When we provide services we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. These services are delivered on the internet, which sometimes involves placing small amounts of information as files on your computer, mobile phone or other device. These small files are known as cookies. Cookies cannot be used to identify you personally. The information from them is used to improve services for you through:
- recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don’t need to do it for every web page requested
- measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there’s enough capacity to ensure that they are fast
- analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with our services so that we can make them better
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners who may combine it with other information you’ve provided to them or they’ve collected from your use of their services.
How to Manage Cookies
- You can manage these small files and learn more about them from the article Internet Browser cookies- what they are and how to manage them.
- Learn how to remove cookies set on your device
There are two types of cookie you may encounter when using our website:
- First party cookies: these are our own cookies, controlled by us and used to provide information about usage of our site.
- Third party cookies: these are cookies found in other companies’ internet tools which we are using to enhance our site, for example Facebook or Twitter have their own cookies, which are controlled by them.