Privacy Policy

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

1. Statement of intent

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include newsletters, competitions, "Alert Email",live chats, message boards and bbc.co.uk membership.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable the BBC and its service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. The BBC will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Information on visitors

During the course of any visit to bbc.co.uk, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to, say, the education pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight educational information on a second visit.

RedSheriff, an independent measurement and research company, gathers non-personal data regarding the visitors to our site on our behalf using cookies and code which is embedded in the site. Both the cookies and the embedded code provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, the duration of individual page view, paths taken by visitors through the site, data on visitors' screen settings and other general information. The BBC uses this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the services to its users.

If you wish to reject RedSheriff's cookie, you can use the process set out below in point 7. To disable the embedded code, you will need to send requests directly to privacy@redsheriff.com. Further information regarding RedSheriff's privacy statement can be found at http://www.redsheriff.com/6.0.0.htm.

3. What is a cookie?

When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.

NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for bbc.co.uk services.

4. Use and storage of your personal information

When you supply any personal information to bbc.co.uk (e.g. for competitions, bbc.co.uk Community services or bbc.co.uk membership) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notices on particular webpages that let you know why we are requesting the information) and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else. In general, any information you provide to the BBC will only be used within the BBC and by its service providers. It will never be supplied to anyone outside the BBC without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged or permitted by law to disclose it. Also, if you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or to bbc.co.uk or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on bbc.co.uk, and the BBC considers such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, the BBC can use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop such behaviour. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school or e-mail provider about the content and your behaviour.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of bbc.co.uk membership you no longer wish to continue your registration as a bbc.co.uk member. For safety reasons, however, the BBC may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of bbc.co.uk Community services such as Connector for a period of six months. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered but have taken part in other bbc.co.uk services (eg competitions), that information will be held only as long as necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

If you are notified on a bbc.co.uk site that your information may be used to allow the BBC to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that the BBC may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance. We will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services on bbc.co.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 information.

5. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information the BBC holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £10 for information requests.) Please address requests to the Data Protection Officer, Room 315, Brock House, 19 Langham Street, London, W1A 1AA (Email: dpa.officer@bbc.co.uk).

6. Users 16 and under

If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the BBC's website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

7. How to find and control your cookies

8. How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?