Cookie information

Use of cookies on this site

What are cookies?
Cookies are small pieces of temporary data that are exchanged between a website and a user's computer. Cookies are common and do not harm your system – they just store or gather site information. There are two main types of cookies:

Session cookies: These only exist for the duration of your site visit and are deleted on exit. They recognise you as you move between pages, and they remember that you are logged in for the duration of your browser session. These cookies also allow your user session to be shared across multiple servers. This results in no loss of service in the case of excessive load or the failure of one server.
Permanent cookies: These stay on your machine until they expire or are deleted. Many are built with automatic deletion dates to help ensure your hard drive doesn't get overloaded.

Bacs use both types of cookies.

Additionally, cookies can either be first or third party cookies. First party cookies are owned and created by the Bacs domain, whereas third party cookies are created by an independent company which provide a service for and on behalf of Bacs.

The following Bacs website uses first party cookies only:

www.bacs.co.uk

The following websites use both first and third party cookies:

What does Bacs use cookies for?
Bacs uses various web analytics tools to analyse trends, administer the site, track users’ movements and gather broad demographics information for aggregate use.

Bacs uses cookies to provide this information. Information collected includes IP addresses.

IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information and the analysis of addresses is only used to assist Bacs in providing an effective service on this website.

Certain Bacs websites, for example www.thesmartwaytopay.co.uk, uses social media services such as the Facebook ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons, which use third party cookies when users are logged into their service. The use of these cookies is subject to the social media’s own privacy policy.

How to turn cookies off using your web browser
If you are unwilling to let Bacs and third parties, whose tools are used on the sites, to store a temporary cookie on your machine, you can turn cookies off using your web browser. Follow the instructions below.

For Internet Explorer – 7, 8, and 9

Open an Internet Explorer web browser
On the top menu, select ‘Tools’
Select ‘Internet Options’
In the internet options dialogue box, select ‘Privacy’
Click on the ‘Advanced’ button
Check the box "Override automatic cookie handling"
You can choose how to manage first and third-party cookies
To disable cookies, click on ‘Block’
To enable them, click on ‘Accept’ or ‘Prompt’
We would recommend that you check the box ‘Always allow session cookies’
Click ‘OK’
Click ‘OK’ to exit.

For Internet Explorer 6

Open an Internet Explorer web browser
On the top menu, select ‘Tools’
Select ‘Internet Options’
In the internet options dialogue box, select ‘Security’
Select ‘Custom level’ or ‘Customise’
Scroll down the ‘Security settings’, select ‘Allow cookies to be stored on your computer’
Select ‘Disable’ and then click ‘OK’ at the bottom of the dialogue box
Your computer will then be unable to accept cookies from that point on. You can reconfigure your computer to accept cookies again by following the same instructions, but select ‘Enable’ instead of the ‘Disable’ option before clicking ‘OK’.

For Mozilla Firefox

Open a Firefox web browser
On the top menu, select ‘Tools’
Select ‘Options’
Select ‘Privacy’
Select ‘Use customer settings for history’ from the drop down
To disable cookies, uncheck ‘Accept cookies from site’
You can also chose to customise your cookie options by clicking on ‘Exceptions’ – use this to determine which websites are allowed / never allowed to use cookies
Click ‘OK’.

For Safari

Open a Safari web browser and click on the menu bar
Click on ‘Preferences’ and ‘Security Icons’
Select the ‘Never’ option to disable cookies
To enable cookies click ‘Accept cookies’
Check the radio button ‘Only from sites you navigate to’ to customise your cookie settings
Click ‘OK’.

For Google Chrome

Click the ‘Spanner’ icon in the top right of the browser window
Click ‘Options’
On the left side of the browser window click ‘Under the Hood’
In the section titled ‘Privacy’ click the button ‘Content settings’
Click ‘Manage exceptions’ – where you can determine which web sites are allowed / never allowed to use cookies
Click ‘OK’.