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