What are cookies and why are they used
Cookies are small text files that are stored on a visitor’s computer and enable information to be remembered by a website during a visitor’s current visit and in some cases are stored to be used on future visits to a particular website.
Depending on the web browsing program used cookies can be deleted or disabled but this may prevent you from using the website in the way you expected. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
How we use cookies
We do not use cookies to attempt to find out the identity of anyone visiting our website or to store any personal information about visitors. We only use cookies to help our site work as expected for visitors and to help us to maintain and develop our website by recording things such as the number of visitors via the use of a service called Google Analytics (more below).
By accepting this Cookies Policy, you are providing consent to for this data to be collected. Please note that we do not use this data to establish identities of our website users.
Given that we only use cookies in this way and to avoid distraction for visitors we decided not to include a ‘pop-up’ or other notification that our website uses cookies.
Analytics
When someone visits our website we use third-party services, Google Analytics, VWO Analytics, Linkedin Analytics and Facebook Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to understand the customer journey, and to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. We do not make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics 4 tracks online identifiers, including cookie identifiers, internet protocol addresses, and device identifiers; client identifiers.
More information about how Google uses Analytics data is available at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245
To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
VWO Analytics
VWO Analytics is used to track the customer journey across our website. This information is used to help us understand where improvements can be made.
Social Media
To enable functionality from social media networks Facebook and LinkedIn, third-party cookies are used on SWIG Finance’s website. We do not control these third-party cookies.
Facebook
The Facebook Pixel is a tracking code that helps to optimise advertising on Facebook. Details about cookies used by Facebook and the data collected can be found in their Cookie Policy. Facebook’s pixel collects three types of data whenever it is loaded:
Http headers: HTTP headers is a generic web protocol sent by default between any browser request and any server on the Internet. HTTP headers include IP addresses, information about the web browser, page location, document, referrer and user agent.
Pixel-specific data: Including pixel ID and Facebook cookie.
Optional values: Additional information can be sent about your visit through custom data events. Example custom data events are page type or service type.
Find out more on the Facebook Cookie Policy here: https://www.facebook.com/policies/cookies/
LinkedIn
The LinkedIn Insight Tag collects metadata such as URL, referrer, IP address information, timestamp, and events (e.g. page views). This data is encrypted. The LinkedIn browser cookie is stored in a user’s browser until the cookie expires or is deleted. Users have control to delete or block cookies.
How do I change my cookie settings?
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, we would suggest the following reference sites:
- Information Commissioner’s Office – https://ico.org.uk
- org – http://www.aboutcookies.org/
- Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
The cookies used on our website are as follows. Note that depending on the pages you visit not all will be used.
<td”>Used by Google Analytics to distinguish unique users. Important: Google Analytics does not store any personal information about website users. Read the Google Analytics privacy document for more details.
| COOKIES COMMENCING: | PURPOSE |
|---|---|
| catAccCookies | Cookie set by the UK cookie consent plugin to record that you accept the fact that the site uses cookies |
| _utma _utmb _utmz | These are used by Google Analytics to record anonymous visitor data. |
| _ga, _gid | |
| _gat | Used by Google Analytics to “throttle request rate” – Find out more from Google |
| wfvt_ | Used by our website software to record information about your general geographic location (used to remember your time zone, for example). These are known as session cookies and are deleted when you leave the site. |
| wp or wp- | Used by our website software to temporarily store settings in the page(s) you are visiting in order to display the correct content for that page |
| wfwaf-authcookie | Used by the website to authenticate user logon requests |
| _vwo_uuid_v2, debug_vis_opt_test_cookie, debug_vis_opt_exp_*, debug_vis_preview_*, _vwo_uuid, _vwo_ds, _vwo_sn, _vwo_logs_*, _vis_opt_exp_*, _vis_opt_test_cookie,_vis_opt_s | Used by Visual Web Optimizer (VWO) to track and measure visitor behaviour across the SWIG Finance website. |
If you have any other queries about our use of cookies then please feel free to contact us.