Cookies

If you wish to change your cookie settings, please do so using the cookie manager.

A cookie is a small text file on your computer, created by a website to store information about your visit, such as any preferences you set or the duration of your visit. Once a cookie is saved on your computer, only the website that created the cookie can read it. EU legislation states that a website must let you know when it uses cookies.

Benefits of cookies

Some of the cookies on iow.gov.uk are used to remember things you have specifically selected, such as closing or opening the search panel, dismissing notification banners.

Other cookies help us understand how people browse the website. We use Google Analytics for this. The data we collect with Google Analytics is anonymous. We do not allow Google to use or share the data about how you use this site.

Surveys

We sometimes we conduct surveys to understand how we can make the site better for you, and we use cookies to stop the survey prompt from appearing if you have completed the survey, or if you have clicked to say you do not want to be asked again.

Cookie safety

Cookies won’t harm your device. They don't identify you or take any personal details. We track how you interact with our website, but the data collected is anonymous.

Cookie consent lifespan

When you give consent to any cookies on the website, a 30 day lifespan is given on your device. After this time the consent will expire and you will be shown the cookie consent banner again. This could be subject to change, but you will always be notified prior to any changes.

Cookies set by third parties

We sometimes embed video, images or other content from websites such as Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. We have no control over cookies set by third-party websites.

Tracking cookies

They allow us to collect information such as

  • how many people visit the website
  • what browsers they use
  • how long they stay for

Understanding how people browse iow.gov.uk can help us identify areas that we need to improve, or fix problems.

Required Cookies

These are essential cookies that do things like remember your cookie preferences or allow the server to tell that you are a unique user and they can't be turned off.

Cookies we use

NamePurposeType and durationEssential or non-essential (E/NE) 
_ga
This cookie is a Google Analytics persistent cookie which is used to distinguish users
Persistent, 2 years
N/E
_gid

This helps us record how many people visit this website by tracking if you've visited before

Persistent, 24 hours

N/E
_ga_[property_id]

This cookie is a Google Analytics persistent cookie which is used to persist the session state

Persistent, 1 minute

N/E
CONSENT

Used by Google for cookie consent settings in Google reCaptcha

20 years

Essential
_GRECAPTCHA
To provide spam protection6 months Functional
JSESSSIONIDThis is used to manage your session on the site.SessionEssential
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
YouTube - to provide ad delivery or retargeting, store and track a visitor's identity, store and track interaction6 monthsMarketing
YSCYouTube - store and track interactionSessionMarketing
NIDGoogle Ads Optimization to provide ad delivery or retargeting, store user preferences6 monthsMarketing