What Are Cookies?

Cookies are very small text files stored on your hard drive. They uniquely identify your computer and allow the website to store information about your session on the website, improve website security and helps to customise your website experience. A unique user identity is created which ensures that you are not required to re-enter login details as you move throughout the website if logged in as a customer.

How Cookies Are Used

Cookies are used to assist in making a website work more efficiently. They are used to remember your preferences, for example; your IP address and the time you first visited the website. When you leave the site and come back to it, this information can be reloaded from your computer thereby generally improving your user experience. By default, this only user for one hour.

We may also use Google Analytics which is a tool that records data about all the users who arrive to the website. The cookies that are used by Google Analytics are detailed on this page.

What types of Cookies are used on www.difc.ie?

1. Strictly Necessary Cookies – These Cookies are essential to enable you to move around difc.ie and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website.
2. Performance Cookies – These Cookies collect information about how visitors use difc.ie, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These Cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these Cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how www.difc.ie works.
3. Targeting/Advertising Cookies – difc.ie does not use these cookies in any part of our website.

List of Cookies Used on www.difc.ie

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. 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. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Functional Cookies

These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.

Targeting Cookies

These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

All Google Analytics information is recorded anonymously and does not provide or share any user-identifiable information, for more information, please see Google’s Privacy Policy.

For more detailed information on cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.