Events - SIFA Public

This legal notice applies to the entire contents of the Website under the domain name www.sifa.co.uk (“Website”) and to any correspondence by e-mail between us and you. Please read these terms carefully before using the Website.

PART 1: TERMS OF USE

Using the Website indicates that you accept these terms regardless of whether or not you choose to register with us. If you do not accept these terms, do not use the Website. This notice is issued by The SimplyBiz Group Limited (“Company”).

Introduction
1. You may access many areas of the Website without registering your details with us. However, certain areas of the Website are only open to you if you are a SimplyBiz Group Member firm.
2. By accessing any part of the Website, you shall be deemed to have accepted this legal notice in full. If you do not accept this legal notice in full, you must leave the Website immediately.
3. The Company may revise this legal notice at any time by updating this posting. You should check the Website from time to time to review the then current legal notice, because it is binding on you. Certain provisions of this legal notice may be superseded by expressly designated legal notices or terms located on particular pages at the Website.
Licence
1. You are permitted to print and download extracts from the Website for your own use on the following basis:
  - no documents or related graphics on the Website are modified in any way;
  - no graphics on the Website are used separately from the corresponding text; and
  - the Company's copyright and trade mark notices and this permission notice appear in all copies.
2. Unless otherwise stated, the copyright and other intellectual property rights in all material on the Website (including without limitation photographs and graphical images) are owned by the Company or its licensors. For the purposes of this legal notice, any use of extracts from the Website other than in accordance with clause 2.1 for any purpose is prohibited. If you breach any of the terms in this legal notice, your permission to use the Website automatically terminates and you must immediately destroy any downloaded or printed extracts from the Website.
3. Subject to clause 2.1, no part of the Website may be reproduced or stored in any other website or included in any public or private electronic retrieval system or service without the Company's prior written permission.
4. Any rights not expressly granted in these terms are reserved.
Service access
1. While the Company endeavours to ensure that the Website is normally available 24 hours a day, the Company shall not be liable if for any reason the Website is unavailable at any time or for any period.
2. Access to the Website may be suspended temporarily and without notice in the case of system failure, maintenance or repair or for reasons beyond the Company's control.
Visitor material and conduct
1. Other than personally identifiable information, which is covered under our Privacy Policy (see “Part 2: Privacy Policy” below), any material you transmit or post to the Website shall be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. The Company shall have no obligations with respect to such material. The Company and its designees shall be free to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate and otherwise use such material and all data, images, sounds, text and other things embodied therein for any and all commercial or non-commercial purposes.
2. You are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from the Website any material:
  - that is threatening, defamatory, obscene, indecent, seditious, offensive, pornographic, abusive, liable to incite racial hatred, discriminatory, menacing, scandalous, inflammatory, blasphemous, in breach of confidence, in breach of privacy or which may cause annoyance or inconvenience; or
  - for which you have not obtained all necessary licences and/or approvals; or
  - which constitutes or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise be contrary to the law of or infringe the rights of any third party, in any country in the world; or
  - which is technically harmful (including, without limitation, computer viruses, corrupted data or other malicious software or harmful data).
3. You may not misuse the Website (including, without limitation, by hacking).
4. The Company shall fully co-operate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing the Company to disclose the identity or locate anyone posting any material in breach of clause 4.2 or clause 4.3.
Links to and from other websites
1. Links to third party websites on the Website are provided solely for your convenience. If you use these links, you leave the Website. The Company has not reviewed all of these third party websites and does not control and is not responsible for these websites or their content or availability. The Company therefore does not endorse or make any representations about them, or any material found there, or any results that may be obtained from using them. If you decide to access any of the third party websites linked to the Website, you do so entirely at your own risk.
2. If you would like to create a link to the Website, you may only do so on the basis that you link to, but do not replicate, the home page of the Website, and subject to the following conditions:
  - you do not remove, distort or otherwise alter the size or appearance of the Company logo;
  - you do not create a frame or any other browser or border environment around the Website;
  - you do not in any way imply that the Company is endorsing any products or services other than its own;
  - you do not misrepresent your relationship with the Company nor present any other false information about the Company;
  - you do not otherwise use any Company trade marks displayed on the Website without express written permission from the Company;
  - you do not link from a website that is not owned by you; and
  - your website does not contain content that is distasteful, offensive or controversial, infringes any intellectual property rights or other rights of any other person or otherwise does not comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
3. The Company expressly reserves the right to revoke the right granted in clause 5.2 for breach of these terms and to take any action it deems appropriate.
4. You shall fully indemnify the Company for any loss or damage suffered by the Company or any of its group companies for breach of clause 5.2.
Registration
1. Each registration is for a single user only. The Company does not permit you to share your user name and password with any other person nor with multiple users on a network.
2. Responsibility for the security of any passwords issued rests with you.
3. Use of your personal data following registration will be in accordance with our Privacy Policy (see “Part 2: Privacy Policy” below).
Disclaimer
1. While the Company endeavours to ensure that the information on the Website is correct, the Company does not warrant the accuracy and completeness of the material on the Website. The Company may make changes to the material on the Website, or to the products and prices described in it, at any time without notice. The material on the Website may be out of date, and the Company makes no commitment to update such material.
2. The material on the Website is provided "as is", without any conditions, warranties or other terms of any kind. Accordingly, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the Company provides you with the Website on the basis that the Company excludes all representations, warranties, conditions and other terms (including, without limitation, the conditions implied by law of satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose and the use of reasonable care and skill) which, but for this legal notice, might have effect in relation to the Website.
Liability
1. The Company, any other party (whether or not involved in creating, producing, maintaining or delivering the Website), and any of the Company's group companies and the officers, directors, employees, shareholders or agents of any of them, exclude all liability and responsibility for any amount or kind of loss or damage that may result to you or a third party (including without limitation, any direct, indirect, punitive or consequential loss or damages, or any loss of income, profits, goodwill, data, contracts, use of money, or loss or damages arising from or connected in any way to business interruption, and whether in tort (including without limitation negligence), contract or otherwise) in connection with the Website in any way or in connection with the use, inability to use or the results of use of the Website, any websites linked to the Website or the material on such websites, including but not limited to loss or damage due to viruses that may infect your computer equipment, software, data or other property on account of your access to, use of, or browsing the Website or your downloading of any material from the Website or any websites linked to the Website.
2. Nothing in this legal notice shall exclude or limit the Company's liability for:
  - death or personal injury caused by negligence (as such term is defined by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977; or
  - fraud; or
  - misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter; or
  - any liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.
3. If your use of material on the Website results in the need for servicing, repair or correction of equipment, software or data, you assume all costs thereof.
Governing law and jurisdiction
This legal notice shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law. Disputes arising in connection with this legal notice shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

PART 2: PRIVACY POLICY

The SimplyBiz Group Limited and the group of companies of which it forms a part ("we" or “our”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy (together with our Terms of Use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you (including financial advisers who are a SimplyBiz Group Member firm or other registered user of our Website), or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting www.sifa.co.uk (“Website”) or, where relevant, accessing any member-only part of the Website, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”), the data controller is The SimplyBiz Group Limited of The John Smith's Stadium, Stadium Way,Huddersfield, HD1 6PG.

Information we collect from you

We will collect and process the following data about you:

Information you give us. This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on our Website, or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you register to use our Website, subscribe to/join our services (which includes providing assistance and information to our member firms), participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site, enter a competition, promotion or survey and when you report a problem with our site. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, financial and credit card information, personal description and photograph.
Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our site we will automatically collect the following information:
- technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, operating system and platform;
- information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time), products or services you viewed or searched for, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.
Information we receive from other sources. This is information we receive about you if you use any of the other websites we operate or the other services we provide. We also work closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners and financial products/services providers). We will notify you when we receive information about you from them and the purposes for which we intend to use that information.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy.

Uses made of the information

We use information held about you in the following ways:

Information you give to us. We will use this information:
- to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us;
- to provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about;
- to provide you, or permit selected third parties to provide you, with information about goods or services we feel may interest you. If you are a registered user of our Website, we or third parties selected by us (which may include financial product or service providers) will only contact you with information about goods and services which are relevant to the range of financial services carried out by our registered user base. If you do not want us to use your data in this way, or to pass your details on to third parties for marketing purposes, please contact us to confirm that you do not wish your data to be used in this way (see “Your Rights” below);
- to notify you about changes to our service;
- to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
Information we collect about you. We will use this information:
- to administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
- to improve our site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
- to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
- as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure;
- to measure or understand the effectiveness of any advertising we serve to you and others, and, if such is the case, to deliver relevant advertising to you;
- to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our site about goods or services that may interest you or them.
Information we receive from other sources. We will combine this information with information you give to us and information we collect about you. We will use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive).

Disclosure of your information

You agree that we have the right to share your personal information with:

Any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.
Selected third parties including:
- business partners, suppliers of financial products and services and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you;
- advertisers that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others.;
- analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site;
- credit reference agencies for the purpose of assessing your credit score where this is a condition of us entering into a contract with you.

We will disclose your personal information to third parties:

In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
If The SimplyBiz Group Limited or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party (or any member of the group of which it forms a part), in which case personal data held by it about its customers, clients and registered users will be one of the transferred assets.
If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms of Use or any terms and conditions of supply of any services we may provide to you and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of The SimplyBiz Group Limited, our clients/customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
All products and company names are copyrights, trademarks or registered trademarks of third parties.

Storage of your personal data

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. You should not share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to or through our Website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Your rights

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing at any time by writing to us at (for the attention of Data Protection Officer) The SimplyBiz Group Limited, The John Smith’s Stadium, Stadium Way, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD1 6PG or at dpo@simplybizgroup.co.uk, with the subject line “Removal from Marketing Preferences”, providing sufficient information to enable us to identify you.

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our, for example, suppliers, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Access to information

The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request will be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

Contact

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, you should write to The Data Protection Officer, The SimplyBiz Group Limited, The John Smith’s Stadium, Stadium Way, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD1 6PG.

We understand that your privacy and the security of your personal information is extremely important. This notice sets out what we do with your personal information, what we do to keep it secure, from where and how we collect it, as well as your rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you. This notice contains some important information so please read it carefully.

Here are the things we think you’d really want to know:

The SimplyBiz Group is currently made up of: The SimplyBiz Group plc (holding company) and the following subsidiary businesses:
- Simply Biz Ltd
- Simply Biz Support Ltd
- Simply Biz Services Ltd (including Compliance First, SimplyBiz Investment Services and Consumer Credit Centre)
- Simply Biz Mortgages Ltd
- Financial Intermediary & Broker Association Ltd
- Home Information Group Ltd (including Sonas and Gateway Surveyors Ltd)
- APS Legal and Associates Ltd
- SIFA Ltd
- Verbatim Asset Management Ltd
- Verbatim Adviser Services Ltd
- Verbatim Portfolio Management Ltd
- Verbatim Investments Ltd
- New Model Business Academy Ltd
- Zest Technology Ltd and
- Landmark Surveyors Ltd
Your personal information is, where appropriate, shared within The SimplyBiz Group.
We do use a number of third parties to process your personal information on our behalf however, we have processes in place to ensure they also maintain the security of your information.
You have a number of rights over your personal information. How you can exercise these rights is set out in this notice.
We do send direct marketing, if we’re allowed to and we do this to encourage you to make best use of our products and services by sending you offers and ideas that we feel will be of benefit to you. If you want us to stop then just let us know.
We will limit the collection and processing of Sensitive Information (as defined under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as much as is practically possible.

Who are we?

When we say ‘we’ or ‘us’ in this policy, we’re referring to the separate and distinct legal entities that make up The SimplyBiz Group from time to time. Which of the Group Companies controls your personal information may depend on the services you are using or contacting us regarding. If you would like more information about which Group Company processes and controls your data, you can contact us by one of the means set out in the “Contact Us” section below.

Contact us

Our registered address is: The John Smith’s Stadium, Stadium Way, Huddersfield, HD1 6PG

You can contact us in the following ways:

By writing to The Data Protection Officer the above address
By emailing us at DPO@simplybizgroup.co.uk
By telephoning us on 01484 439 100

What sorts of personal information do we hold?

Information that you provide to us such as your name, address, date of birth, telephone number, email address, bank account and payment card details and any feedback you give to us, including by phone, email, post, or when you communicate with us via social media;
Information about the services that we provide to you (including for example, the things we have provided to you, when and where, what you paid, the way you use our products and services, and so on);
Information required to make decisions about your application for certain products and services offered by the Group such as your employment details, financial position, information taken from identification documents such as your passport or driving licence, your insurance, criminal and medical history, and details about additional insured parties
Your account login details for our services, including your user name and chosen password;
Information about whether or not you want to receive marketing communications from us;
Information about any device you have used to access our Services (such as your device’s make and model, browser or IP address) and also how you use our Services. For example, we try to identify which of our apps you use and when and how you use them. If you use our websites, we try to identify when and how you use those websites too;
Your contact details and details of the emails and other electronic communications you receive from us, including whether that communication has been opened and if you have clicked on any links within that communication. We want to make sure that our communications are useful for you, so if you don’t open them or don’t click on any links in them, we know we need to improve our Services; and
Information from other sources such as specialist companies that provide customer information (like credit reference agencies such as Experian, fraud prevention agencies, claims databases, marketing and research companies) and social media providers, as well as information that is publicly available.

Further information about the specific types of information that we collect and process are set out in the “How we use your information” section below.

Our legal basis for processing your personal information

Whenever we process your personal information we have to have something called a “legal basis” for what we do. The different legal basis we rely on include:

Consent: You have agreed to us processing your personal information for a specific purpose;
Legitimate interests: The processing is necessary for us to conduct our business, but not where our interests are overridden by your interests or rights.
Performance of a contract: We must process your personal information to meet the terms of your contract with us;
Prevention of fraud: Where we are required to process your data in order to protect us and our customers from fraud or money laundering;
Vital interests: The processing of your personal information is necessary to protect you or someone else’s life;
Legal claims: The processing of your personal information is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity; and
Legal obligation: We are required to process your personal information by law.

How do we use your information?

There are a number of ways in which we use your personal information, depending on why you are interacting with us.

If you are a one of our client/member firms

As part of our service

When you apply to join us as a client/member, we will collect certain information about you including your name, phone numbers, email address, bank details and business address. We will also ask you about your business processes, financial information and for answers to questions relevant to the product or service you have applied for. The relevant teams will have access to all of this information. Some of this information will also be made available to other departments as needed, for example the finance team to process your payment information.

The data subjects of our membership varies based on the type of business joining us and could include directors, officers, sole traders, partners, financial advisors and other employees. We process this data to ensure we comply with our contractual obligations we have with you.

To provide you access to software solutions

We use personal information such as your name and business email address to set up and administer access to both Group and Third Party Software solutions. This data is processed on the basis of the contractual obligations we have with you.

To advise you of products and services

We use your personal data to market our services and products by phone, mail and email and this processing is conducted on the basis of our legitimate interests in providing our members with support. You can change your preferences on this marketing activity by contacting our Marketing Department.

We share data with third party product providers and partners for the purpose of them receiving feedback on events you may attend and so that they can provide you with further information on products or services that may be of interest to you.

To keep you safe at events

We use your information to advise our event venue partners of the delegates expected so that they can ensure all health and safety provisions are in place including adhering to any dietary or access requests made. We process this data on the basis of the contractual obligations we have with you.

To support you with running your business and remaining compliant

If you have asked us to provide you with certain services, such as completing your FCA registration or your GABRIEL return, we may collect and process additional information, including identification documents, criminal history and financial information in order to do this. This data is processed on the basis of fulfilling our contractual obligations with you.

If you are a customer of one of our client/member firms

As part of delivering our services to our clients/members

As part of the financial advice process, our clients/members will collect personal information from their customers including name, address, telephone number, email address, financial information and responses as well as health information (in the event it is relevant to the product or service). The processing of this data will be covered under your agreement with your advisor. For the provision of some of our services, our members will from time to time, share their customers information with us, for example as part of our training and competency checks or to allow them to perform certain checks on their customers (for example sanction checks). We will process this data only to satisfy our contractual obligation to our clients/members and it is not used for any other purpose by us.

If you are one of our other customers or a supplier

In order to work with our other customers and suppliers, we will collect information such as the names, contact numbers and email addresses of relevant employees discuss your services, to manage our contractual obligations and billing arrangements. This information may be shared with colleagues within the Group that are involved in our supply chain including finance team members, contract managers and service users.

If we have a legal obligation to do so

Occasionally, we may receive requests from third parties with authority to obtain disclosure of personal data, such as to check that we are complying with applicable law and regulation, to investigate an alleged crime, to establish, exercise or defend legal rights. We will only fulfil requests for personal data where we are permitted to do so in accordance with applicable law or regulation.

How will you obtain my consent when required?

As outlined above, there may be instances where our basis for processing your personal data is that you have provided your consent. In these circumstances, we will explain to you in writing what personal data we need and why, whether we need to disclose your personal data to any third party who and why, how long we will store the personal data, your rights of access to the personal, your options for consenting or refusing to consent or withdrawing consent, and the implications of consenting or refusing to consent or withdrawing consent. Please note that it is not a condition of engagement with us that you have to agree to any request for consent from us. We will only process your personal information without your knowledge or consent where this is required or permitted by law.

Recipients we share your data with

We may share your personal information with the following recipients:

Provider partners and service delivery companies that support us in the provision of goods and services to you under membership of the Group
Government bodies and agencies (e.g. HMRC for tax purposes)
Regulators (e.g. Payment Systems Regulator, Information Commissioner’s Office, Financial Conduct Authority)
Agents and sub-contractors who help us provide services (we employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include IT support service and performing legal and other professional services. Those companies and individuals have access to your data as needed to perform their functions, but they are not permitted to use it for other purposes)
Third party service providers (e.g. when we outsource some of the operations of our business to third party service providers. We restrict how such service providers may access, use and disclose your data)
Credit reference agencies
Legal and professional advisors, including auditors
Courts, to comply with legal requirements, and for the administration of justice
In an emergency to protect your vital interests
To protect security or integrity of our business operations
When we restructure our business or have a merger or re-organisation
Anyone else where we have your consent or as required by law

Transfer of personal data outside the European Union (EU)

We are committed to implementing technical and organisational measures that, by default meet the requirements of the data protection legislation and the appropriate level of security. We will not share your personal data with a third party organisation without a valid business reason, a contract or Data Sharing Agreement in place, or without your consent. We will not transfer your personal data to organisations outside the European Union (EU) unless that country or territory can ensure an adequate level of protection in relation to the processing of your personal data.

Automated decision making including profiling

Your personal data is not subject to automated decision-making, including profiling.

How long do we keep your data?

We retain your data primarily to meet statutory and regulatory obligations; secondly, your data is retained to enable us to pursue our legitimate business interests in relation to our clients, current and future requirements. Our retention schedules are available on request.

In some circumstances, we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you; in such circumstances we may use such information without further notice to you.

Your rights

You have a number of rights under data protection legislation which, in certain circumstances, you may be able to exercise in relation to the personal information we process about you. These include:

The right to be informed
The right of access
The right to rectification
The right to erasure
The right to restrict processing
The right to data portability
The right to object

Where we rely on consent as the legal basis on which we process your personal information, you may also withdraw that consent at any time.

If you are seeking to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in the “Contact Us” section below.

Requests, complaints or queries

We try to meet the highest standards when processing personal information. For this reason, we take any requests, complaints or queries we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.

This privacy notice does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of our processing of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed.

If you want to make a query, request, or a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information you can contact us directly:

By writing to us at our registered address (above)
By emailing us at DPO@simplybizgroup.co.uk
By telephoning us on 01484 439 100

Alternatively, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the regulator which oversees data protection law:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. Notifications of changes to this privacy notice will be via email. This privacy notice was last updated in May 2018.

Cookies are used on our site to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we’ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on our website.

Some cookies are essential so you can move around the website and use its features. Without these cookies, some services you've asked for can't be provided. These cookies don't gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you've been on the internet.

What are cookies and how do they work?

Cookies are small bits of text that are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Your browser sends these cookies back to the website every time you visit the site again, so it can recognise you and can then tailor what you see on the screen.

Some of the cookies we use

Certain cookies are necessary in order for you to use our websites. These are used 'in-session' each time you visit and then expire when you leave the site. They’re not stored on your computer and they don't contain any personal data. However, you can delete them via your browser if you wish to, but this will restrict the functions that you're able to carry out on our sites.

Session cookies

These enable you to carry out some essential functions on our sites, such as maintaining log in details for the session or a transaction. They also help by minimising the need to transfer information across the internet. They are not stored on your computer and they expire when you terminate your browser session or logout of certain areas.

Secure cookie

A secure cookie is only used when a browser is visiting a server via HTTPS, ensuring that the cookie is always encrypted when transmitting from client to server. This makes the cookie less likely to be exposed to cookie theft via eavesdropping.

Persistent cookies

These are used to persist a user's preference across e.g. setting items such as the open status of the carousel, and remain until the expiry date and time set by the web server (or otherwise manually deleted by the user).

Analytics

We like to keep track of what pages and links are popular and which ones don't get used so much to help us keep our sites relevant and up to date. It's also very useful to be able to identify trends of how people navigate (find their way through) our sites and help us provide a more friendly solution.

Third-party cookie

Google Analytics tracking (and most web tracking software) uses cookies in order to provide meaningful reports about site visitors. However, Google Analytics cookies do not collect personal data about website visitors.

Managing your cookies

You’ll find more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org, which gives details on how to delete cookies from your computer. For information on how to do this on your mobile phone browser, please see your handset manual.