What We use Cookies for, and Data Privacy

Cookies

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we put on your computer if you agree. Cookies are little pieces of code supplied by many web sites, and used by those sites to asssit with many things. Wikipedia has a great definition. Some people prefer to use sites without accepting cookies. That's fine here. Just use your browser preferences to refuse them. Doing so won't affect your enjoyment of the site in any way

Acceptance or rejection

We have a small piece of Cookie Control code on this site to tell you that we use Cookies and to ask you either to accept them or to change your browser settings to avoid them. It opens up to make sure you know we use cookies. As a paradox, if we gave you the option to opt out of cookies on this site we would have to track that with a cookie, making a nonsense of the entire process! When you accept cookies using this code we place a cookie on your client. See the Civic section, below.

If you don't want to accept cookies then you can change the settings in your browser to reject them all.

If you accepted them and then decide later you have changed your mind, your browser has the ability to purge the cookies it holds.

If you want the legal background to all of this, there is a full explanation on the UK Information Commissioner's web site. While this varies within Europe, it's still a decent explanation.

The Cookies we use

None of the cookies we use identify you to us in any way that exposes your personal data to us.

Civic Cookie Control

The Cookie Control cookie acceptance popup, a service whose implementation and scripting we control directly on this web site, places two cookies:

• civicAllowCookies
• civicShowCookieIcon

When you click "I'm happy with this..." on the Cookie Control user interface, a pair of cookies is set in order to remember your preference, and it stays set either until you clear cookies from your browser, or for 90 days, whichever happens first. That means that you don't have to agree again every time you visit the site, and we hope you'll come back often. These cookies are set only after the user has given consent to us to use cookies. The names of these cookies describe their function well. Much kudos attaches to Civic for a meaningful set of cookie names. A full description of the service may be found on Civic's site.

Google Analytics Cookies

We use Google Analytics to look at a statistical level at traffic on this site to try to make the experience here better. The way we use them means that they contain no personal information about individuals. Our website uses four Google Analytics cookies. These cookies allow us to distinguish you from other users of the website which helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.

The cookies we use are 'analytical' cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the site when they’re using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example by making sure users are finding what they need easily.

• _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.

Click here for an overview of privacy at Google

+1 (Google Plus One)

Google's +1 service will place cookies on your client as follows:

• rememberme

Its function is explained in its name

Click here for an overview of privacy at Google

Twitter

Twitter places cookies on your client which identify you during a Twitter session. Please see Twitter's Privacy policy.

Foursquare

Foursquare places cookies on your client. Please see Foursquare's Privacy Policy.

Facebook

As far as we can tell, the Facebook elements on this site have no Cookie implications. Facebook does have a Privacy Policy but it is, on 14 March 2012, not relevant to their use of cookies on external sites.

Data Privacy

When you use the Dartmouth Museum web site no personal data of any description is collected. You are invited to email us in various places. If you do so you are in full control of the amount of information you give us. We use the information you give us to respond to your message; for any other use we will ask your permission (unless you have already granted it in your email to us), and may do so to the email address you have provided. We do not pass this data to any third party unless required to by law.

As a registered charity (a Not For Profit Organisation) and also because of our usage of data we have determined that we are exempt from the requirement of notification under the United Kingdom's Data Protection Act 1998. Even so we must and do abide by it.

Latest Update

This page was updated on Wednesday 14 March 2012 to reflect the implementation of the Civic Cookie Acceptance script, and to document compliance with privacy legislation.