Cookies

Cookies are small text files stored on your computer by your browser. They’re used for many things, such as remembering whether you’ve visited the site before, so that you remain logged in – or to help us work out how many new website visitors we get each month. They contain information about the use of your computer but don’t include personal information about you (they don’t store your name, for instance). When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:

• 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 they are fast
• Analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with our services so we can make them better

Third party cookies we use