Cookies policy
We want the services we provide to be easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device (e.g. your computer or mobile phone). These include small files known as ‘cookies’. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
Cookies are used to improve services for 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
- analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with Government services so we can improve them.
For more information, see the Gov.uk article Internet browser cookies – what they are and how to manage them.
List of cookies used by the OFFA website
The OFFA website sets the following cookies (‘first-party cookies’):
| Name of cookie and purpose | Benefit to you | Data stored in the cookie | How long is the data stored? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web analytics/metrics | |||
| _utma | So service is available when you want it and fast, we measure numbers and volumes of visitors using Google Analytics. For further information see Google’s information about privacy | The number of times you have been to the site, and when your first and last visit were | Two years |
| _utmb | How many of our webpages you looked at during your visit, and when | 30 minutes | |
| _utmz | How you reached our website, e.g. from a web search, a link on another site, or directly | Six months | |
| Personalised content/interface | |||
| wordpress_[hash] | Once you have logged on with username and password, to make it easier to log in again if you choose ‘Remember me’ | Username and random series of letters and numbers | Until you close your browser |
| wordpress_logged_in_[hash] | To remember your preferences or selections that you’ve already made while using our website | Username and random series of letters and numbers | Until you close your browser |
| wp-settings-{time}-[UID] | A number | One year | |
| Session management | |||
| wordpress_test_cookie | Allows better error reporting so we can improve our service | WP+Cookie+check | Until you close your browser |
We do not use any cookies set by other organisations (‘third-party cookies’).
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 website, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, www.aboutcookies.org contains comprehensive information on how to manage cookies on a wide variety of browsers, how to delete cookies from your machine and 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 on your computer, just click on a cookie to open it. You’ll 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, refer to your handset manual.