Privacy and Cookie Policy
This Privacy Policy describes how Poole Housing Partnership collects, uses and protects information that you give us when you use this website. We are committed to ensuring that your privacy and personal information is protected and that we comply with the Data Protection Act at all times.
What we collect
We may collect the following information:
- Name
- Contact information including email address
- Demographic information such as address, postcode, preferences and interests
- Information relevant to customer surveys
- Information necessary to implement new services or improve the service we currently provide to our residents
How we use the information we gather
We require information from you to understand your needs and provide you with a better service. Where personal data is voluntarily provided through e-mail or electronic forms this data is only used for the purpose it was provided and will not be given or sold to any third parties. Any email addresses you provide will be used to send you an acknowledgement or contact you if we need any more information.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is kept secure. We use SSL encryption to ensure that when you submit any personal information on line it is sent via a secure connection so that it is not visible to other people.
What is a cookie?
The law which applies to how cookies and similar technologies are used for storing information on a user's computer or mobile device changed on 26 May 2011.
Cookies provide a number of functions in order to make websites work effectively, generally cookies are beneficial, making your interaction with websites easier.
A cookie is a simple text file, it is not a program and does not contain viruses. When you visit a website the cookie is sent from the web server of the website to your web browser and is stored on your computer. The next time you visit the same website your computer checks to see if it has a cookie relevant to that site and if so sends information contained in the cookie back to the website, for instance if you have already visited or registered with the website before.
There are different types of cookies, some are necessary for you to navigate around the website and use its features, some collect information about how you and others use the website to help improve the way the website works. Others store personal settings or preferences such as login details so you don't have to keep entering the same information and some collect information in order to target advertising relevant to you.
How we use cookies on our website
We currently operate an 'implied consent' policy which means that we assume you are happy with the usage of cookies on our website. If you are not happy, then you can apply controls against the use of cookies on this website or delete them after having visited this site.
The following sections give more information about the types of cookies we use on our website and the controls you can put in place
We use a number of different cookies on our website but these are unobtrusive and consist of:
- a single session id cookie (JSessionID) that is removed when you close the browser
- login features
- accessibility features such as text size options (GossDynFontSizer) and translation service
These are all "essential", if there wasn't a cookie for text size for example, the text size would change back to the default every time you moved to a different page
We also use a cookie to display a poll that you may wish to vote on ("PollTimeout-<pollid>" where pollid is the poll just voted). If you do not want this cookie to be placed you should not vote on a poll. If you do the cookie will expire after one day
We use Google Analytics to see how people are using our website, such as which pages are being viewed and how often. This helps us to improve our website so it meets our customers' needs. The information gathered does not identify individuals and is purely statistical.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| __utma | This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to your site and it is updated with each page view. |
| __utmb | This cookie is used to track when a visit starts and ends |
| __utmc | This cookie is no longer used by the ga.js tracking code to determine session status. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie |
| __utmz | This cookie tracks where a visitor came from (search engine, search keyword, link) |
Controlling the use of cookies
Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but you can alter your browser settings to prevent automatic acceptance or you can manually delete your cookie history whenever you wish.
For further guidance and how to control or delete cookies we recommend you visit http://www.aboutcookies.org
You can find out more about the different types of cookies and what they do at http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/guides or go to http://www.allaboutcookies.org/
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites for which this privacy policy does not apply.