What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website or an app. Next time you visit that webpage or app, your browser sends the file to the website's server. This means the server will recognise as you as a previous visitor (although it won't know your name) and will tell the website. There are many reasons as to why we use cookies. For example to remember settings you used previously or to keep items in your shopping basket.
Other tools which are similar to cookies include web beacons, scripts, pixels, clear gifs and tags. These use a small transparent image which is embedded in an email or web page. When you view the page or email, a signal is sent which confirms that you have accessed the content on that page or email. This allows websites to understand how users navigate through the content on the website.
What types of cookies are there?
Strictly necessary cookies are cookies that are essential to make our site work for you.
Performance cookies are cookies which help us to monitor and optimise the performance of our website. These tell us information like which pages are most popular, how people navigate through our website, how many new users have viewed a page etc. Sometimes we also use cookies to test different versions of our web pages to see which ones work best. These collect aggregate information about visitor numbers and don't identify you individually.
Functionality cookies are cookies which allow our website to remember the choices you make (such as your user name, language, last action and search preferences) and provide enhanced, more personal features. The information collected by these cookies is anonymous and cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.
Targeting cookies are used to deliver adverts more relevant to you and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement on our web site and help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. These may also be used to choose the advertisements that are displayed to you on our web site and other websites.
First party cookies are set by the website you're visiting (i.e. diabetes.org.uk) and only Diabetes UK can read them.
Third party cookies are not set by Diabetes UK and can be read by the owner of those cookies. They may be created by tools that we use on our website, such as when we embed a YouTube video, include a social media button on our pages or embed a Google map. In most cases we can't control what information they collect but we can tell you what cookies we use.
Session cookies are temporary cookies files that are erased when you close your browser. They do things like remember what you put in your shopping basket so it doesn't disappear when you navigate to another page.
Persistent cookies stay in one of your browser's subfolders until you delete them manually or your browser deletes them based on the duration period contained within the persistent cookie's file. These are used so you can be recognised when you come back to a website, for example by remembering a log-in on your display preferences.
Why we use cookies and other similar tools
Diabetes UK uses cookies and other similar files on its website in order to:
- Enhance your web experience, by optimising our site to meet your computer's browser and display settings.
- Allow us to use multimedia content on our site (e.g. Flash videos), via third-party cookies.
- Remember some of your choices – e.g. the items you put in the basket of our online shop, so you can access them later, or your preferences for using our website.
- Embed useful tools from third parties in our website, like maps, videos and social media sharing buttons
- To personalise your experience on your website by saving pages of interest, through our "Diabetes & Me" tool
- To find out if our emails have been read and if you find them useful
- To show you reminder advertisements on other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In when you leave our website and to monitor the success of our advertising on other platforms so we know if it's cost-effective.
- Provide us with aggregate analytical information about how people use our website, e.g. number of visits to a page.
- To build an audience of people who are similar to visitors to our site. This works by a cookie which recognises if visitors to a particular page of our web site are also Facebook users. Facebook then makes a list of Facebook users that visit that page and combines the information it already has about them (on an aggregate basis) to create a description of people who also might be interested in that particular pages of our site (an audience). For example, this might show that people who are interested in our swimming challenges tend to be interested in cats and are aged 35–50 on Facebook who haven't already been to our site (and who have agreed with Facebook that their data can be used for this). This helps us to find new potential supporters. If you aren't a Facebook user, Facebook won't include your information in the audience. While we don't use cookies to identify you when you visit our site, you should be aware that because social media sites and advertising companies use these technologies widely across the Internet, they can be used to build up a pattern of your browsing behaviour and to target advertising to you based on that information.
Your choice
You can choose to block the targeting cookies we use on our website in our Cookie Preference Centre. You might still see some adverts from us elsewhere on the internet, but it won't be targeted at you. You can also tell us if you don't want Facebook to use your data to create an audience through our communications preference form. From their site, you can control third party online advertising by managing your browser opt-outs.
If you use social media, you can change your advertising preferences in your account privacy settings. The Information Commissioner's Office has some handy factsheets on how to do this.
You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by installing a browser plug-in.
What cookies do we use?
We keep a full list of the cookies we use on our website and it will be regularly updated.