Category: Necessary

Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure

areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.

PHPSESSID

Expiration day: 29 days

A session cookie is required to follow your progress through the website. It is essential to ensure that any information you enter or routes you take are remembered by the website. Without this cookie, every page you visited would treat you as a completely new visitor. This cookie does not identify you personally and is not linked to any other information we store about you.

Initiator: Web server

Category: Statistics

Statistic cookies help website owners to understand how visitors interact with websites by collecting and reporting

information anonymously.

_ga 

Expiry: 2 years

Data stored: Short randomly generated id 

Purpose: Google Analytics: distinguishes between users

_gat 

Expiry: 1 day

Data stored: Number

Google Analytics: used to throttle request rate

_gid 

Expiry: 1 day

Data stored: Short randomly generated id 

Purpose: Google Analytics: distinguishes between users

Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

We use both session and persistent cookies on our website.

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies; for example:
(a) in Internet Explorer (version 11) you can block cookies using the cookie handling override settings available by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy” and then “Advanced”;
(b) in Firefox (version 47) you can block all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Options”, “Privacy”, selecting “Use custom settings for history” from the drop-down menu, and unticking “Accept cookies from sites”; and
(c) in Chrome (version 52), you can block all cookies by accessing the “Customise and control” menu, and clicking “Settings”, “Show advanced settings” and “Content settings”, and then selecting “Block sites from setting any data” under the “Cookies” heading.

Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.

You can delete cookies already stored on your computer; for example:
(a) in Internet Explorer (version 11), you must manually delete cookie files (you can find instructions for doing so at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/internet-explorer/delete-manage-cookies#ie=ie-11);
(b) in Firefox (version 47), you can delete cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Options” and “Privacy”, then selecting “Use custom settings for history” from the drop-down menu, clicking “Show Cookies”, and then clicking “Remove All Cookies”; and
(c) in Chrome (version 52), you can delete all cookies by accessing the “Customise and control” menu, and clicking “Settings”, “Show advanced settings” and “Clear browsing data”, and then selecting “Cookies and other site and plug-in data” before clicking “Clear browsing data”.

Deleting cookies will have a negative impact on the usability of many websites.