Privacy
Chapters in this topic
- Introduction
- Why we use your personal information
- How the law allows us to use your personal information
- What you can do with your information
- Who we share your information with
- How long we keep your personal information
- How we protect your information
- Your rights
- More advice
- Cookies and how you use this website
- Coronavirus
- Prevention and Detection of Crime - Fraud
Cookies and how you use this website
To make this website easier to use, we sometimes place small text files on your device (for example your iPad or laptop) called cookies. Most big websites do this too.
They improve things by:
- remembering the things you’ve chosen while on our website, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you visit a new page
- remembering data you’ve given (for example, your address) so you don’t need to keep entering it
- measuring how you use the website so we can make sure it meets your needs
By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device.
We don’t use cookies on this website that collect information about what other websites you visit (often referred to as privacy intrusive cookies).
Our cookies aren’t used to identify you personally. They’re just here to make the site work better for you. You can manage and/or delete these files as you wish.
To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit AboutCookies.org or watch a video about cookies.
Should you choose to follow links to a third party website you should be aware that they may collect information and deposit cookies. For more information you should read the individual third parties privacy notice and cookie policy.
How you use this website
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use this site. We do this to make sure it’s meeting peoples’ needs and to understand how we can make the website work better.
Information we collect
When you visit our website, we collect information like:
- which pages you’ve looked out
- how long you’ve spent looking at each page
- your general location
- which group of general interests you belong to
We can’t identify you when we collect this information and it’s only used to help us understand our website users.
Name of cookie | Typically contains | When it expires |
---|---|---|
_utma | Randomly generated number | 2 years |
_utmb | Randomly generated number | 30 minutes |
_utmc | Randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
_utmx | Randomly generated number | 2 years |
_utmxx | Randomly generated number | 2 years |
_utmz | Randomly generated number and data on how the site was reached (e.g. direct or via a link, organic search or paid search) | 2 years |
DIOTabs | Remembers which Do it online tab you're on when viewing the homepage | when you close your browser |
PHPSESSID | Allow the correct information to be sent to the correct person | when you close your browser |
We also collect data on the number of times a word is searched for and the number of failed searches. We use this information to improve access to the site and identify gaps in the content and see if it is something we should add to the site.
We do not use this data to identify individuals.
Other people’s cookies
We don't control how third parties, for example Google and Facebook, use their cookies. If you have concerns about how third parties use cookies, check their website's privacy policies.
Turning off cookies
You can stop cookies being downloaded on to your computer or other device by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. If you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website.
There is more information about how to delete or stop using cookies on AboutCookies.org. You can also opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.
Further guidance on the use of personal information can be found at ico.org.uk.