Our Commitment To Your Privacy
We 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, 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.
For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act), the data controller is The Secretary of State for the Home Department, referred to as The Home Office (We or Us).
We may collect and process the following data about you:
We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration. This is statistical data about our users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.
Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improve the user experience. They can also ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.
With most internet browsers, you can erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block all cookies or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. If you want to know how to do this please look at the help menu on your web browser. However, please note that switching off or "opting out" of the use of cookies will mean that you may not be able to use certain features of the website. Find out more about the use of cookies and how to switch off cookies on
www.cookiecentral.com or www.aboutcookies.org.
Common cookies can be categorised in the following ways:
Strictly necessary cookies. These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around a web site and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of a web site. Without these cookies, services you have asked for such as shopping baskets or e-billing, cannot 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.
Performance cookies. These cookies collect information about how visitors use a web site, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don't collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is anonymous and is only used to improve how a web site works.
Functionality cookies. These cookies allow a web site to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced features. For instance, a web site may be able to provide you with local weather reports or traffic news by storing in a cookie the region in which you are currently located. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, font and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have requested such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
Targeting cookies. These cookies collect several pieces of information about your browsing habits. They are usually placed by advertising networks rather than web site operators. They remember that you have visited a web site and this information is shared with other organisations such as advertisers. These organisations do this in order to provide you with targeted adverts more relevant to you and your interests. Quite often targeting cookies will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organisation. Without these cookies, online advertisements you encounter will be less relevant to you and your interests.
The following Google Analytics cookies are used on this site:
1.) The '__utma' Cookie:
This cookie is what's called a "persistent" cookie as it never expires. This cookie keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site pertaining to the cookie, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred.
2.) The '__utmb' and '__utmc' Cookies:
__utmb takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters a site, while __utmc takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site. __utmb expires at the end of the session. __utmc waits 30 minutes, and then it expires. __utmc has no way of knowing when a user closes their browser or leaves a website, so it waits 30 minutes for another pageview to happen, and if it doesn't, it expires.
3.) The '__utmz' Cookie:
__utmz keeps track of where the visitor came from, what search engine you used, what link you clicked on, what keyword you used, and where they were in the world when you accessed a website. It expires in 6 months. This cookie is how Google Analytics knows to whom and to what source / medium / keyword to assign the credit for a Goal Conversion or an Ecommerce Transaction. __utmz also lets you edit its length with a simple customization to the Google Analytics Tracking code.
The following Home Office cookie is used on this site:
1.) 'Allow-Cookies' Cookie:
The sole purpose of this cookie is to allow the site to remember to hide the cookies bar when users return to the site having clicked the close button during a previous visit.
For further information about cookies, please visit http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx.
We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.
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 our Site; 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.
We use information held about you in the following ways:
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 may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information We hold about you.
Any changes We may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page.