Cookies

How we use cookies on this website

What cookies are for

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable.

Where 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 by:

• 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 govt services so we can make them better

Managing cookies

To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit AboutCookies.org. Or please read on to find out more about how and where we use cookies. There are two types of cookie you may encounter when using this website:

• First party cookies – these are our own cookies, controlled by us and used to provide information about usage of our site
• Third party cookies – these are cookies found in other companies' internet tools which we are using to enhance our site, for example Facebook or Twitter have their own cookies, which are controlled by them

First party cookies

Home Office websites use cookies in several places. Cookies are set by our web servers to ensure that your session is maintained for the duration of your visit (until you close your web browser).

We've listed each of them below with more details about why we use them and how long they will last. We will endeavour to let you know before we store a cookie on your computer.

Cookies set by this website

Table containing the cookies which we set
Name	Typical content	Expires
OFLogon	40 character session-specific security token set when a user logs on. Avoids users having to repeatedly supply logon details for every form	When user closes browser
OFAjaxMode	Fixed value of FALSE if present. Remembers user's choice of whether to optimise output for screen readers.	11 years
OFSessionHash	40 character security token set to identify the session.	When user closes browser
OFServerID	Integer number. Records which server is controlling the users' session when running in a load balanced configuration	When user closes browser
Screenreadmode	False/true. Set by the spell check facility to remember the users choice of screen-reader friendly user interface.	When user closes browser
Methodchosen	False/true. Set to true by the spell check facility if the user has chosen to correct a spelling.	When user closes browser

Third party cookies

When we use a supplier they may also set cookies.

We use Google Analytics to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to our websites and volumes of usage. Google Analytics sets cookies - more information is available on the Google Code website.

Table showing cookies used by Google Analytics
Name	Typical content	Expires
_utma	Randomly generated number	2 years
_utmb	Randomly generated number	30 minutes
_utmc	Randomly generated number	When user closes browser
_utmz	Randomly generated number + info on how the site was reached (e.g. directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)	6 months