Cookie policy

When you visit this site, it can store a small amount of information in your browser and read it back later, mostly as cookies. Some of it is needed for the site to work. The rest is there so I can see how the site is used, and that part is yours to refuse.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to store on your device, and that your browser sends back the next time you visit. What matters is not the file, it is the identifier inside it. That identifier is what lets a site recognise a returning browser, and recognising a browser again is what makes it possible to see which pages were read, how someone arrived and what they did next.

It cannot read other files on your device and it cannot run anything. It usually does not identify you by name either, though the law treats these identifiers as personal data as soon as they can single someone out, and so do I.

The same rules apply to anything that works the same way. UK law does not regulate files, it regulates the act of storing information on your device or reading what is already there, whatever the technique. Tracking pixels, device fingerprinting and browser storage are therefore treated exactly like cookies.

How do we use cookies?

For two things, and nothing else.

To remember your choice. When you answer the cookie banner, that answer has to be stored somewhere, otherwise you would be asked again on every page. That is what the strictly necessary cookie does, and it is the only thing set before you agree to anything.

To measure how the site is used. Google Analytics 4, loaded through Google Tag Manager, tells me how many people visit, which pages they read, how they found the site and whether the contact form gets used. It is aggregated reporting about the site, it is not used to build a profile of you, it is not sold and it is not shared with anyone for advertising.

Google Ireland Limited processes that data on my behalf. IP addresses are truncated before storage, and Google may transfer data outside the UK under the safeguards required by UK data protection law. Google explains what it does with the data in its cookie policy and its business privacy notice.

What types of cookies do we use?

Two categories. Cookie policies usually list four, so here is the whole picture, including what is not here.

• Strictly necessary. Needed for the site to work or to honour a choice you made. No consent required, and turning them off would break something.
• Analytics. Counts visits and shows which pages get read. Set only after you agree, and refusing changes nothing about how the site behaves.
• Functional and advertising. Not used. No advertising, retargeting or social media cookies are set on this site, by me or by anyone else.

Google Tag Manager, which is how these tags are loaded, sets no cookie of its own. It only decides which tags run, and it runs the analytics tags only after you have agreed to them.

How you can manage cookies?

A banner asks on your first visit. Refusing takes the same single click as accepting, and nothing beyond the strictly necessary cookie runs until you agree to it.

You can change your mind at any time, and it is just as quick. Use the Cookie settings link, also in the footer of every page. Withdraw consent and the analytics tags stop loading straight away.

Your browser can do it too. Every browser lets you block or delete cookies in its settings, and most let you refuse third-party cookies outright. Blocking them will not stop this site working. One thing worth knowing: deleting your cookies also deletes the record of your choice, so the banner will ask you again on your next visit.

Questions about any of this, write to olivia.barclay.01@gmail.com. How personal data is handled more generally is covered in the privacy policy.