1 Reason for Policy

The White Horse Federation is committed to safeguarding the privacy of all visitors to The White Horse Federation website, or the websites of schools within the Trust. The White Horse Federation’s websites make use of cookies.

2 Policy Statement

The purpose of this Policy is to describe how The White Horse Federation’s websites use cookies, the categories of cookies used, and the purpose for the use of cookies.

3 Policy Scope

This Policy applies to The White Horse Federation’s website, and the websites of schools within the Trust.

4 Policy Definitions

4.1 Cookies

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies may be either “persistent” or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

5 Procedures

5.1 Cookies That We Use

5.1.1 We use cookies for the following purposes:

  1. Analysis – we use cookies to help us analyse the use and performance of our website and services.
  2. Advertising – we use cookies to help us display advertisements that will be relevant to you.
  3. Cookie Consent – we use cookies to store your preferences in the relation to the use of cookie more generally.
  4. Security – we use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our website and services generally.

5.2 Cookies Used by our Service Providers

5.2.1 Our service provider use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.

5.2.2 We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our websites. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our websites. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.

5.2.3 We use Google Maps to embed a map of the location of our schools for informational purposes on our websites. Google Maps uses cookies to facilitate this feature. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.

5.2.4 We use Google Translate to offer translations of the content found on our websites in a variety of languages. Google Translate uses cookies to facilitate this feature. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy.

5.3 Managing Cookies

5.3.1 Most web browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can, however, obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

  1. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95647?hl=en (Chrome);
  2. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enable-and-disable-cookies-website-preferences (Firefox);
  3. http://www.opera.com/help/tutorials/security/cookies/ (Opera);
  4. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/17442/windows-internet-explorer-delete-manage-cookies (Internet Explorer);
  5. https://support.apple.com/kb/PH21411 (Safari); and
  6. https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10-microsoft-edge-and-privacy (Edge).

5.3.2 Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

5.3.3 If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all of the features on our websites.