What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a unique identifier, that is sent to your computer, tablet or mobile phone’s web browser from a website’s computer and is stored on your device’s hard drive.

Each website can send its own cookie to your web browser if your browser’s preferences allow it. Many websites do this whenever a user visits their website, in order to track online traffic flows.

Similar technologies are also often used within emails to understand whether the email has been read or if any links have been clicked.

If you continue without changing your settings, we’ll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies on the Visit Belfast website. However, you can change your cookie settings at any time.

How does Visit Belfast use cookies?

We use different types of cookies for different things, such as:

  • analysing how you use our website
  • giving you a better, more personalised experience
  • recognising when you’ve signed in.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies let you use all of the different parts of our website. Without them, services that you might require cannot be provided.

Some examples of how we use these cookies are:

  • Signing in to the Visit Belfast website.
COOKIE NAME PURPOSE
visit_belfast_cookie Stores information about your visit to the site, whether you are logged in and your site preferences.
XSRF-TOKEN This is a security token which adds to the security of the site. It stores no information about you personally.

Functional Cookies

These help us personalise the experience of our sites directly to you. Some examples of uses for functional cookies are:

  • Remembering if you visited the website before so that messages for new visitors are not displayed to you.
COOKIE NAME PURPOSE
cookie_consent Stores whether you have acknowledged the cookie information presented at the start of your visit to the site.
startingPosition Used to store your preferred starting position in Belfast when browsing the site.

Performance Cookies

These help us understand how you’re using our websites so that we can improve the experience for you. We sometimes get other companies to analyse how people are using our website. These companies might set their own performance cookies. Some examples of uses for performance cookies are:

  • To collect information about which web pages visitors go to most often so we can improve the online experience
  • Error management to make sure that the website is working properly
  • Testing designs to help improve the look and feel of the website.
COOKIE NAME PURPOSE
1P_JAR
APISID
CONSENT
HSID
IDE
NID
SAPISID
SID
SIDCC
SSID
_ga
_gid

Google – Our website uses Google Analytics to analyse user behaviour and improve our services. Google Analytics sets a cookie in order to track this behaviour and allows us to analyse that data and generate reports. Additionally, we use Google Services, such as Maps to improve the overall user experience.

For more information on how to disable Google Analytics Cookies, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

act
c_user
datr
fr
io
pl
presence
sb
wd
xs

Facebook – Our website uses Facebook to analyse user behaviour and add social functionality to our sites, such as sharing and logging in via Facebook.

For more information on Facebook’s cookies, visit www.facebook.com/policies/cookies

fs_uid FullStory – Sometimes we use FullStory.com to analyse how Visitors are using our website in order to improve the experience of the website.

More information on the information collected by FullStory can be found here – www.fullstory.com/legal/privacy

How do I control my cookie settings?

Most web browsers accept cookies automatically, but you can change the settings of your browser to erase cookies or prevent automatic acceptance if you prefer. Generally you have the option to see what cookies you’ve got and delete them individually, block third party cookies or cookies from particular sites, accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is issued or reject all cookies. Visit the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu on your browser to change settings, and check the following links for more information.

Cookie settings in Internet Explorer

Cookie settings in Firefox

Cookie settings in Chrome

Cookie settings in Safari

Where can I get more information about cookies?

You can find out more information about cookies at www.allaboutcookies.org