Privacy Policy

Privacy and Cookies

We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This privacy policy (together with our Terms & Conditions information) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

What information do we collect?

We may collect and process the following data from and about you:

Information that you provide by filling in forms on the Website. This includes information provided at the time of requesting further information or assistance. The typical information that we collect includes your name and e-mail address.

If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.

Details of your visits to the Website including, but not limited to, traffic data and other communication data for statistics purposes.

What happens to the information collected?

By submitting your personal data, you agree to its storing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy. We will respect your email privacy, and no customer or visitor information will be passed on to third parties without your prior consent.

We use Google Analytics to gather data on the number of people accessing this website, where they are accessing from, what pages they visit, and what technology they are using. Google Analytics cannot identify you personally, but does allow us to understand our users as a group, for example by recording what browsers are being used.

We may also use the information held about you in the following ways:

To assist with the provision of the services.

To ensure that content from the Website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.

Email addresses and personal information

We will only collect personal information that you knowingly and willingly provide, for example by sending emails or completing online forms. We will not share any lists we compile with other organisations without your prior consent.

Like many other websites, the Police National Legal Database has been designed to be easy to use, reliable and useful; in order to achieve this, the system functionality sometimes needs to place small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

What are cookies?

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:

enabling a service to recognise your device so you don't have to give the same information several times during one task

recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don't need to do it for every web page requested

measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there's enough capacity to ensure they are fast

analysing anonymised data to help us understand how people interact with our services so we can make them better

You can manage these small files and learn more about them from the About Cookies website.

Cookies for measuring performance of the website

By understanding how people use the website, we can make improvements to the navigation and content to make the site better and easier to access. We use Google Analytics to gather data on the number of people accessing this website, where they are accessing from, what pages they visit, and what technology they are using. Google Analytics cannot identify you personally, but does allow us to understand our users as a group, for example by recording what browsers are being used.

Cookies for your security

On some of our systems we use a cookie called "RequestVerificationToken" to help protect you against a specific form of malicious attack called Cross Site Request Forgery. Searching for this term will reveal a wealth of information about this potential vulnerability, and how it is closed through the use of cookies.

Our systems are protected behind an Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) server which uses a cookie for load balancing – ISA Web Publishing Load Balancing (ISAWPLB).

For the second and subsequent requests made to the system, the client includes the session cookie, which it received in response to the first request. The cookie text contains a Global Unique Identifier (GUID), a randomly generated number that ISA uses to identify to which web server it should send the web request. This ensures the session's affinity with the same web server. Also, in the response, ISA forwards the ASP session cookie from the web server to the client computer. The cookie expires when the user exits the browser.

Cookies for managing your current visit

To remember who you are as you move from page to page of the website, particularly after logging in to a service. We use a number of "session" cookies which may include "fw-session" and "ASPSessionIDrandomletters". These store your session ID to allow the site to recognise your movement around the site as being from one computer. These cookies expire when you close your browser or log out, and contain no personal information about you.

Cookies set by other websites through this site

We want to provide useful and interesting content on our website. On a number of pages we have added links to other websites. These websites may also set cookies on your device when you visit the pages where we have used this type of content. These are known as 'third-party' cookies. We do not control how a third party uses their cookies. You should check these third party websites' privacy policies for more information about their cookies if you are concerned about this.

How to control and delete cookies

We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you.

However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings.

To find out more, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.