What are cookies?

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

How we use cookies

• To anonymously identify you from other visitors to our site. This allows us to remember actions you have performed in the past when you have visited us, such as accepting the use of cookies, so we don't ask you again.
• To prevent Cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks when completing forms on our site.
• If you log into our site we will use a cookie to identify which user you are and to maintain a session on our servers to improve performance.
• We use Google Analytics to measure our user-interactions on our website, this allows us to track how you use the site, providing us with anonymous data to analyse web page traffic and trends, which helps us improve our website.
• We use New Relic to monitor the health and performance of our website.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can find out more about cookies and how to view or remove them at allaboutcookies.org.