Tower Hamlets Council cookies policy

What is a cookie?

A website session “cookie” is a file containing a small amount of data that is sent to your computer when you visit a website. When you visit the website again, the cookie allows that site to recognise your browser. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. Many websites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.

Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other websites. Many websites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.

You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some website features or services may not function properly without cookies. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

Controlling cookies

How you control cookies depends on your browser. For full instructions covering all the main browsers read the information on http://www.aboutcookies.org/

How do we use cookies?

During the course of any visit to the Tower Hamlets Council website, the pages you see, along with a cookie, are downloaded to your web browsing device. Cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the device (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Information supplied by cookies can help us to analyse information about our visitors which helps us to provide them with a better service.

Some online services on our website use cookies for a specific reason, for example to help online transactions work effectively. If this is the case, the local terms for that application will make this clear and you should refer to those local terms for additional information.

Cookies on the Tower Hamlets Council website

Tower Hamlets Council uses cookies within the following applications for the smooth running of its website but does not use the information collected to match any individual’s identity. Tower Hamlets Council also automatically receives and records information on server logs from your browser including your IP Address and the page you requested. This enables us to monitor overall site usage and identify technical errors. If you choose to disable cookies, you may still use this website, however, you may have limited access to some pages.

Google Site Search and Google Analytics

For more information on cookies set by Google Analytics or Google Site Search, including information on how to opt out please go to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html

For information on how to opt out of Google Analytics to to http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

The following applications use cookies for the duration of the user session for authentication purposes ort for the smooth running of the site. No user information or tracking information is stored in these application’s cookies.

Third party cookies

Please note that during your visits to our website you may notice some cookies that are not related to Tower Hamlets Council web content. When you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, SurveyMonkey, YouTube or Facebook, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. Tower Hamlets Council does not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the third party websites for more information about these.

For more about website cookies, including how to control and delete them, go to http://www.aboutcookies.org/

Cookies and session cookies that we set on the .towerhamlets.gov.uk domain.

Cookies we set
Cookie namePurpose
_utma Google analytics - This cookie is used to calculate unique visitors. The cookie expires 2 years after your last visit to the page
_utma Google analytics - This cookie is used to calculate unique visitors. The cookie expires 2 years after your last visit to the page
_utmb Google analytics - This cookie is used to track you current session while you are on the website. The cookie expires 30 minutes after you leave the website
_utmc Google analytics - This cookie is used to tell how long a session or visit lasted. This cookie expires when you leave the site or close the browser window.
_utmz Google analytics - This cookie is used to find the referrers for your visits to attribute your visit to the correct source. This cookie expires 6 months after your last visit to the website.
nmstat Site improve - This cookie is used to help record the visitor’s use of the website. It is used to collect statistics about site usage such as when the visitor last visited the site. This information is then used to improve the user experience on the website. This Siteimprove Analytics cookie contains a randomly generated ID used to recognise the browser when a visitor reads a page. The cookie contains no personal information and is used only for web analytics.
ASP.NET_SessionId This cookie is used purely to track the sequence of pages a visitor looks at during a visit to the site. This information can be used to reduce user journeys, and enable visitors to find relevant information quicker.

Cookies set while using our website by third party suppliers

Cookies set while using our website by 3rd suppliers
SupplierCookie(s)Purpose
Session ID ASP.NET_SessionId Used by multiple sites - This cookie is used purely to track the sequence of pages a visitor looks at during a visit to the site. This information can be used to reduce user journeys, and enable visitors to find relevant information quicker.
FirmStep firmstep2server This cookie is used to direct your request to the appropriate server. No personal information is stored.
FirmStep firmstep2session This cookie is a unique identifier given to you for the duration of your site visit. It is used to ensure that you and only you are shown information relevant to you. It contains no personally identifiable information.
YouTube VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE This cookie is used to track how many times a video on YouTube has been watched and shared.
PageSuite PST This cookie is used for monitoring and load balancing between PageSuite's servers while you are linked to the website. PageSuite Limited does not use its persistent or session cookies to store personal information about you. PageSuite Limited may pass the non-personal information collected by its cookies to third parties but only for the purposes of carrying out such monitoring, analysis or web log auditing, or for the purposes of tracking the number of anonymous users of the website.
Objective ServerID Objective - Planning consultation Need info from supplier
Survey Monkey ep201 This cookie may be set if you follow one of our links to a Survey. They expire when you exit the survey or close your browser window
Survey Monkey TSc1209a This cookie may be set if you follow one of our links to a Survey. They expire when you exit the survey or close your browser window
Survey Monkey TS54026e This cookie may be set if you follow one of our links to a Survey. They expire when you exit the survey or close your browser window
Survey Monkey TS39fa47 This cookie may be set if you follow one of our links to a Survey. They expire when you exit the survey or close your browser window
Survey Monkey P_14552132 This cookie may be set if you follow one of our links to a Survey. They expire when you exit the survey or close your browser window
Survey Monkey P_19807288 This cookie may be set if you follow one of our links to a Survey. They expire when you exit the survey or close your browser window
Survey Monkey ep202 This cookie may be set if you follow one of our links to a Survey. It expires 366 days after it is first set.