Information about cookies on our website

The law regarding cookies

The original EU legislation that became known as the ?E-Privacy Directive? was published in 2003. It was concerned quite widely with the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector. In 2009 the Directive was amended by Directive 2009/136/EC that included a requirement to seek consent for cookies. The EU Directive became law in the UK on 26 May 2011. The ICO (Information Commissioners Office) is responsible for enforcing it in the UK and decided that enforcement would commence from 26 May 2012. As a result of the changes to the law, website owners must now:

Tell site visitors that the cookies are there

Explain to site visitors what the cookies are doing and

Obtain the consent of site visitors to store a cookie on their computer or device.

The ICO advises that website owners take steps to ensure that their users are properly informed about the cookies used by their website. We acknowledge this advice and have therefore put together this Cookie Policy. In doing so we have followed guidelines issued by authorities on the subject of best practice, including the?iternational Chamber of Commerce UK Cookie Guide.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a piece of information that a website stores on the website browser on your computer. The browser sends the information back to the website to enable the website to recognise the user.

Cookies include information such as the lifetime and expiry date of the cookie, the domain the cookie has come from and an identifier - for example, a random unique number.

Managing cookies using your browser.

Internet browsers will usually provide an option to disallow the setting of all or some cookies. You can find more about using your browser?s cookie settings either via the help menu for your browser or on the browser?s own website. Cookies can also be deleted by using your internet browser, but you must disallow them otherwise they will be reapplied the next time you visit a website. If you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our website.