- What are cookies?
- Types of cookies
- Social media cookies
- How do I change my cookie settings?
- Cookies and browser controls
- Where to find information about controlling cookies
- Useful information
- Cookies that CTE uses
What are cookies?
When you visit our website, the site asks your browser to store a small piece of data (text file) called a cookie on your computer, tablet or mobile phone.
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) covers the rules on cookies. PECR also covers the use of similar technologies for storing or accessing information, such as ‘Flash cookies’ and device fingerprinting.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is responsible for enforcing these rules.
Organisations have to provide clear and comprehensive information about the way they use cookies and ensure that for any cookie not strictly necessary for their website, they give you an appropriate means of consenting to that cookie being set on your device.
Cookies store or retrieve information on your browser, which might be about you, your preferences or your device but does not usually directly identify you.
Cookies do lots of useful jobs. They help make websites work smoothly and provide information about how people browse.
First-party cookies are those which come from our website, cte.org.uk.
We also use third-party cookies, which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting, for our advertising and marketing efforts.
Types of cookies
Our website uses two kinds of cookies:
Necessary/Essential
Some cookies are essential for our website to function and to keep it safe and secure. These cannot be switched off in our systems. They let you do things like login, move from page to page, and use our interactive tools. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will then not work.
Analytics
These cookies provide enhanced functionality and personalisation and allow us to run analytics and testing tools. They measure and improve how our website performs, and give us feedback so that we can provide the best experience possible. For example, some analytics cookies allow us to count the number of website visitors and assess the most popular content. Other functional and performance cookies allow us to remember your preferences, and test new online tools for users.
For example, we use Google Analytics to collect information about how customers use our websites. This includes how long customers spend on our websites, how often they return and what demographic categories they fall into. For further information about how Google uses data, please visit google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.
Social media cookies
In addition, social media websites may use some cookies on our website. These may place a third-party cookie on your device, which could gather usage information.
Social media includes:
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram)
- X Corporation (Twitter)
- YouTube
- Vimeo
To opt out of being tracked by the Facebook Social Media cookie and Twitter Social Media cookie on all the websites you visit, go to the General Account Settings of your Facebook and Twitter accounts, then click the opt-out link.
How do I change my cookie settings?
You can find more information about cookies and how to manage them at allaboutcookies.org/.
Some cookies are essential for making our website work well and cannot be turned off.
You may disable non-essential cookies by changing the settings on your browser. However, if you do so, this will affect your enjoyment of our site and we will no longer be able to offer you a personalised service. Non-essential cookies are turned off by default when you first visit our website and you can choose to turn these on or turn them back off if you previously accepted these and have changed your mind.
You can do this via our cookie banner or by clicking on “manage cookie preferences” below to visit our cookie preference centre. You can also manage what cookies are stored on your computer directly by setting your browser to accept or reject certain cookies. However, blocking some types of cookies may mean some of the services or features on our sites won’t work properly.
Third-party cookies are set by someone else whose services we have added to our site, such as Google for measuring visits to our website. These are detailed in our cookie preference centre and all non-essential cookies (whether first or third-party) can be turned off.
If you share a link to a page on one of our sites, the platform you share it on (for example, Facebook) may set a cookie on your browser. We have no control over third-party cookies set on other sites.
Remember that editing your cookie preferences will not remove any existing cookies from your browser. It’ll only affect the way cookies are used in future. If you want to remove any existing cookies you can do this via your browser settings.
Cookies and browser controls
You can use your web browser to:
- delete all cookies;
- block all cookies;
- allow all cookies;
- block ‘third-party’ cookies (ie, cookies set by online services other than the one you are visiting);
- clear all cookies when you close the browser;
- open a ‘private browsing’ / ‘incognito’ session, which allows you to browse the web without recording your browsing history or storing local data such as cookies (you should however be aware of the limitations of this feature in a privacy context); and
- install add-ons and plugins that extend browser functionality.
Where to find information about controlling cookies
- Microsoft Edge cookies information
- Internet Explorer cookies information
- Chrome cookies information
- Firefox cookies information
- Safari cookies information – mobile devices and desktops
- Opera cookies information
Useful information
- A number of websites provide detailed information on cookies, including AboutCookies.org and AllAboutCookies.org.
- The European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance website Your Online Choices allows you to install opt-out cookies across different advertising networks.
- Google has developed a browser add-on to allow users to opt-out of Google Analytics across all websites which use it. This is also available in the Chrome web store.
- Do not track (DNT) is a feature offered by some browsers which, if enabled, sends a signal to websites requesting that your browsing isn’t tracked. Currently, there is no industry-wide standard that has been agreed upon or universally adopted to determine how such signals are handled and for that reason, we do not respond to DNT requests. We will review how this feature, and other similar technologies, evolve and then take steps to incorporate them as and when appropriate.
- Internet Explorer has a feature called Tracking Protection Lists which allows you to import a list of websites you want to block.
- For more information on how private browsing works as well as its limitations, visit the support pages for your browser: Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari (mobile and desktop) and Opera.
Cookies that CTE uses
The table below explains the cookies we use and why.
Necessary/Essential cookies (7)
| Cookie Name | Provider | Description | Type | Expiry |
| wpEmojiSettingsSupports | Churches Together in England | This cookie is utilized to enable emoji support on pages using WordPress. | First Party | Session |
| __cf_bm | Vimeo | This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots when playing Vimeo embedded videos. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. | Third party | 30 minutes |
| Vuid | Vimeo | Collects data on the user’s visits to the website, such as which pages have been read. | Third party | 30 minutes |
| NID | YouTube | Used by Youtube to remember your preferences and other information | Third Party | 6 months |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | YouTube | Used by Youtube to remember your preferences and other information | Third Party | 8 months |
| _GRECAPTCHA | reCAPTCHA | reCAPTCHA sets a necessary cookie (_GRECAPTCHA) when executed for the purpose of providing its risk analysis. | Third party | Session |
| _cfduid | Cloudflare | Set by the CloudFlare service to identify trusted web traffic. It does not correspond to any user id in the web application, nor does the cookie store any personally identifiable information. | Third Party | Session |
Analytics: (5)
| Cookie Name | Provider | Description | Type | Expiry |
| _gid | This cookie is set by Google Analytics. It stores and update a unique value for each page visited and is used to count and track pageviews. | First Party | 1 Day | |
| _ga_9DEFFM52TV | This cookie is used by Google Analytics to persist session state. | First Party | 1 Year 1 Month | |
| _gat_ UA-55128514-1 | This is a pattern type cookie set by Google Analytics, where the pattern element on the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. It is a variation of the _gat cookie which is used to limit the amount of data recorded by Google on high traffic volume websites. | First Party | 54 Seconds | |
| _ga | This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics – which is a significant update to Google’s more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports. | First Party | 1 Year 1 Month | |
| ga-audiences | Used by Google AdWords to re-engage visitors that are likely to convert to customers based on the visitor’s online behaviour across websites | First Party | 1 Year |
Last updated: July 2024.
This should be read in conjunction with the CTE privacy notice.