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

You can manage these small files yourself and learn more about them through "Internet browser cookies - what they are and how to manage them" available on the DirectGov website.

 

Our use of cookies


Cookies required for the operation of our site

Name Purpose Data in Cookie

cookie-consent

To automatically hide the Cookie banner.

typical content: either blank, or "yes" if banner is hidden

expires: three years

query-assisted

To remember whether you want to use step-by-step guidance when querying data.

Only set if you tick the step-by-step guidance option when querying data.

typical content: either blank, or "yes" if assisted

expires: one year

logintoken

Store an access token to enable automatic login

Only set if you have logged on with a username and password and ticked 'Remember me'.

typical content: hexadecimal access token, only ever transmitted over secure connections

expires: three months

autologin

Indicates that the "logintoken" cookie exists, enables the automatic login process to begin.

Only set if you have logged on with a username and password and ticked 'Remember me'.

typical content: blank or "yes"

expires: three months

tips-seen, tips-session

Remember which helpful hints and tips have been displayed on this visit to the web site to prevent them being displayed again once read.

typical content: list of tip references

expires: when you close your browser

tips-not-again

Remember which helpful hints and tips should never be displayed again.

Only set if you tick the "Do not show these tips again" checkbox when viewing a series of tips.

typical content: list of tip references

expires: three years

previoustheme

To remember the data source you selected on the dataset selection page in wizard / advanced queries so that when you return to that page the same source can be displayed again.

Only set if you use advanced or wizard query.

typical content: our internal code number for the data source you selected e.g. "subgrp=&theme=24" indicates you had the claimant count source open.

expires: midnight following the day you used the site

SessionGUID

To allow us to remember the selections you make on the option pages in wizard / advanced queries (e.g. geographies, dates, variables) so that when you download data we can provide the correct data to you.

typical content: randomly generated text e.g. "{W0C4B36D-86EA-9F8S-A9DE-49B34615AFP5}". When logged in, the cookie will only be transmitted over secure connections.

expires: when you close your browser

apiOrigin

To allow us to tell the difference between API calls that are made when someone is browsing the Nomis site and API calls that are externally generated.

typical content: single text value e.g. "nomis".

expires: when you close your browser

censuskeywords-last-units, censuskeywords-last-tablesearch, censuskeywords-last-keywordsearch, censuskeywords-last-keywords, censuskeywords-last-geoglevel

To return the Census 2011 table finder to the most recent set of filtered selections.

typical content: single text value or comma separated list of text values e.g. "Age".

expires: when you close your browser

prefs

To allow website pages to be customised in line with any settings you have specified on the preferences page in "my account".

e.g. you may have specified a postcode to allow us to localise the geography selection pages.

Only set if you have specified preferences.

typical content: a coded list of the selections you made on the preferences page. e.g. compdef12=100& preferredDatasetSelection=dsbytheme& preferredOutputFormat=htm& areaMnem=& noDefaults=& geogsort=geogname& embedqueryinterface=& xlsx=& recentQueryList=5& postcodeContext=DH1 3LE& alwaysUseMaps=no& recentDatasetList

expires: 01 January 2038 00:00:00

 

Cookies for improving service

Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage. This to ensure that the service is available when you want it and is fast.


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 + info on how the site was reached (e.g. directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)
Expires: 6 months


For further details on the cookies set by Google Analytics, please refer to the Google Code website