The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) defines a cookie as “a small file of letters and numbers that is downloaded on to your computer when you visit a website. Cookies are used by many websites and can do a number of things e.g. remembering your preferences, recording what you have put in your shopping basket, and counting the number of people looking at a website.”
The COSMOS website does not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you, track your behaviour or share information with 3rd parties.
Most cookies on the COSMOS website, including the Follow-up Questionnaire and Update Your Details Portal are temporary, or session, cookies and they are removed from your browser when your session ends or within 30 minutes thereafter. You do not need to take any action to remove them. Some of these cookies are essential in providing the services you are requesting from us during the session so when they are disabled parts of the website may stop working. We therefore encourage you to accept the cookies we serve. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our or any other website, you can do this through your Browser settings.
On 26 May 2012, new European law relating to use of web cookies came into force in the UK that will affect most websites. The rules on cookies are covered by The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011 and ICO is responsible for enforcing these new rules.
The regulations also cover similar technologies for storing information, e.g. Flash cookies. The ICO and International Chamber of Commerce both provided guidance and advice on EU cookie directive and its implementation. Please refer to their detailed guides for more information:
Please refer to the Participant Information Booklet available on the Help page of the COSMOS website for general information about how COSMOS participant data is collected, used and stored by Imperial College London.
These will be used to store a unique identifier to enable login functionality for the Follow-up Questionnaire and Update Your Details portal, by storing session ID when navigating between pages.
These are limited to performance and website improvement.
|
Cookie Name |
Description |
Behaviour |
|
Cookie Name ASP.NET_SessionId |
Description A cookie that stores your session ID when navigating between pages to enable login functionality for the COSMOS Follow-up Questionnaire and Update Your Details portal. |
Behaviour Temporary, removed at the end of session. |
|
Cookie Name |
Description |
Behaviour |
|
Cookie Name utmz |
Description Used by Google Analytics to track traffic sources and navigation. |
Behaviour Persistent, expires after 6 months. Can be blocked or opted-out. |
|
Cookie Name utmt |
Description Used by Google Analytics to throttle the request rate (the number of requests a server responds to in a specified period of time). |
Behaviour Request rate cookie, expires after 10 minutes. Can be blocked or opted-out. |
|
Cookie Name utmc |
Description Used by Google Analytics to identify a web session. |
Behaviour Session cookie, removed at the end of session. Can be blocked or opted-out. |
|
Cookie Name utmb |
Description Used by Google Analytics to identify a web session and to store information about the session. |
Behaviour Persistent, expires after 30 minutes. Can be blocked or opted-out. |
|
Cookie Name utma |
Description Used by Google Analytics to identify unique visitors. |
Behaviour Persistent, expires after 2 years. Can be blocked or opted-out. |
We use Google Analytics who set cookies to collect information about website users and usage patterns – this information is helpful to maintain and improve the COSMOS website. Most of these cookies are not essential for the proper functioning of the COSMOS website, Follow-up Questionnaire or Update Your Details portal and can be blocked.
The COSMOS website has links embedded into pages to popular social networks like twitter.com, facebook.com, etc. Cookies generated by those sites are outside of Imperial College’s control and may change without notice. When you share a page or link, those sites may set cookies on your device or browser and can also make information about you publicly available or stored elsewhere. If you would like more information about privacy and the cookies used by these services, as well as information on how to opt-out, please visit their websites.
If you like keeping your browsing private, you may wish to clear history and cookies after the session. You can do so by using the browser, device settings or 3rd party tools.
You may also wish to check and set any devices or browsers to restrict or block cookies by default for all or selected websites only. You can manage cookie usage through your browser settings:
Mobile devices may have their own settings and you may need to refer to vendor manuals. Please note that disabling or restricting cookies may impact some parts of the Imperial College COSMOS website, Follow-up Questionnaire or Update Your Details portal and they will stop working.
For any queries regarding use of cookies or other information please contact us at ukcosmos@imperial.ac.uk or write to us at the address below:
UK COSMOS Study
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
School of Public Health
Faculty of Medicine
Imperial College London
St. Mary’s Campus
Norfolk Place
London W2 1PG
United Kingdom
