Cookies
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
Our use of cookies
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, your 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:
- 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
Learn how to remove cookies set on your device
There are two types of cookie you may encounter when using www.thomaswatson.com :
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
Thomas Watson
*.thomaswatson.com (Thomas Watson websites) uses cookies in several places – 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 Thomas Watson website
| Name | Purpose | Typical content | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHPROAD | Authentication session to prevent having to login multiple times in one browser session. | Hashed data of username and authentication status [only at transparency.number10.gov.uk] | Expires 1 Day |
| FWCSESSID | Session ID for the site | Expires 1 Year |
Third party cookies
We use a number of suppliers who may also set cookies on their websites’ on its behalf. The Thomas Watson does not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the third party websites for more information about these.
| Provider | Name | Purpose | More info |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics | _utma _utmb _utmc _utmz |
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. | Google Privacy policy |
| YouTube | VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | Google Policies and Principles | |
| datr lu locale |
Facebook Social Plugin – embedding Facebook content | Facebook privacy policy | |
| Google Map | NNID PREF khcookie |
Google Privacy policy | |
| original_referer external_referer k guest_id _twitter_sess |
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 website, 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.