Privacy and cookies
Introduction
When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.
These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:
- enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task
- recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested
- measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there's enough capacity to ensure they are fast
- analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with government services so we can make them better
You can manage these small files and learn more about them from the BBC article What are cookies?
If you'd like to learn how to remove cookies set on your device, find out more at All About Cookies.
Essential cookies
Main HSE site
Additional cookies on the main HSE website at www.hse.gov.uk
- Name of cookie:
- __cfduid
- Expires:
- 1 year
- Purpose:
- Cookie assoiated with sites using CloudFlare, used to speed up page load times. According to CloudFlare it is used to override any security restrictions based on the IP address the visitor is coming from. It does not contain any user identification information.
- Type
- Essential
- Name of cookie:
- optInGoogleTracking
- Expires:
- 1 year
- Purpose:
- Used to track user cookie preferences
- Type
- Essential
- Name of cookie:
- cookies_policy
- Expires:
- 1 year
- Purpose:
- This cookie is used to conditionally load Google Analytics
- Type
- Essential
- Name of cookie:
- cookies_status
- Expires:
- 1 year
- Purpose:
- Used to track user accepting or rejecting analytics using the toggle swtich on hse.gov.uk/cookies.htm
- Type
- Essential
- Name of cookie:
- hide_banner
- Expires:
- 1 year
- Purpose:
- Used to hide cookie notification banners after user accepts
- Type
- Essential
- Name of cookie:
- global_banner
- Expires:
- 1 year
- Purpose:
- Used to hide global notification banner after user accepts
- Type
- Essential
Services
Additional cookies on HSE's services platform at services.hse.gov.uk
- Name of cookie:
- _RequestVerificationToken
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used by the platform's antiforgery system.
- Name of cookie:
- .AspNet.ApplicationCookie
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used to identify user sessions.
- Name of cookie:
- adxPreviewUnpublishedEntities
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores preview ON/OFF mode used in classic CMS system for portal administrators.
- Name of cookie:
- adx-notification
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used in basic form actions to store alert message to be shown on redirection.
- Name of cookie:
- ARRAffinity
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Added automatically by Azure websites and ensures that requests are load balanced between different sites. Doesn't store any of user information.
- Name of cookie:
- ASP.NET_SessionId
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used to maintain the session of a logged in user to avoid repeated sign-in.
- Name of cookie:
- ContextLanguageCode
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Added automatically by Azure websites and ensures that requests are load balanced between different sites. Doesn't store any of user information.
- Name of cookie:
- Dynamics365PortalAnalytics
- Expires:
- 90 days
- Purpose:
- Mandatory cookie to anonymously measure service usage for platform costing purposes.
- Name of cookie:
- isDSTObserved
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores a value to indicate if the current moment is in daylight saving time.
- Name of cookie:
- isDSTSupport
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Indicates whether a specified date and time falls in the range of daylight saving time.
- Name of cookie:
- timeZoneCode
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores the timezonecode field value of CRM timezonedefinition table for the current timezone.
- Name of cookie:
- timezoneoffset
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores the timezone difference between UTC and Local browser time.
Contact
Additional cookies on HSE's Working Safely form at contact.hse.gov.uk
- Name of cookie:
- _RequestVerificationToken
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used by the platform's antiforgery system.
- Name of cookie:
- .AspNet.ApplicationCookie
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used to identify user sessions.
- Name of cookie:
- adxPreviewUnpublishedEntities
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores preview ON/OFF mode used in classic CMS system for portal administrators.
- Name of cookie:
- adx-notification
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used in basic form actions to store alert message to be shown on redirection.
- Name of cookie:
- ARRAffinity
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Added automatically by Azure websites and ensures that requests are load balanced between different sites. Doesn't store any of user information.
- Name of cookie:
- ASP.NET_SessionId
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Used to maintain the session of a logged in user to avoid repeated sign-in.
- Name of cookie:
- ContextLanguageCode
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Added automatically by Azure websites and ensures that requests are load balanced between different sites. Doesn't store any of user information.
- Name of cookie:
- Dynamics365PortalAnalytics
- Expires:
- 90 days
- Purpose:
- Mandatory cookie to anonymously measure service usage for platform costing purposes.
- Name of cookie:
- isDSTObserved
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores a value to indicate if the current moment is in daylight saving time.
- Name of cookie:
- isDSTSupport
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Indicates whether a specified date and time falls in the range of daylight saving time.
- Name of cookie:
- timeZoneCode
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores the timezonecode field value of CRM timezonedefinition table for the current timezone.
- Name of cookie:
- timezoneoffset
- Expires:
- Session
- Purpose:
- Stores the timezone difference between UTC and Local browser time.
Third-party cookies
Google analytics
The main HSE website and the following subdomains all use Google analytics to allow us to measure how the site is used and to improve the service:
- www.hse.gov.uk
- coshh-tool.hse.gov.uk
- resources.hse.gov.uk
So the following cookies are served on all the above.
| Name | Provider | Purpose | Expiry | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _ga | Google Tag Manager | Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. | 2 years | Usage |
| _gid | Google Tag Manager | Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. | 1 day | Usage |
| _dc_gtm_UA-324220-1 | Google Tag Manager | This cookie is associated with sites using Google Tag Manager to load other scripts and code into a page. Where it is used it may be regarded as Strictly Necessary as without it, other scripts may not function correctly. The end of the name is a unique number which is also an identifier for an associated Google Analytics account. | Usage | |
| _gat_UA-324220-1 | Google Analytics | This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It appears to be a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. | Usage | |
| _gali | Google Analytics | Usage | ||
| _ga_1Y6RD6YT11 | Google Tag Manager | This cookie is used by the gtag.js library to identify users across browsing sessions. | 1 year | Usage |
| nmstat | Siteimprove | Used to record the visitor's use of website. | 1000 days | Usage |
Social media
The code provided by Twitter to include Twitter functionality on our website may set cookies. For information about Twitter cookies go to the Twitter privacy policy.
How to control and delete cookies
We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.
However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, 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 browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.
If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.
For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.