Privacy Policy & cookies

This privacy policy sets out how The Shire London uses and protects any information that you give The Shire London when you use this website.
The Shire London is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.
The Shire London may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from May 2012.

How we use cookies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website. To view the cookies used in this site see our cookies list below.

What we collect
We may collect the following information:
• name and job title
• contact information including email address
• demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
• other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers

What we do with the information we gather
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
• Internal record keeping.
• We may use the information to improve our products and services.
• We may periodically send promotional emails about new products, special offers or other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided.
• From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone, fax or mail. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.

Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Controlling your personal information
You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:
• whenever you are asked to fill in a form on the website, look for the box that you can click to indicate that you do not want the information to be used by anybody for direct marketing purposes
• if you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by writing to or emailing us here.
We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.

How can I control cookies?
Web browser cookies: If you don’t want to receive cookies, you can modify your browser so that it notifies you when cookies are sent to it or you can refuse cookies altogether. You can also delete cookies that have already been set. If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies which are set on your device then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org, which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers.

Cookies list

The aim of this Cookies list is to provide you with an understanding as to the types of cookies we use on our site. We have tried to cover all cookies in this list that we or our technology partners use. Please be aware that there may be a delay in updating this list. If you do notice any discrepancies please be sure to contact us and let us know.

Content Management System

Essential cookies used in our Content Management System expire at end of session. Cookies are used to track the activities and store submitted information by a user. They make for a user-friendly content management system because navigating from one page to another has been made convenient and easy with cookies.

Google Analytics

__utma
This Cookie is used to identify unique visitors to our sites. The results are sent to our Google Analytics account so that we may see how many unique visitors come to this site based over a period of time. Expires 2 years from set/update.

__utmb
This cookie is used by Google Analytics to determine the visitor session times on our sites. Each time you visit a new page on the site the cookie is set to expire within 30 minutes, if it does not find an existing cookie, a new one is created. Expires 30 minutes from set/update.

__utmc
This cookie is used by Google Analytics in conjunction with __utmb to determine visitor sessions. Unlike __utmb this cookie does not have an expiry date, it determines whether a new session should be created based on whether you have previously closed your browser, re-opened it and come back to the site.

__utmz
This cookie is used by Google Analytics to determine the type of referral used by each visitor to arrive at our site. The cookie determines if the user has come directly to the site or via a search engine, email or email campaign. We use this data to understand how our users arrive at the website. Expires 6 months from set/update.

More info at https://developers.google.com/analytics/resources/concepts/gaConceptsCookies

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Google maps

PREF
When you visit Google, we send one or more cookies to your computer or other device. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service, including storing user preferences, improving search results and ad selection and tracking user trends, such as how people search. Google also uses cookies in its advertising services to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web and on Google services. Expires after one week.

NID
When you visit Google, we send one or more cookies to your computer or other device. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service, including storing user preferences, improving search results and ad selection and tracking user trends, such as how people search. Google also uses cookies in its advertising services to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web and on Google services. Expires after six months.

khcookie
This cookie is used by Google to store user preferences and information when viewing pages with Google maps on them.

youtube.com

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
When you visit Google, we send one or more cookies to your computer or other device. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service, including storing user preferences, improving search results and ad selection and tracking user trends, such as how people search. Google also uses cookies in its advertising services to help advertisers and publishers serve and manage ads across the web and on Google services.(YouTube is a subsidiary of Google). Expires within a year.

BBC Weather widget

BBC-UID cookie
A unique identifier given to each computer to allow log analysis to determine the number of unique users for various parts of bbc.co.uk. Data is only used in aggregate.

BGUID cookie
This cookie is being rolled out as a replacement to the BBC-UID cookie. It has a slightly extended purpose to the BBC-UID cookie: as well as being used in log analysis to determine the number of unique users for various parts of bbc.co.uk (using aggregate data), this BGUID cookie is also used as a key to storing preferences and personalisation data for sites such as the BBC Homepage and BBC iPlayer.

s1
Like the BBC-UID cookie, this is a unique identifier given to each computer to allow log analysis to determine the number of unique users for various parts of bbc.co.uk. Data is only used in aggregate.

More info at http://www.bbc.co.uk/privacy/bbc-cookies-policy.shtml