What are cookies and similar technologies?

Our website uses cookies and other similar technologies to distinguish between you and other users.

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your browser or the hard drive of your computer, smartphone or other tablet devices when you visit a website. Websites use cookies in a variety of ways to improve your experience and help us make improvements. Some examples of why we use cookies are to:

• Show you products that are relevant to you.

• Work with advertising partners to deliver relevant advertising to you.

• Remember your log in details to keep you signed in.

We use tracking pixels, a similar technology to cookies, in our emails and on our website to understand how customers interact with our content and to improve our communications. These allow us to:

• See whether an email has been opened and when.

• Track which links in the email have been clicked.

• Understand what pages the recipient views on our website after clicking through.

Tracking pixels do not store information on your device but may link your email engagement with your activity when you click through from an email.

Session and persistent cookies

A cookie can be either a:

Session cookie – this type of cookie is deleted when you close your web browser (Google Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge etc.). These are typically used when you log in to a website to make an online purchase;

or

Persistent cookie – this type of cookie remains on your computer, smartphone or other tablet device until it expires. This can be for a fixed time after you have visited the website (e.g., one year) or until a particular date. These cookies are used to remember information between visits to a website.

What are the types of cookies?

Strictly necessary cookies

These are always on when you visit our website, and you can’t turn them off unless you change your browser settings. These cookies are vital to us providing key features of our website, such as the ability to use online tools, login and register securely, and maintain your cookie preferences.

We only use optional cookies, pixels and similar technologies where you have given your consent. You can withdraw or change your consent at any time by using our cookie preference tool or by changing your browser settings.

You’ll be asked to provide your consent to the following cookies when you first visit our website and your consent will be refreshed every 6 months. You can switch these on or off at any time.

Performance cookies and pixels

These let us monitor how our website, emails and other digital content are performing so we can make regular improvements. We also use these cookies for web chat services.

Functional cookies

These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our pages for you, remember your preferences, and help you log in.

Targeting cookies

These are used to collect information about your visit to our site, the pages you have viewed, the links you have followed, and information about your browser, device and your IP address. We’ll use this information to make our website more relevant to your interests.

First and third-party cookies

First-party cookies are set by us. They are only read when you come back to our website again.

Third parties may also use cookies, we have no control of these as they are not set by us. These third parties may include, for example, advertising networks and providers of web traffic analysis services. Third-party cookies are likely to be analytical cookies, performance cookies or targeting cookies.

To manage the use of third-party advertising cookies, you can use our cookie preference tool where available or visit the relevant third party’s website to manage your choices.

How we work with our trusted third parties

Website analytics

We use third-party website analytics providers to monitor visitor traffic to our site to supply website reporting, general analytics, and session recording technology to understand how visitors use our website, improve user experience, analyse site performance, and investigate service issues or customer complaints. Recordings can capture individual users’ interactions such as page navigation, clicks and scrolling behaviour. Data may include information that can identify individual users, as well as aggregated statistical data. Sensitive information is excluded or masked where appropriate.

We use third-party website analytics providers to monitor visitor traffic to our site to supply website reporting and general analytics. This gives us information about the pages on our site that visitors view, where our visitors come from (for example, whether they were directed to our site by a search engine), how long they choose to stay on the site, the types of browsers they use and so on.

We use this information to enhance our website offering so that we give you the best possible experience on the site and to monitor the effectiveness of our marketing activities. However, this information is provided in anonymised, aggregate form only. It doesn’t enable you or your activity on our site to be individually identified.

Data Controllers within the OSB Group

Where you have consented to our use of targeting cookies, we will share these cookies with data controllers within the OSB Group to provide you with online advertisements we believe may be useful to you. Please see our privacy notice, ‘About Us’ section for the full list of OSB Group’s data controllers.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, which sets a cookie in order to evaluate your use of our website. The information collected helps us to understand how people use our website, what technologies they use, whether they have followed a link or carried out a search to find the site and which pages are most popular. It doesn’t give us individually identifiable information about your interaction with the site.

Google stores the information collected by the cookie on servers in the United States. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google won’t associate your Internet Provider (IP) address with any other data held by Google.

To find out more about the Google Analytics cookie and to reject or delete this cookie, you can visit the Google Privacy site at http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html

The tables below explain the cookies and similar technologies we use, including their name, provider, category, duration and whether they are first-party or third-party cookies.

Strictly necessary cookies

Performance cookies

Functional cookies

Targeting cookies

How can you manage cookies?

Strictly necessary cookies are always on when you visit us. When you first visit our website you can choose which cookies we can use.

If you wish to restrict or block cookies set by us, or by any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. You can also use our cookie preference tool where available to change your choices for optional cookies. Stopping all cookies might mean you can’t access some of our services or our website may not work properly for you.

Where can I get more information?

For more information on how we may use your personal data, please see our privacy notice. You can find out more information about cookies and your rights on the ICO’s website https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/online/cookies/