To make the website work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device.
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website stores on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site.
- First party cookies are cookies set by the website you are visiting. Only that website can read them. In addition, a website might potentially use external services, which also set their own cookies, known as third-party cookies.
- Persistent cookies are cookies saved on your computer and that are not deleted automatically when you quit your browser, unlike a session cookie, which is deleted when you quit your browser.
The purpose is to enable the site to remember your preferences (such as user name, language, etc.) for a certain period of time.
That way, you do not have to re-enter them when browsing around the site during the same visit.
Cookies can also be used to establish anonymised statistics about the browsing experience on our sites.
How do we use cookies?
The 3 types of first-party cookie we use are to:
- gather analytics data (about user behaviour).
- make our websites operational
- store visitor preferences
Visitor preferences
These are set by us and only we can read them. They remember:
- if you have agreed to (or refused) this site’s cookie policy
- if you have already replied to our survey pop-up (about how helpful the site content was) - so you will not be asked again.
Operational cookies
There are some cookies that we have to include in order for certain web pages to function. For this reason, they do not require your consent. In particular:
- Authentication cookies: these are stored when you log in to a site, using our authentication service (Login). When you do this, you accept the associated privacy policy.
- Technical cookies required by certain IT systems.
Analytics cookies
We use these purely for internal research on how we can improve the service we provide for all our users.
The cookies simply assess how you interact with our website - as an anonymous user (they data gathered does not identify you personally).
Also, this data is not shared with any third parties or used for any other purpose. The anonymised statistics could be shared with contractors working on communication projects under contractual agreement.
Third-party cookies
Some of our pages display content hosted by contracted services on domains external.
The external hosting may need cookies in order to function:
- Session info (random number), used for dealing with multi-language forms. No additional information stored.
- Cookie type and duration, third-party session cookie. Deleted after you quit your browser.
Some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter...
To view this third-party content, you first have to accept their specific terms and conditions. This includes their cookie policies, which we have no control over.
But if you do not view this content, no third-party cookies are installed on your device.
How can you manage cookies?
Removing cookies from your device
You can delete all cookies that are already on your device by clearing the browsing history of your browser. This will remove all cookies from all websites you have visited.
Be aware though that you may also lose some saved information (e.g. saved login details, site preferences).
Managing site-specific cookies
For more detailed control over site-specific cookies, check the privacy and cookie settings in your preferred browser.
Blocking cookies
You can set most modern browsers to prevent any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page. And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all (e.g. profile logging-in).
Managing our analytics cookies
“Do Not Track” is a technology that enables visitors to opt-out from being tracked by websites for whatever purpose, including the use of analytics services, advertising networks and social platforms.
To enable the “do not track” option in your browser follow the respective link below:
If your preferred browser is not in the above list of browsers, visit the vendor's website for more information.
Contact
Any specific question concerning the storage and use of cookies can be sent via the contact form.
