Cookies
The information on this page relates to PDMS' own website and may also apply to websites developed by PDMS and Digital Design (the web design arm of PDMS) for our clients.
In order to make features of our website and our client's websites easy, useful, and reliable, we sometimes need to place 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.
What are cookies?
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 our services so we can make them better
You can manage these small files and learn more about them from the About Cookies website.
If you'd like to learn how to remove cookies set on your device, visit: About cookies: How to control cookies.
Our use of cookies
Cookies for measuring performance of the website
By understanding how people use the website, we can make improvements to the navigation and content to make the site better and easier to access.
We use Google Analytics to gather data on the number of people accessing this website, where they are accessing from, what pages they visit, and what technology they are using. Google Analytics cannot identify you personally, but does allow us to understand our users as a group, for example by recording what browsers are being used.
Name: _utma
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years
Name: _utmb
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 30 minutes
Name: _utmc
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser
Name: _utmz
Typical content: randomly generated number and information about how the page was reached (eg directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)
Expires: 6 months
Name: __utmmobile
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years
Cookies for your security
On some of our systems we use a cookie called "_RequestVerificationToken" to help protect you against a specific form of malicious attack called Cross Site Request Forgery. Searching for this term will reveal a wealth of information about this potential vulnerability, and how it is closed through the use of cookies.
Cookies for managing your current visit
To remember who you are as you move from page to page of the website, particularly after logging in to a service.
We use a number of "session" cookies which may include "fw-session" and "ASPSessionIDrandomletters". These store your session ID to allow the site to recognise your movement around the site as being from one computer. These cookies expire when you close your browser or log out, and contain no personal information about you.
We also use a cookie which ensures that all of your page requests come to the same web server, which is an important part of the web site "remembering" who you are from click to click.
Name: ISAWPLB (ISA Web Publishing Load Balancing)
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser
Cookies to support specific elements of the site
Some elements of our website use cookies to make them easier to use. These may include:
Cookies to record that we have already presented you with a piece of information which you would find intrusive and annoying if we continually re-presented. These may include notifications about the availability of new features or applications, and warning notices.
Cookies to retain settings or choices that you have made earlier during your visit to our site, so that we can reapply those choices when you revisit the relevant pages. These save you effort in reselecting the settings or making the choice, improving your experience of the website. For example, pre-populating complex search criteria screens with previous values, or collating selections you have made throughout your visit.
Cookies set by other websites through this site
We want to provide interesting and engaging content on our website. On a number of pages we embed media such as YouTube videos. The suppliers of these services may also set cookies on your device when you visit the pages where we have used this type of content. These are known as 'third-party' cookies. We do not control how a third party uses their cookies. You should check these third party websites' privacy policies for more information about their cookies if you are concerned about this.
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.
To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.
