Last updated: 27 October 2025
Next review: 31 July 2026
Cookies are small files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website.
We use cookies on our this website and GovService, our customer portal, to:
- store information needed to make the site work properly
- remember your preferences and data you’ve given (for example, your address) so you don’t need to keep entering it
- find out how people are using the site
Our cookies aren’t used to identify you personally.
Unless the law allows us to, we do not:
- share any of the data we collect about you with others, or
- use this data to identify individuals
Cookies on this site: Essential cookies
These cookies are essential for our website and GovService to work properly.
| Cookie | Used on | Description | Provider | Expiration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| __cf_bm | This website, GovService | Used to protect our web services from bot attacks. | Cloudflare | 1 day |
| AEC | This website | Used by Google to ensure that requests within a browsing session are made by the user, and not by other sites. This cookie prevents malicious sites from acting on behalf of a user without that user's knowledge. | Google Ads | 6 months |
| AGS_ROLES | GovService | Used by GovService when you use a map on one of our forms to choose a location. | geocode.arcgis.com | 1 day |
| AWSALB | GovService | Cookie used by the computers running our online services to balance the work load they each carry out. | Amazon Web Services | 1 week |
| AWSALBCORS | GovService | Cookie used by the computers running our online services to balance the work load they each carry out. | Amazon Web Services | 1 week |
| aws-waf-token | This website | Cookie used to protect our website from malicious traffic. | Amazon Web Services | 3 days |
| cookie-agreed | This website | Used to remember your preference for accepting or rejecting the cookies our website might set. | This website | 12 months |
| cookie-agreed-version | This website | Used to store the version number of the cookie policy that you have accepted or rejected. | This website | 12 months |
| HSID, SID | This website | Used by Google to block attacks on its services, such as attempts to steal the content of forms submitted in Google services. | 2 years | |
| intercom-device-id-* | This website | Used by Monsido, our web quality assurance tool, to prevent abuse by identifying the computers and devices interacting with their web services. | Intercom / Monsido | 9 months |
| LPSID-* | This website | Used by the Liveperson chat bot on our website so it can function. | LivePerson chat bot | Session |
| LPVID | This website | Used by the Liveperson chat bot on our website so it can function. | LivePerson chat bot | 1 day |
| PHPSESSID | GovService | Used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. | PHP.net | Session |
| SESSfsauthsession | GovService | Cookie used by GovService to identify a user whilst they use our customer portal. | GovService | Session |
| SESSIONCHECK | GovService | Cookie used by our website to anonymously identify a specific user whilst they use our website. | GovService | Session |
| SIDCC | This website | Used by Google to protect user data from unauthorised access. | 12 months | |
| ssAuthSession | GovService | Used by GovService to tell if you are logged into our customer portal or not. | GovService | Session |
| XSRF-TOKEN | This website | Use to by our website to help with site security and prevent cross-site request forgery attacks. | LivePerson chat bot | 1 day |
Functional cookies
These cookies are used to enhance the performance of our websites. They do things like remembering login details, language, and provide extra features.
| Cookie | Used on | Description | Provider | Expiration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| __stripe_mid | GovService | Used to prevent unauthorised use of fontawesome fonts and icons on our site. | Stripe | 1 year |
| _lastlogin | GovService | Used by GovService to record and display when a user last logged into our customer portal. | GovService | Session |
| APP_LANG | GovService | Used to identify the language being used to view GovService, our customer portal. | GovService | 1 day |
| googtrans | This website | Used to store which language has selected in the website's translation tool. | Google Translate | Session |
| localtime | GovService | Used by GovService to track and display the correct time when you use our self-service customer portal. | GovService | Session |
| LOGIN_INFO | This website | Used by Google when you click on and play a YouTube videos embedded on our website. | YouTube | 2 years |
| LPSessionID | This website | Used to tell if a user has used the Liveperson chat bot on our website before. | LivePerson chat bot | Session |
| LPVisitorID | This website | Used to tell if a user has used the Liveperson chat bot on our site before. | LivePerson chat bot | 1 day |
| ph_phc_*_posthog | GovService | Used by Fontawesome.com so we can use custom fonts and icons on our site. | Posthog | 12 months |
| player_clearance | This website | Used by Vimeo to identify and prevent issues caused by bots. | Vimeo | 1 week |
| PREF | This website | Used by YouTube to store your preferences such as: preferred language, how many search results you wish to be shown on your page, and whether or not you wish to have Google’s SafeSearch filter turned on. | YouTube | 2 years |
| product | GovService | Used by GovService to record how our online services are being used. | GovService | 1 day |
| test_cookie | This website | Set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to determine if the website visitor's browser supports cookies. | DoubleClick / Google Marketing | A few minutes |
| VISITOR_PRIVACY_ METADATA | This website | Stores details of the consent a user has given for this site around watching YouTube videos. | YouTube | 6 months |
| VISITOR_INFO1_ LIVE | This website | Used by YouTube to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. Also used for marketing. | YouTube | 6 months |
Analytics cookies
These cookies help us understand how the website is being used and working, how people interact with it, and whether there may be technical issues.
| Cookie | Used on | Description | Provider | Expiration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| _cfuvid | This website | Used by Vimeo to distinguish between individual users who share the same IP address. | Cloudflare | Session |
| _ga | This website, GovService | Used by Google Analytics to identify users. | Google Analytics | 2 years |
| _ga_* | This website, GovService | Used by Google Analytics so it knows which analytics account to send data to. | Google Analytics | 2 years |
| CLID | This website, GovService | Used by Microsoft Clarity to store information about how visitors use our online services. | Microsoft | 13 months |
| guest_id | GovService | This cookie is set by X to identify and track website visitors. Registers if a users is signed in the X platform and collects information about ad preferences. | X (formerly Twitter) | 13 months |
| IDE | This website | Used for targeting, analysing and optimisation of ad campaigns in DoubleClick/Google Marketing Suite | DoubleClick / Google Marketing | 13 months |
| intercom-session-* | This website | Used by Monsido, our web quality assurance tool, to identify people using our web services. | Intercom / Monsido | 1 week |
| MUID | This website, GovService | Used to identify unique web browsers visiting Microsoft sites. This cookie is used for advertising, site analytics, and other operational purposes. | Microsoft | 13 months |
| NID | This website, GovService | Used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation. | 6 months | |
| SAPISID | This website, GovService | Used by Google to collect information about people watching YouTube videos. | 2 years | |
| vuid | This website | Used by Vimeo track the number of people watching its videos. | Vimeo | 2 years |
| YSC | This website | Registers a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen. | YouTube | Session |
Advertising and marketing cookies
These cookies are used to deliver marketing that is more relevant to you and your interests.
They may also be used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement or information, and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
| Cookie | Used on | Description | Provider | Expiration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| __Secure-* | This website | Used by Google to profile the interests of website visitors so relevant and personalised Google ads can be shown to them. | Google Ads | 13 months |
| __Secure-ROLLOUT_TOKEN | This website | Used by YouTube to manage the phased rollout of new features and updates. | YouTube | 6 months |
| _gcl_au | This website | Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites who use their services. | 3 months | |
| APISID | This website | Used by Google to personalise the adverts it shows you based on your recent searches and interactions. | 2 years | |
| ar_debug | This website | Used by DoubleClick (owned by Google) to debug and troubleshoot the ads it serves up. | DoubleClick / Google Marketing | A few minutes |
| SSID | This website | Used by SpringServe (owned by Google) to serve up adverts in videos. | SpringServe / Google Marketing | 2 years |
Websites linked to from this site
Other websites to which this site links to may also use cookies.
Please check those sites for their own cookie policy.