Cookies
What are cookies?
Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website.
They store information about how you use the website, such as the pages you visit.
Cookies are not viruses or computer programs. They are very small so do not take up much space.
Website usage
We use the privacy-friendly analytics platform, Plausible.io, to measure how our site is used, which helps us to make improvements. All site measurement is carried out absolutely anonymously.
Cookies are not used and no personal data is collected. There are no persistent identifiers, and no cross-site or cross-device tracking.
ReachDeck accessibility tool
This website uses ReachDeck, an accessibility and reading support add-on that helps you to read the content. To learn more about ReachDeck, visit www.texthelp.com
ReachDeck stores some data in the Local Storage in your browser, to enable the add-on to work correctly and remember your preferences. Examples of preferences include colour choices, translation language choices, or screen mask configuration. Look at the ReachDeck user settings panel to see all the different types of information.
ReachDeck also stores the toolbar state. This ensures that when you enable an icon, it will remain enabled when you return to the website, or navigate to another page. ReachDeck does not transmit any of this information to Texthelp servers.
ReachDeck also continues to use anonymised Google Analytics to collect general usage statistics to help TextHelp improve ReachDeck in future releases. This usage is considered to be a Tracking Cookie under EU Cookie Law, and it is important that users are able to opt out of this.
IP Anonymisation is used to ensure that both Google and Texthelp cannot identify individual users. ReachDeck does not log any personally identifiable information in these analytics.
Cookies and LocalStorage set by ReachDeck
If you use the ReachDeck accessibility tool, the following settings are persisted in LocalStorage in the web browser. LocalStorage is considered to be equivalent to cookies under EU Cookie Law.
|
Name |
Type |
Expires |
Contains |
Purpose |
|
TH_TOOLBAR_SETTINGS |
Persistent |
No expiration date. Cleared only through JavaScript, or clearing the Browser cache / Locally Stored Data |
JSON object |
Stores an object containing user specific settings for the ReachDeck toolbar such as dialog positions and button states. No personally identifiable data is stored. |
|
API_SETTINGS V2 |
Persistent |
No expiration date. Cleared only through JavaScript, or clearing the Browser cache / Locally Stored Data |
JSON object |
Stores an object containing user specific API settings for the ReachDeck toolbar such as voice and language selection, user preferences set in the toolbar settings panel and selected styles for word highlighting. No personally identifiable data is stored. |
|
audioalert |
Persistent |
No expiration date. Cleared only through JavaScript, or clearing the Browser cache / Locally Stored Data |
JSON object |
Stores a value ‘audioalert = true’ after the first ReachDeck audio alert. |
Separately, Google Translate will create LocalStorage entry content.googleapis.com. This store appears to remain empty and unused by Google but its creation cannot be suppressed.
ReachDeck also sets cookies for Google for Analytics, unless you opt out of analytics cookies.
|
Name |
Type |
Expires |
Contains |
Purpose |
|
__utma |
Persistent |
2 years from set/update |
A series of unique ids following the pattern: [Domain Hash].[Random Unique ID].[Timestamp of first visit].[Timestamp of start of previous session].[Timestamp of start of current session].[Session counter] |
Used to distinguish users and sessions. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utma cookies exist. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
|
__utmt |
Persistent |
10 minutes |
Number value 1 |
Used to throttle request rate. |
|
__utmb |
Persistent |
30 mins from set/update |
timestamp of when the user visited the website |
Used to determine new sessions/visits. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and no existing __utmb cookies exist. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
|
__utmc |
Session |
End of browser session |
timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves a site |
Not used in ga.js. Set for interoperability with urchin.js. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the__utmbcookie to determine whether the user was in a new session/visit. |
|
__utmz |
Persistent |
6 months from set/update |
information on search engines and the entered search terms, or where the IP address of the visitor is located |
Stores the traffic source or campaign that explains how the user reached your site. The cookie is created when the javascript library executes and is updated every time data is sent to Google Analytics. |
|
_ga |
Persistent |
2 years |
the unique ID for the browsing session |
Used to distinguish users. The ID is used only to identify the session for the statistics and is completely anonymous. |
|
_gat_UA-4669579-11 |
Persistent |
1 minute |
Number value 1 |
Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named _dc_gtm_<property-id>. |
|
_gid |
Persistent |
24 hours |
a unique value for each page visited |
Used to distinguish users. |
|
APISID |
Persistent |
2 years |
Encoded unique user identification |
Cookie set by Google Analytics, intended for advertising purposes. Not used by ReachDeck but still present. |
|
SAPISID |
Persistent |
2 years |
Encoded unique user identification |
Cookie set by Google Analytics, intended for advertising purposes. Not used by ReachDeck but still present. |
|
__Secure-APISID |
Persistent |
6 months |
Encoded unique user identification |
Cookie set by Google Analytics, intended for advertising purposes. Not used by ReachDeck but still present. |
|
__Secure-3PAPISID |
Persistent |
2 years |
Encoded unique user identification |
Cookie set by Google Analytics, intended for advertising purposes. Not used by ReachDeck but still present. |
|
__Secure-3PSID |
Persistent |
2 years |
Encoded unique user identification |
Cookie set by Google Analytics, intended for advertising purposes. Not used by ReachDeck but still present. |
ReachDeck also sets cookies for Google Translation (not tracking cookies):
|
Name |
Type |
Expires |
Contains |
Purpose |
|
NID |
Persistent |
6 months from set/update |
Language preferences |
Used by the Google Translate API to store user preferences. |
Change your cookie settings
Some cookies, like those used to measure how you use our website, are not needed for our website to work.
These cookies can help us make our website better, but we’ll only use them if you say it’s OK.
To change your cookie settings, click on the cookie consent icon (as below) in the bottom left corner of the page:
You can choose the options on the slide-out panel to change your preferences.
Privacy
To find out how we collect, store and use information about you, see our privacy notice.
Page last reviewed: 5 June, 2023