Cookies

Cookies are small files of information placed on your computer through your browser that we use to gather information about your visit to our site, such as how you entered our site, how you navigated through the site and what information was of interest to you. In addition to this, if you log in or use some of the scripted features of the site like forms, we will "tag" you with a temporary cookie so you can move around the site without having to log in again or through a form in stages.

What are cookies?

• A cookie is a small amount of data sent to your computer or mobile phone from a website. This means the website can recognise your device (your computer or mobile phone) if you return to the same site.
• A cookie often includes a unique identifier, which is a randomly generated number. This is stored on your device's hard drive. Many cookies are automatically deleted after you finish using a website.
• Cookies are not programs and do not collect information from your device.
• Cookies make your experience of using web sites faster and easier. They allow web sites to create a customised view of pages to which you navigate. For example, they are commonly used to authenticate or identify registered users of a website without requiring them to sign in each time they access it. Other uses include maintaining a 'shopping basket' of goods a user has chosen to purchase, site personalisation (presenting different pages to different users) and tracking the pages a user has visited on a site for analysis purposes.
• Cookies may come with or without an expiry date. Cookies without an expiry date exist until the browser is closed, while cookies with an expiry date may be stored by the device until the expiry date passes.

You can restrict or block cookies set by Gloucestershire County Council but this may limit your use of some functionality, such as filling in forms and getting access to password protected areas of the Gloucestershire County Council site. Most things you do on our site will still be possible even with cookies disabled.

Gloucestershire County Council uses third-party suppliers who also set cookies through gloucestershire.gov.uk web sites on our behalf to deliver the services that they are providing or record usage. More information on the cookies set by Gloucestershire County Council and its third-party suppliers can be found below.

How to manage your cookies

Cookies are sent to your browser (whether you use Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari or any other browser) by a website and then stored in the cookies directory of your device.

To find out how to allow, block, delete and manage the cookies on all standard web browsers, go to the Information Commissioner's site. There is more in depth information on www.allaboutcookies.org.

If you use a mobile device to browse Gloucestershire County Council or other sites that use cookies, please refer to your handset manual for guidance.

Cookies used on gloucestershire.gov.uk

The following are cookies you may come across on this site. Note that several of them perform similar functions; the duplications arise because Gloucestershire County Council hosts a number of Department of Health campaigns that were originally set up separately, each using different cookies.

Set by Gloucestershire County Council

• Domain: gloucestershire.gov.uk
• Purpose: To make your experience of using web sites faster and easier
  • We can restricted access to some content to certain users. To enable this, we create an account and allow users to log in. Some personal data is stored on our server which users can manage. The cookie is anonymous and does not contain any of this data.
  • We also use cookies during some forms processing.

Third party cookies

(These are cookies set by other web sites whose services we use.)

Cadline

• Domain: dynamicmaps.co.uk
• Purpose: These are session cookies to facilitate use of county mapping software, this may include:
  • Your IP address
  • Your location

Privacy policy: cadline.co.uk

Google Analytics

• Domain: google.com
• Purpose: Gloucestershire County Council uses Google Analytics to gather information about how you use our site. Google set a cookie so we can see which pages people have landed on and how they have navigated through the site. (For full details see Cookies & Google Analytics.)
  This data enables us to understand:
  • Which pages people visit on the site
  • Which internet browsers are being used
  • What is popular
  • Which interactive tools are used
• For more information visit Google Privacy Center: Privacy Policy.
• Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on Website users that don’t want their data reported by the Google Analytics JavaScript can install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on available for most modern browsers.
  Learn more about the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

Google maps

• Domain: maps.google.com
• Purpose: some Google maps are embedded on gloucestershire.gov.uk. Google uses cookies to manage locations and to provide web analytics in terms of the number of times a map has been viewed and/or shared.
• For more information, read Google Privacy Center: Privacy Policy.

Google Translate

• Domain: translate.google.co.uk
• Purpose: we provide occasional links to "translate this page" for non English speakers to gloucestershire.gov.uk. Google uses cookies to manage locations and to provide web analytics in terms of the number of times Google Translate has been used on a particular site or web page.
• For more information, read Google Privacy Center: Privacy Policy.

YouTube (Google)

• Domain: youtube.com
• Purpose: some YouTube videos are embedded on gloucestershire.gov.uk. A YouTube cookie is used to provide web analytics in terms of the number of times a video has been watched and/or shared.
• For more information, read Google Privacy Center: Privacy Policy.

Hotjar

• Domain: hotjar.com
• Purpose: To create heatmaps that visually represent where users click, move, and scroll on our siteto learn how users behave. 
• For more information see Hotjar Cookie Information

Other services

We embed "widgets" from various other organisations within our pages and these may set cookies. You can see the various organisation's privacy policies by following the links below.

• Privacy Policy: planningportal.gov.uk
• Privacy and cookies: environment-agency.gov.uk
• Privacy notice: ons.gov.uk
• Privacy Policy: metoffice.gov.uk
• Privacy statement: education.gov.uk
• Privacy Policy: twitter.com
• Privacy Policy: facebook.com
• Privacy Policy: Vimeo.com
• Privacy & Terms: proprofs.com

External Cookies

Many sites we refer you to will immediately set session cookies. We cannot audit the use of cookies by these external sites so you should be aware of their use and prepared to manage them if you follow links to other sites from here.