1. What are cookies
- A cookie is a small piece of data or message that is sent from a website’s server to your web browser and is then stored on your hard drive. They’re generally used to improve your user experience by – for example – remembering what’s in your online shopping basket or keeping you logged in on a website as you navigate from one page to another. Cookies can’t read data off your hard drive or other cookie files, and do not damage your system.
2. How we use cookies
2.1 First party cookies
- In order to make our website more engaging and effective we use cookies to anonymously track user behaviour and demographics on our website. We use tools such as Google Analytics to monitor the performance of our website.
- We use cookies to store login information and remember preferences
2.2 Third party cookies
- We only use essential third party cookies to process – for example – your newsletter registration or process a payment you have made. Without them you would simply lose information from one page to the next.
- We also use social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) and their buttons to connect with/to their websites, so read their cookie use policy to check what information they’re collecting on you too.
2.3 Email marketing
- Our email marketing (which includes some but not all member communications) may be trackable at an individual level, allowing us to determine, for example, opens and link clicks. This information is generally used to help assess the effectiveness of communications so that – for example – we can send you more of what you like.