The Open College of Equine Studies

Privacy

What information do we collect?

If you visit the The Open College of Equine Studies (TOCES) website, we automatically gather and store the following information about your visit in so that we can track the use of our website in order to make improvements:

  • the IP address from which you access our website
  • the name of the domain from which you access the Internet (e.g. aol.com, if you are connecting from an America Online account)
  • the type of browser and operating system used to access our website
  • the date and time of your visit to the site
  • the pages, files, documents and links that you visit
  • the internet address of the website from which you linked to our site (i.e. the previous site you visited before you came to us)

What happens to the information collected?

We will not make any attempt to identify individual users or their particular browsing activities. The information above is stored and used in the aggregate only, in order to provide us with information about the general use of our site. We analyse our logfiles in order to make improvements to the site: for example if we find that some pages are rarely, or never visited, we may decide to remove or rewrite them.

What are cookies?

Cookies can be either persistent or session based. Persistent cookies are small pieces of information sent to your browser by a website that you visit. They are stored on your computer, contain an expiry date, and may be used to track your browsing behaviour upon return to the issuing website. When you register on a website, cookies allow the website to remember your information so you will not have to re-enter it the next time you visit. You can set your browser to reuse cookies from any website you visit. If you choose to do that you can usually still gain access to most, if not all of the site, but you may not be able to conduct certain types of transactions (such as shopping) or take advantage of some of the interactive elements offered. Session cookies are short-lived, are used only during a browsing session, and expire when you quit your browser. Upon closing your browser the session cookie set by the website is destroyed and no personal information is maintained which might identify you should you visit the website at a later date.

Does this website use cookies?

The Open College of Equine Studies (TOCES) website does not use either persistent or session cookies at present. If we start to use them, we will inform you here.

Email addresses and personal information

We will only collect personal information which you knowingly and willingly provide, by for example sending emails or completing online forms. Your email address will only be used for the purpose for which you have provided it and it will not be added to a mailing list or used for any other purpose without your consent. When you sign up to our email alert service (so that you can be notified by email when new material is added to our website), we ask you for your email address and a password. This is to enable you to personalise the alerting service and this will not be used for any other purpose. When you sign up for our discussion email lists, you are asked for an email address, a password and your name.