Cookies Policy
LAST UPDATED: March 2024
SHiFT COOKIES POLICY V1.0
Introduction
We use cookies to understand how you use the SHiFT platform and website. This policy explains what they are, how we use them, and how you can switch them off if you want.
Just like our Privacy Policy, if there are things you don’t understand, our Information Security Team are always happy to chat, so please send us an email at support@shiftmastersessions.com
What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files which get stored on your computer or mobile phone which act as a ‘memo’ on the website – they store your settings, so that our website recognises you when you come back. This way, it behaves like something you’ve been to before (for example, it will fill in your previously inputted preferences).
Cookies can store lots of different types of information, but don’t worry, they can only store information you’ve shared with us (through a form, for instance). We may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer or mobile device until you delete them) to provide you with a more personal and interactive experience on our Site.
We use two broad categories of cookies:
First party cookies, served directly by us to your computer or mobile device; and
Third party cookies, which are served by our partners or service providers on our Site.
Cookies we use
Our Site uses the following types of cookies for the purposes set out below:
Type of Cookie
Purpose
Your Employer(s), academic institution(s), governing bodies
These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through our Site and to enable you to use some of its features. For example, they allow you to log in to secure areas of our Site and help the content of the pages you request to load quickly. Without these cookies, the services that you have asked for cannot be provided, and we only use these cookies to provide you with those services.
Functionality Cookies
These cookies allow our Site to remember choices you make when you use our Site, such as remembering your login details and remembering the changes you make to other parts of our Site which you can customize. The purpose of these cookies is to provide you with a more personal experience and to avoid you having to re-enter your preferences every time you visit our Site.
Analytics and Performance Cookies
These cookies are used to collect information about traffic to our Site and how users use our Site. The information gathered via these cookies does not “directly” identify any individual visitor. However, it may render such visitors “indirectly identifiable”. This is because the information collected is typically linked to a pseudonymous identifier associated with the device you use to access our Site. The information collected is aggregated and anonymous. It includes the number of visitors to our Site, the websites that referred them to our Site, the pages they visited on our Site, what time of day they visited our Site, whether they have visited our Site before, and other similar information. We use this information to help operate our Site more efficiently, to gather broad demographic information and to monitor the level of activity on our Site. We use Google Analytics for this purpose. Google Analytics uses its own cookies. It is only used to improve how our Site works. You can find out more information about Google Analytics cookies here.
Disabling Cookies
You can typically remove or reject cookies via your browser settings. In order to do this, follow the instructions provided by your browser (usually located within the “settings”, “help” “tools” or “edit” facility). Many browsers are set to accept cookies until you change your settings.
If you do not accept our cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of our Site. For example, we may not be able to recognise your computer or mobile device and you may need to log in every time you visit our Site.
Further information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your computer or mobile device and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.com.
You can also prevent the use of Google Analytics relating to your use of our Site by downloading and installing the browser plugin available via this link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en-GB
Local storage
We use local storage, such as HTML5, to store content information and preferences. Third parties with whom we partner to provide certain features on the Site may also use HTML5 to collect and store information.
Mobile analytics
We use mobile analytics software to allow us to better understand the functionality of our mobile software on your mobile phone. This software may record information such as how often you use the Site, the events that occur within the application, aggregated usage, performance data, and where the application was downloaded from. We may link the information we store within the analytics software to any personal information you submit within the mobile application.
Log files
As true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data
If you receive the HTML-formatted version of our emails, your opening of the email is notified to us and saved. Your clicks on links in the emails are also saved. These and the open statistics are used in aggregate form to give us an indication of the popularity of the content and to help us make decisions about future content and formatting.