Use of cookies by the ICO
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. 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 table below explains the cookies we use and why.
Essential cookies
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
| CookieControl | This cookie is used to remember your choice about cookies on ico.org.uk. | 90 days |
| language | This cookie is used to remember any selection you have made about language on ico.org.uk using the language selector, so that the site will be shown in your chosen language when returning to the site. | 7 days |
Analytics cookies (optional)
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
| Silktide analytics javascript | Silktide analytics javascript is used to collect information about how visitors use our website. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the website. We collect information including the number of visitors to the website, where visitors have come to the website from and the pages they visited. The information is collected and processed in a way that does not directly identify anyone. Once the information is collected, the IP address and browser details of a visitor is used to create a 'magic number' that changes every 24 hours. The IP address and specific browser details are immediately forgotten and never stored. | 24 hours |
Video player cookies (optional)
Our site contains some video content. If you don't enable video player cookies, video content will appear as standard links, which will take you to YouTube and Vimeo to watch the videos. YouTube and Vimeo may set cookies when you use their sites. Or, if you enable video player cookies, you'll see videos embedded in our pages and YouTube and Vimeo may receive information about the videos you watch for analytics and advertising purposes.
YouTube embedded player
| Example cookies | Purpose | Expires |
| AEC APISID HSID NID SAPISID SID* SSID SOCS _Secure* | We embed videos from our official YouTube channel, using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode. You can read about YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode on YouTube’s embedding videos information page. If you visit a page containing a YouTube video and are logged in to a YouTube or Google account, Google may use cookies for security purposes, remember your preferences, and receive information about the videos you watch for analytics and advertising purposes cookies and collect data linked to your Google account. For more information, see the Google Privacy Policy. | Between 180 and 400 days |
Vimeo embedded player
| Example cookies | Purpose | Expires |
| _cf* _ga* _gid _uet* _builderSessionid language Optanon* sd_client_id vimeo* vuid | We embed videos from our official Vimeo channel using Vimeo’s Do Not Track setting. You can read about this on Vimeo’s embedding videos page. Vimeo may use cookies to enable the video to play, remember your preferences and maintain the security of its service. If you visit a page containing a Vimeo video and you are logged in to your Vimeo account or if you’ve visited the Vimeo website before the ICO website, Vimeo may use cookies eg to keep you logged in, for analytics and advertising purposes, and collect data linked to your Vimeo account. For more information, see the Vimeo cookies policy. | Between 0 and 400 days |
*indicates various cookies that contain additional letters, numbers or characters in their name.
Cookies on our careers site
We use these cookies on the external career site:
- Session management cookies: User, device, and session ID cookies along with timestamp cookies for timing out sessions after inactivity. These cookies expire at the end of the session.
- Routing cookies: To forward requests for a single session to the same server for consistency of service. These cookies expire at the end of the session.
- Application: Security Management (ASM) cookies - To help protect web applications and infrastructure from security attacks. These cookies expire at the end of the session.
| Name | Purpose | Expires |
| PLAY_LANG, PLAY_SESSION, timezoneOffset, wd-browser-id | User, device, and session ID cookies along with timestamp cookies for timing out sessions after inactivity. | When you close your browser |
| TS*
| Helps prevent cyber attacks on the user’s interactions with the enterprise cloud applications. Verifies that the domain and subdomain cookies sent between the web server and the client aren’t altered. | When you close your browser |
| CALYPSO_ | Contains a CSRF token to prevent cross-site request forgery attacks, that is, to prevent a user from carrying out unintended operations on the career site. | When you close your browser |
| Naming convention of WorkdayLB_* WorkdayLB_ WorkdayLB_SAS | Used to forward requests for a single session to the same server for consistency of service. | When you close your browser |
*indicates various cookies that contain additional letters, numbers or symbols in their name.
How do I change my cookie settings?
You can change your cookie preferences at any time by clicking on the ‘C’ icon. You can then adjust the available sliders to ‘On’ or ‘Off’, then clicking ‘Save and close’. You may need to refresh your page for your settings to take effect.
Alternatively, most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.
Find out how to manage cookies on popular browsers:
To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer's website.
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.