Cookies
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When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your computer, mobile phone or tablet. These are known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
What cookies are
Cookies are used to improve services for you by:
- enabling a service to recognise your computer so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task
- recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested
- measuring how many people are using services, so that popular services can be made easier and faster to use
- analysing anonymous data to help us understand how people interact with government services so we can make them better
What cookies look like
If you click on a cookie you'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the website server that gave you the cookie.
How we use cookies
This website uses a variety of cookies. The page below provides more details about why we use them and how long they will last.