Cookies

Cookies and Website Traffic Analysis

When users enter the safer.scot website their computers will automatically be issued with ‘cookies’. Cookies are text files which identify users’ computers to the Scottish Government’s server. The website then creates “session” cookies to store some of the preferences of users moving around the website, e.g. retaining a text-only preference. Cookies in themselves do not identify individual users but identify only the computer used and they are deleted on departure from the website.

Many websites do this to track traffic flows, whenever users visit those websites.

The safer.scot website uses cookies to measure use of the website including number of visitors, how frequently pages are viewed, and the city and country of origin of users. This helps to determine what is popular and can influence future content and development.

The information collected by Safer.scot will include IP Address, pages visited, browser type and operating system. The data will not be used to identify any user personally.

Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.