History of Science Museum: Use of cookies on this website

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is downloaded onto your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website. Many websites use cookies. They can do useful things, such as recognising that you are logged-in, or counting the number of people looking at a website. This can help in providing an effective website experience and relevant content.

The rules on cookies are covered by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR). PECR also covers the use of similar technologies for storing or accessing information. This website makes use of several cookies and one instance of local storage. Local storage is where scripts run by a website through your browser can temporarily store data on your device for use on the current website.

How we use cookies

This website uses cookies in several places – each is listed below with details about why we use them and how long they will last.

Optional cookies

You can turn these cookies on or off using the Cookies pop-up. To access the pop-up, navigate to the bottom corner of the page and select the Cookies button. You can do this at any time, should you change your mind in future about the choice you make.

Analytics cookies

We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use the website. We do this to make sure it is meeting users’ needs and to understand how it could be improved. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors, where visitors have come from, how long they stay, the pages visited, and what they clicked on.

Personal information, such as your name or address, is not collected or stored, so this information cannot be used to identify who you are.

Cookie name	Expires	Purpose	Provider	Further information
_gat_gtag_UA_*	1 minute	To store a unique user ID	Site URL	Google Analytics Overview of Google Analytics privacy
_gid	1 day	To store and count pageviews	Site URL
_ga	2 years	To distinguish individual users on the site domain	Site URL
_ga_*	1 year	To store and count pageviews	.google.com

Essential cookies

These cookies are essential to enable the website to work correctly. You can only deactivate them by changing your browser preferences.

Cookie preference

We use this cookie to remember your choice about optional cookies used by the website. When you decide whether or not to allow optional cookies, we store that decision in this cookie. The site then reads it in subsequent visits, so that you do not have to respond again until after it expires.

Cookie name	Expires	Purpose	Provider	Further information
CookieControl	13 weeks	Save cookie preferences	Site URL	First party cookie

Login cookies

If you login we set a cookie so that we can remember this fact. This prevents you from having to login again every time you visit a new page.

Cookie name	Expires	Purpose	Provider	Further information
SimpleSAMLAuthToken	Deleted when the browser closes	Token for the current user’s login session	Site URL
SimpleSAMLSessionID	Deleted when the browser closes	ID of the current user’s session	Site URL
SSESS[random identifier]	9 hours	Identifier used to distinguish authenticated user sessions	Site URL	Drupal session identifier
NO_CACHE	Deleted when the browser closes	Used for logged in users to bypass page caching	Site URL

Disabling Cookies

As well as using the Cookies button to update your preferences, it is also possible to prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting your browser settings. Be aware that doing this may affect the functionality of other websites that you visit. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office provides information on browser controls and where to find instructions for controlling cookies in different browsers.

Google Analytics also provides a tool you can add to your browser to opt-out of Google Analytics cookies on all websites you visit.

How we use local storage

This website makes use of the SaaS tool New Relic to monitor performance. We measure application and server performance to help us optimise the delivery of the site so that we can identify and address problems such as slow loading of pages.

It can be useful to understand patterns of performance, for example how a site performs for a given user as they visit pages on the same site in one session. New Relic creates an identifier – a random string of numbers and letters - to track a user session by temporarily storing the identifier in local storage on your device. This lasts for a maximum of 4 hours or sooner if you end your browser session or become inactive on the site.

Monitoring with New Relic is essential for us to understand any performance issues with this website and assists us to ensure that the site remains usable.