A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server. The server will be able to retrieve and read the contents of that cookie during the course of your visit or future visits. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits and numbers. It allows a website to remember things like your preferences or what’s in your shopping basket.
Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, storing your preferences, and generally improving your experience of a website. Cookies make the interaction between you and the website faster and easier. If a website doesn’t use cookies, it will think you are a new visitor every time you move to a new page on the site – for example, when you enter your login details and move to another page it won’t recognise you and it won’t be able to keep you logged in.
Cookies provide a better user experience by enabling the website to ‘remember’ you, either for the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (using a ‘persistent cookie’).
We use different types of cookies for different things, such as:
- Analysing how you use our website
- Giving you a better, more personalised experience
- Recognising when you’ve signed in
What to do if you don’t want cookies to be set
Some people find the idea of a website storing information on their computer or mobile device a bit intrusive, particularly when this information is stored and used by a third party without them knowing. Although this is generally quite harmless you may not, for example, want to see advertising that has been targeted to your interests. If you prefer, it is possible to block some or all cookies or even to delete cookies that have already been set; but you need to be aware that you might lose some functions of that website.
The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers
Some areas of the website, detailed below, would not work if you disable cookies in your browser.
When you use MyTHH or one of our online forms we store a cookie on your computer containing information to secure your MyTHH session or about the type of form that has been launched. As you go through different stages in the transaction, information is passed back to our backend systems and a session cookie is used to reference the transaction. This cookie is erased/expires from the system once you close the browser.
If your browser prompts you to ‘Remember your Username and Password, the next time you visit”, you are requesting that your computer to remember who you are when you visit the webpage and where possible to pre-complete log in data
Our website will still work without the non-essential cookies. However, we would not be able to get a correct image of how our customers use our site (through our use of Google Analytics). It would be more difficult for us to improve our web services in the future without understanding the needs of our customers.
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use our website. We do this to make sure it’s meeting users’ needs and to understand how we could do it better.
Google Analytics stores information about what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on.
We do not collect or store your personal information (e.g. your name or IP address) so this information cannot be used to identify who you are. We allow Google to share data within its product and services and contribute data anonymously for benchmarking purposes.