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Cookie Policy
If you would like to withdraw previously given consent for collecting performance cookies from this point forward until consent is given again, click the following link: Withdraw Cookie Consent
IP Address Logging
We retain the IP address of users that interact with the site, both logged in and anonymous, for a period of up to 6 months following every contest. The logged addresses are most critically used to ensure unauthenticated users can only vote once, as well as for auditing misuse of the website. IP address logs are used for fraud prevention, audit, and troubleshooting purposes only, and are never provided to third parties outside Visit England / OpenWater.
Use of cookies
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your computer (or other electronic device) when you access our website. We use cookies and other online tracking devices such as event tags, action tags, Local Shared Objects (‘Flash cookies’) on this website to:
- once logged in, to recognise you and automatically restore your session whenever you visit this website (this speeds up your access to the website as you do not have to log in each time);
- correlate user sessions with a 3rd party server monitoring platform "Raygun" when assisting with troubleshooting; "correlating sessions" meaning when a user reports issues using the site, we can use certain troubleshooting cookies obtained from the user to identify related requests server-side. These cookies utilize randomly generated IDs and not personally identifiable information.
- facilitate custom functionality built-out for Visit England, such as randomizing order of applications for review.
- 3rd party services may be embedded into certain pages and have their own 3rd party cookies; a common example being Youtube videos - the player requires the user
The information we obtain from our use of cookies will not usually contain your personal data. Although we may obtain information about your computer or other electronic device such as your IP address, your browser and/or other internet log information, this will not usually identify you personally. In certain circumstances we may collect personal information about you—but only where you voluntarily provide it (eg by completing an online form) or where you purchase goods or services from us.
In most cases we will need your consent in order to use cookies on this website. The exception is where the cookie is essential in order for us to provide you with a service you have requested (eg to enable you to put items in your shopping basket and use our check-out process).
Consent (notification on home page)
There is a notice on our home page which describes how we use cookies and which also provides a link to our website privacy policy. If you use this website after this notification has been displayed to you, we will assume that you consent to our use of cookies for the purposes described in this website cookie policy and our website privacy policy.
Third-party cookies
We work with third party suppliers who may also set cookies on our website, for example Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Hotjar, VWO, ShareThis, Adobe Flashplayer, and Google Analytics which we use to analyze website usage and improve our services. These third party suppliers are responsible for the cookies they set on our site. If you want further information please go to the website for the relevant third party. You will find additional information in the table below.
Description of cookies
The table below provides more information about the cookies we use and why - not all cookies are used at any given time or page:
| Name of cookie | Owner | Purpose for the cookie |
|---|---|---|
| acceptedCookieConsent | OpenWater | This essential cookie is used to record the user's response to the privacy consent dialogue, and maintain this response until they manually withdraw consent on this page. |
| .AUTH | OpenWater | This essential cookie is used to authenticate users and maintain their active logged in session between pages. |
| AppVersion | OpenWater | OpenWater utilises this essential cookie to keep track of which version the platform is currently running on. This information is solely usable for assisting a user troubleshooting request - the version is never distinct to the user and so is not personally identifiable information. |
| __RequestVerificationToken, .OpenWater.Antiforgery | OpenWater | These essential cookies are for security purposes - Specifically, they prevents cross-site request forgery attacks (CSRF) in ASP.NET applications. This cookie is required for secure operation of the site. |
| dirtyPageDetector | OpenWater | This essential cookie is for data integrity purposes - Specifically, the cookie is used for detecting when a page has changed in the server since it was displayed to the user. This prevents user submissions from becoming corrupted by incorrect browser states. The cookie contains a random value which it compares against the copy the server has saved. If they differ, the user is warned to refresh their page. This cookie is required for operation of the site. |
| tusSupport | OpenWater | This essential cookie is for data integrity purposes - Specifically, the cookie is used for detecting when a user's browser supports file transfer resumption to determine whether to cancel or resume a stalled file upload. This cookie is required for operation of the site. |
| 8fjzqlcd23k3.statuspage.io_ | StatusPage.io | This performance cookie is for uptime monitoring - Specifically, the cookie is used for detecting when users are having trouble accessing the website, to detect regional outages. This cookie is performance for operation of the site. |
| __cfduid, _cf, OptanonConsent | CloudFlare | CloudFlare utilises these essential cookies to distinguish individuals behind shared public IP addresses (such as public wifi) in order to apply security settings on a more granular basis. An example of this cookie in-use would be to prevent abusive or suspicious network traffic from one user behind a shared public IP causing all users to be blocked - this cookie would allow only the suspicious user to be limited or blocked rather than all sharing the connection. VisitEngland and OpenWater do not make use of this cookie outside of the standard CloudFlare administered functionality. You can review CloudFlare's GDPR and other regulatory compliance policies here: Cloudflare and GDPR compliance | Cloudflare |
| i18n.langtag | OpenWater | Part of ASP.NET applications, this essential cookie indicates which language the OpenWater platform should be displayed in throughout the user's session. |
| raygun4js-sid raygun4js-userid |
Raygun | These essential cookies are utilised by our vendor OpenWater when assisting the user with a troubleshooting request - they allow OpenWater to correlate the user's browser session against internal server errors managed by the external error reporting service "Raygun" - Raygun is deliberately designed to discard sensitive personal data and retain only that which is useful for technical troubleshooting. You can read more about Raygun's privacy and regulatory compliance here. OpenWater uses this data to diagnose and rectify issues within the platform. |
| randomization_token | OpenWater | This essential cookie is used to randomize the order of the gallery function - e.g. the gallery is used for the public voting functionality |
| _ga | Google Analytics | This performance cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request and used to calculate visitor, session, and campaign data for the site's analytics reports. The data collected is used solely for service improvement. |
| _ga_<container-id> | Google Analytics | This performance cookie is used to persist session state. It helps in calculating visitor, session, and campaign data for the site's analytics reports. The data collected is used solely for service improvement. |
| _gid | Google Analytics | This performance cookie is used to distinguish users. It stores and updates a unique value for each page visited. The data collected is used solely for service improvement. |
How to turn off cookies
If you do not want to accept cookies, you can change your browser settings so that cookies are not accepted. If you do this, please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of this website. For further information about cookies and how to disable them please go to the Information Commissioner’s webpage on cookies: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/.