Cookies are small text files containing amounts of information that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit and which your computer or mobile device downloads. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. The information in cookies can be used to track your internet usage. Under the EU Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications of 12 July 2002 , all visitors to a website with cookies must have access to information stating that the website contains cookies and the purpose for which cookies are used. They must also approve such cookies being used.
There are three different types of cookies:
- Session cookies are mainly used for assisting various activities during a session such as keeping you logged in between pages. Session cookies expire when the browser is closed.
- Permanent cookies remain stored even when a browser is closed. They can facilitate operations such as automatic login. Permanent cookies need to be deleted after a period of six months.
- First or Third Party are installed by first (website) or third parties and collect information to carry out various research into behaviour, demographics etc.
The table below explains the cookies we use and why:
| Cookie Name |
Description |
Purpose |
Type |
| __atuvc |
AddThis social sharing widget- addthis is an external plugin which is a little bar that appears in different pages that allows a user to share pages with their own social networks |
Functionality |
session |
| __atuvs |
AddThis social sharing widget- addthis is an external plugin which is a little bar that appears in different pages that allows a user to share pages with their own social networks |
Functionality |
Session |
| PHPSESSID |
Cookie generated by applications based on the PHP language. This is a general-purpose identifier used to maintain user session variables. It is normally a random generated number, how it is used can be specific to the site, but a good example is maintaining a logged-in status for a user between pages. |
Strictly Necessary |
session |
| LangCookie |
Language Preference |
Functionality |
Permanent |
| _gali |
Google Analytics – Used to determine which links on a page are being clicked. |
Performance |
Third party |
| _ga |
Google Analytics – Used to distinguish users
by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the site’s analytics reports. |
Performance |
Third party |
| _gid |
Google Analytics – Used to distinguish users. |
Performance |
Third party |
| _gat |
Google Analytics – Used to throttle request rate limiting the collection of data on high traffic sites. It expires after 10 minutes.
If Google Analytics is deployed via GoogleTag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property-id>. |
Performance |
Third Party |
Analytics tools for the website
This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies” to help us analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google. To find out more about Google Analytics, Google’s privacy policy and opting out of its cookies please visit: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
How to avoid cookies
If you would prefer cookies to be rejected, change the settings in your web browser so that you either automatically refuse cookies to be downloaded or are prompted each time a website requests to save a cookie. Cookies that have been previously downloaded can also be deleted through the web browser. Rejecting or deleting certain cookies may however, prevent you from taking full advantage of the features of the website.
