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Cookies

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as providing information to the owners of the site, such as the number of visitors. Most major websites use cookies.

Types of cookies used on our website

Our own cookies, as well as third party cookies, are listed below. 

'Strictly necessary' cookies

Some cookies on our website are essential to we can provide you with a service you have requested. If you prevent these cookies, via your browser for example, we can't predict how our website will perform during your visit. Some services may stop working.

We use 'strictly necessary' cookies for things like our cookie banner, to remember your preference.

'Analytics' cookies

We use analytics cookies to help us understand how users engage with our website. They also allow us to see which features are popular to make them better and remove the features that nobody uses. We would find it difficult to analyse how well our website was performing and improve it without these cookies.

We use 'analytics cookies' for recording things like:

  • the number of visitors to our website
  • the type of device used to access our website such as PC, mobile phone or tablet

These are considered non-essential cookies. Learn how to disable these cookies.

List of our cookies

Strictly necessary cookies

Cookie Name What does this do?
Cookie preference CookieControl  
ASP session cookie ASP.NET_SessionId This session cookie is used by our server and is required so that our web pages function properly.

It will expire when the browser is closed.
Content management system (CMS) cookies CMSPreferredCulture This cookie is automatically set by our content management system.

It stores the visitor's preferred content culture.

Analytics cookies

Cookie Name What does this do? More information

Google Analytics

ga
_ga_<container-id>      
 

These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our website. We use the information to analyse site usage, compile reports and help us to improve the site. The cookies collect information such as the number of visitors to the site and the pages they visited.

View Google Analytics privacy policy

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Third party cookies

Some of the cookies used on our website are stored on your machine by third parties. We have no control over these cookies or how the third parties use them.

They are used to allow that third party to provide a service to us, for example maps and photo galleries.

For more information on these cookies and how to disable them, see the third party's individual privacy policy listed below.

Cookie About the cookie More information
Reachdeck Reachdeck is an accessibility and reading support add-on that helps you to read the content.

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 us 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.

Read more about Reachdeck’s cookies.

 

Disable all cookies

For information on how to disable all cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org

If you disabled all cookies on our website, some services will not work properly.

More information

Useful information about cookies can be found at www.allaboutcookies.org

If you have a query about our use of cookies, email webmaster@belfastcity.gov.uk

We may update this policy from time to time. We last changed this policy on 5 December 2023.