Privacy and Cookies Policy
This explains how we protect and respect the data we collect from you.
This page explains how Certification Office uses any information you give to us, and the ways in which we protect your privacy. We are committed to protecting your privacy. We will not share your information with others without your prior consent.
The Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it. We do not pass on your details to any third party or government department unless you give us permission, or we are legally permitted to do so.
What information do we collect?
We collect two kinds of information from visitors to Certification Office website: feedback (through emails to the Information point) and site usage information, from cookies and log files. Information is collected to help us improve the service we offer.
Feedback
We welcome your feedback. Please contact us. If you send an email or letter asking for information, we may need to contact other government departments to find that information. If your question is technical, we may need to pass it to our technology suppliers. We do not pass on any of your personal information when dealing with your enquiry, unless you have given us permission to do so. Once we have replied to you, we keep a record of your messages for six months for reference and audit purposes, after which it is deleted. We will respect your e-mail privacy. You will receive unsolicited mail from Certification Officer only if you have agreed to this.
Site usage information
Cookies
1. Introduction
When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files know as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
These pieces of information are used to improve services to you through, for example:
- Enabling a service to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task.
- Measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there’s enough capacity to ensure they are fast.
You can manage these small files and learn more about them from the article, Internet Browser cookies – what they are and how to manage them
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/SiteInformation/DG_197506?CID=Central&PLA=url_mon&CRE=managing_cookies
If you would like to learn how to remove cookies set on your device, visit:
http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=1 ‘Our use of cookies’
2. First-Party Cookies
To remember your selections or preferences that you’ve already made when looking at information or using a service.
Name: ASP.NET_SessionId
Typical content: Session IDs are a 120-bit random number that is represented by a 20-character string. Stores user-specific data and tells us that you are actively using our site, allowing us to know how many users we have visiting at any given time.
Expires: end of session (when browser is closed)
Name: style
Typical content: Text value used to store the preferred stylesheet, which is created once the user selects the various stylesheets from the site.
Expires: 1 year
Name: CMSPreferredCulture
Typical content: This cookie is created based on the preferred culture of visitors' (public user's) browser. If the culture of browser is not supported by the system, the default culture is used.
Expires: 1 Year
Name: CurrentVisitStatus
Typical content: Integer value to store current visit status (throughout current day)
Expires: 23 hours
Name: VisitorStatus
Typical content: Integer value to store the visitor status (unknown/first visit/more visits)
Expires: 1 Year
3. Third Party Cookies
We use a number of suppliers who may also set cookies on their websites’ on its behalf
Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage. This is to ensure that the service is available when you want it and fast, we measure numbers and volumes of visitors.
Name: _utma
Typical Content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years
Name: _utmb
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 30 minutes
Name: _utmc
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: end of session (when browser is closed)
Name: _utmz
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 6 months
http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/concepts/gaConceptsCookies.html
AddThis sets cookies for tracking which of the social networking options you use, e.g. E-mail a friend, Send to Facebook, etc. They may place a cookie on your device to make their service easier to use.
Name: di
Typical content: Waiting for addthis to provide cookies typical content information.
Expires: 2 Years
Name: dt
Typical content: Allows users to share webpage with social sites
Expires: 1 Month
Name: loc
Typical content: Waiting for Allows users to share webpage with social sites
Expires: 3 Months
Name: psc
Typical content: Allows users to share webpage with social sites.
Expires: 2 Years
Name: ssh
Typical content: Allows users to share webpage with social sites
Expires: 2 Years
Name: sshs
Typical content: Allows users to share webpage with social sites
Expires: 2 Years
Name: uid
Typical content: Allows users to share webpage with social sites
Expires: 2 Years
Name: uit
Typical content: Allows users to share webpage with social sites
Expires: 1 Day
http://www.addthis.com/privacy#.T1Xej2vEB5g
4. How to Control and delete Cookies
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.
However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.
If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You will see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.
For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.
To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.