Privacy Policy

The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

1. Introduction

This policy covers our use of personal information that we collect when you use www.acs.org.uk.

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address) in order to contact the ACS. By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable us to provide you with information you require. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. When using your personal information the ACS will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

If you provide the email address of a third party to us, we understand that you have permission to use this email address. This web site does not automatically capture or store personal information, other than logging the user’s IP address and session information such as the duration of the visit and the type of browser used. This is recognised by the web server and is only used for system administration and to provide statistics, which we compile to evaluate site use.

Please see our cookie policy below. Links to other web sites included on our site do not imply any endorsement, validation or responsibility by the ACS as to the content or privacy policies of such sites. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and we have no control over the availability of the linked pages.

2. Use and storage of your personal information

When you supply any personal information to the ACS we have legal obligations towards you in the way we use this data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else.

In general, any information you provide to us will only be used within the ACS. Your information will be disclosed where we are obliged or permitted by law. Also, if you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to www.acs.org.uk or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on www.acs.org.uk, the ACS can use whatever information available to stop such behaviour. This may involve informing relevant third parties such as your employer, e-mail/Internet provider and law enforcement agencies about the content.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. We will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services on www.acs.org.uk unless you specifically agree to be contacted for such purposes at the time you submit your information on the site, or at a later time if you sign up specifically to receive such promotional services.

3. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £5 for information requests.) For information on the Data Protection Act 1998, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and the Information Commissioner please follow this link: www.ico.gov.uk

4. Disclaimer

As far as is reasonably possible, the ACS will ensure that information provided on this website is accurate. the ACS cannot accept any liability whatsoever for omission or error. Equally, as we regularly virus check materials, we cannot accept any responsibility for any disruption of damage that may occur during use of this website.

5. Intellectual property

Users of this site may not print, download or in any manner copy images or text from the site, except for personal, non-commercial use, without permission from the ACS.

6. How Cookies are used by the ACS

Cookies cannot be used to identify you personally. 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 data to help us understand how you use our services so we can improve them

Cookies are stored in the computer’s memory only during your browsing session and are automatically deleted from your computer when the browser is closed. These cookies usually store a session ID that is not personally identifiable to users, allowing you to move from page to page without having to log-in repeatedly.

Session cookies are never written on the hard drive and they do not collect any information from your computer. Session cookies expire at the end of your browser session and become no longer accessible after the session has been inactive for a specified length of time, usually 20 minutes.

7. Our use of third party Cookies

We do use Google Analytics software to help us improve the usability of our website, the type of information gathered relates to the amount of time spent on the website and the pages visited. No personal information is held.

Google Analytics

Cookie Name: _utma
Typical content: randomly generated number
Cookie Expires: 2 years

Cookie Name: _utmb
Typical content: randomly generated number
Cookie Expires: 30 minutes

Cookie Name: _utmc
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: when user exits browser

Cookie Name: _utmz
Typical content: randomly generated number and information about how the page was reached (eg directly or via a link, organic search or paid search)
Cookie Expires: 6 months

Cookie Name: __utmmobile
Typical content: randomly generated number
Cookie Expires: 2 years

For further details on the cookies set by Google Analytics, see the following link. Cookies set by Google Analytics 

8. How to opt out of cookies

Our website works better with cookies enabled. Our cookies don’t give us, or anyone else, access to your personal data. We advise you to keep cookies enabled. However, you can choose to reject cookies. You can use your browser to delete and reject cookies. There are instructions on how to delete cookies and how to control cookies on the About Cookies website.