Forms
We presently do not make use of forms on our website, but if we do use forms in the future we will make use of an available ‘forms module’ which has a number of built-in features to help ensure privacy. We will also aim to use secure forms where appropriate.
Cookies
We do not make use of cookies to collect any private or personally identifiable information.
We use cookies solely to aid the proper technical functioning of the website. The cookies contain random strings of characters alongside minimal information about the state and session of the website – which in no way collects or discloses any personal information about you as a visitor.
If you chose to, for any secure pages of this website, you can elect to save login information in a cookie on your computer to facilitate faster login to a private area of this site. The process is ultimately within your control. Even where this is used, the cookie still contains minimal authentication information, and does not contain any private or personal data.
The homepage and text-only areas of this site may use cookies to store your presentation preferences in a purely technical fashion with no individually identifiable information.
Note also our statement on analytics software below – as analytics software also uses cookies to function.
In compliance with EU legislation, the following table lists the use of cookies on this web site:
Cookie Name |
Purpose |
More information |
useTextOnly |
This is used to store whether you are in textOnly mode or not. Persistent for three months. |
|
setString |
This is used to store user preferences for viewing sites in textOnly mode e.g. font-size and colour. Persistent for one month. |
|
SitekitLogin |
This is used to store the username and password for ‘remember my login’ feature on extranets. Persistent for one month. |
|
orderIDs |
stores the users drag and drop settings for the homepage. Persistent for one year. |
|
hideIDs |
stores the users content selection for the homepage, e.g. which items to show or hide. Persistent for one year. |
|
dragItemCount |
Stores the number of draggable items on the homepage as a cookie. If the number changes from one visit to the next then all user stored cookies (orderIDs and hideIDs) are removed. Persistent for one year. |
|
AcceptCookies |
This is used to store whether you have agreed to receive cookies. Persistent for one year. |
|
SKSession |
This cookie has two functions. Firstly it serves as a session cookie for extranet users. Without this cookie, an extranet user will have to login to each individual page in the extranet. it enables us to track the pages that a user visits while they navigate around our site. |
|
Google Analytics _utma |
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. |
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Data retention policy
This website operates with a clear data-retention policy in order to comply with the Privacy Enhancing Technology guidance from the Information Commissioner. This means that data has predefined time limits for storage and is only retained by the system for as long as it is considered useful.
Server statistics
Like almost all websites, we have access to server statistics which provide aggregated statistics on bandwidth and server load. This load data is used to manage bandwidth effectively.
The server statistics are not designed to collect any individually identifiable information and the reports we receive are generally numerical and in graph format.
Alongside the server statistics, we collect information on: popular search terms used on the website, which we have access to in order to arrange our pages better; visitor path information, which we will use for future design considerations; and file download popularity (numerical by month), which we use to determine popular and out-dated documents.
Analytics
Like most websites, we make use of analytics software in order to help us understand the trends in popularity of our website. We make no use of personally identifiable information in any of the statistical reports we use from this package.
We use an analytics package called Google Analytics who provide separate details in the Google privacy policy.
Last reviewed: 09/05/2012