting data, for example, your username and password. They may also store your IP address or other information about your device.

Types of cookies

We currently use or plan to use four types of cookies:

• Strictly necessary.
  These cookies are required for our website to work, including, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website or use a shopping cart.
• Analytical/performance.
  These cookies allow us to recognise and count distinct visitors to our website and see how visitors move around the website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
• Functional.
  These cookies recognise your device when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you and remember your preferences.
• Tracking.
  These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and any advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests.

Third Party Cookies

Please note that third parties, including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services, may also use cookies on our website.

For example, advertisers may use a profile they have built on sites that you have previously visited to present you with more relevant advertisements during your visit to our website.

We have no control over third party cookies.

How to control and delete cookies

If you want to restrict or block the cookies we set, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘help’ function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you could visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on cookies on a wide variety of browsers. You’ll also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer. To learn about controlling cookies on the browser of a mobile device please refer to your handset manual.

You can usually disable third party cookies by going to the relevant third-party website and opting out there. Please note that if you opt out of third-party advertising cookies, you will still continue to receive advertising when using the website, however that advertising will not be tailored to you.

Cookies in emails

As well as the cookies we use on our websites, we use cookies and similar technologies in some emails. These help us to understand whether you’ve opened an email and how you’ve interacted with it. If you have enabled images, cookies may be set on your computer or device. Cookies will also be set if you click on any link within the email. The
technology types we use are:

Web beacons: tiny, invisible images placed in emails to tell us whether you’ve opened them (and if so how often), how you interacted with them (for example the time you spent reading the email), which email software and web browser you used, which device you used and your IP address. We also use web beacons to help us display emails in the
best format for your device.

Link tracking: our emails contain a number of hyperlinks, each of which has a unique tag. When you click on one of these links the mailing company logs the click so that we can understand who has clicked through from an email to our website. We use this information to tailor future messages to you.

Cookies: our process for delivering emails may cause cookies to be set when you download images or when you click on a link.

How to control email cookies

If you don’t want to accept cookies from our emails, simply close the email before downloading any images or clicking on any links. You can also set your browser to restrict or reject cookies. These settings will apply to all cookies on websites and emails.

In some instances, depending on your email or browser settings, cookies in an email may be automatically accepted (for example, when you’ve added an email address to your address book or safe senders list). Please check your email browser or device instructions for more information on this.